10 50 763 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/208254f95568e58a0bb64b8eba392d53.pdf 745c5ac46407f7c329eb3082fa1b68d6 PDF Text Text 32 SLOVAKIA DR. HUBERT RIPKA'S VERSION OF THE COMMUNliST "PUTSCH" IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA Karol Sidor Fourteen months after the Communists took over Czecho-,Slovalda, Hubert R~pka, former minister orf various resorts cxf the late Dr. Edward Benes, decided to write a series o,f articles under the head.mg of "A Prefabricated Revolution" (Une Revolution Prefabriquee) . The articles, telling what happened in Prague in February 1948, were published in several European dailies. Why Riipka waited so long to tell the world his version of what happened in Ozecho--lSlovaikia early in 1948, he does not d~V'll:lge, but it is quite obvioUIS that he wanted time to do a little healing. Rilpka's trade was journ.alism. He was the editor o:f the "Lldove Noviny" (People's News), the daily cxf · the Czech intelligentsia published in Brno, and during his six years in exile he was Minister of Propaganda - and what propaganda! - of Dr. Benes's London government-in-exile. R iipka, then, was ruble and crupafbJe of writing. The Roman daily "II POipolo" paid quite a tribute to Ripka when it began pUJblishmg his series of articles. It presented Ripka as "the only Czechoslovak democratic minister, who successfully escaped from his country after last February's putsch"! Of course, that was a bit far.fetched, because we know that ministers Zenkl, Kocvara, Stransky, Pieto.r , Prochazka, Majer and Franelk also escruped from Praigue after the Felbruary "putscih ." These collea,gues of Ripka were just a s "Czechoslovak" and "democratic" as he was himself. They all had one thing irn common with Ripka: they helped Benes sell out both the Slovaks and the Czechs to the USSR. It is quite s1gnifiicant that after sUJCh a "terrible putsch" so many Ozeoh ministers, officials and leading politicians could escape without incident or accident. Robert Ingrim -,. author cxf "After Hitler Stalin?" - wrote a:bout this phenomenal exodus in the Swiss "ViATIDRLAND" of �SLOVAKIA 33 September 25, 1948. One is led to suspect with Ingrim that so many Czech ministers, generals, politicians and thousands of Czech go.vernment officials and workers could hardly escaipe wtthout incident or accident without a "deal" with Comrade Gottwald. Any one who has read Riplta's articles must admit that Ripka was careful not to attook Gottwald or Zapotocky. What is more, Riplk a did not conrfess that he played bad politics, or that he was sorry for what he had done, or that he would never again collaiborate with Communism. On the contrary, Ripka wrote: "Today more than ever before, I cannot stop believing that a free and independent Czecho-Slovakia can exist only in Europe that is brought to balance, where the West and Russia find a proper agreement to collaborate. Even the events of February 1948 could not shake me from this conviction, which remains the basis of my whole conception of national politics." - ("Fi,garo., " Paris, April 4, 1949). Stanisl•aN Mikolaj,czylk, Nagy Ferencz, and other refugees frOIID 'beyO!Ild the Lron Cm·tain wrote in a different tone. They corufessed that they were mistaiken in thinking they could negotiate a decent agreement with Soviet Russia. But Riipka stated pulblicly, even arrter the so...;called February "putsch," that he shall persist in his error, and his articles only corufirm the fact that in the "new" CzechoSloivaikia which Ripka would build - he would again cultivate contacts with the Communist USSR just as enthusiastically and loyally as does Antonin Zapotocky today in the name of Czecho-Slovakia. R~pka is lo•a th to admit that politically he is bankrupt. He keeps on talking aJbout a "new agreement" between the West and Russia meaning Czecho..Sl01Vakia when he sarys "West." In fact, w:hat he told us in his articles was equivalent to saying that ne and his "Czechoslovak democratic" colleagues would even now be collaborating with the Communists and Stalin's stooge in Czech-Slovakia, if they would have been allowed to keep their ministries. But in Washington, Ripka, Zenkl and the other soc_alled ·"OzechoslovaJk democrats" - now organized in tihe �34 SLOVAKIA "Council oif Free OzechoSilwakia" - talk aJbout their fight against Communism. Wihat kind of fight agaill'st Comm'll.Ilism? As far as is kno:wn there was no fight against Communism in Czeteho-1Sloivaikia as a whole, but only in Slovakia. Deception, appea:sement, crupitulation, and shameful mght mto other ilands can hardliy be called a "fight against Communism"! The mass "escape" oif Ozech Sociialists was undoulbtedly arranged and assured in advance, and the socalled "OzoohoslovaJk dernoorats" did not esc~ emptyhanded either. What can be tni.rthlfully said about the: fight of the Ozech emigration against Communism? Only this: We are still patiently waiting for it to start! It aippea,rs to us that Czech emigrants - both the right and left wings - are agreed on only one thing: to carry on their fight against Slovak emigrants and refugees whom they have termed "separatists." They vilify them before the Red Cross, the U. S. oocwpation forces and their allies, and the U. S. State Department. The Slovaiks, aocording to them, simply are no good; they are Hitlerites, Fascists, Nazis and, worst of all, "separatists." Aocording to Rilpka, Zenkl, Lebtrich and other "has.beens" of Dr. IDdward Benes's bankrl.llpt political ikd.ngdom, the Slovaks hiwe no right to freedom and independence, no right to an indeipendent po~mcal state. To the "Czechoslovak democrats" the fight against Slovak freedom and independence means more than the fight against Communism. T. G. Masaryk and Benes fooled the world in 1918. Benes did it again in 1945. And their disciples are dete:rmined to continue the propagation of the fraud that was "Czechoslovaik democracy.'' Ripka, Zenikl and their followers are not fighting Communism. The ra'llks oif Ozech emigrants are fiull or' agents of the Ozeich secret police and spies of the Communist Party. More Czech emigrants "escaped" back home than all'y other class of emigrants. That is not suITTprising to any one who really knows the Benes Czechs. There was veriy little difference between Benes's "Czechoslovak democracy" and Communism. The former was in fact a handmaid of the �SLOVAKIA 35 latter. Benes and his "Czechoslovaks" could not suffer political opposition ~ more than the Reds or the Nazis. Loolk at their rewrds: they tell us tihat these queer "democrats" ipla,y ed a'long with Communism and actively collaborated with Communists for many yea,rs. Ripka enthusiastically welcomed the c0Ua.1boration and eternal frien<lshlp between Soviet Russia and Czecho...slovalkia in 1935 (Vd. his article in "Zahranicni politilka," Pra)gue, 1935,pgs. 14-l7). At that tilme Riipka wrote that the Ozechs wanted to 'b e "not only mediators between the old West and the new East, but also factors, actively cocreating a synthesis of lasting values of the old European civilization and the new civilization being born in the Soviet Union." Ten years later - in 19415 - the Benes Ozechs really got the chance to play the role of "factorris." They were given the opporturuty "to aictilvely cocreaite a synthesis" between Russia and Czec'ho~Slovakia. Just how suocessful they were in this, we shall see later when we anal~ Ripka's articles. But let us say at the outset: in Central Europe it was only the BENES CZECHS who actually want.ed to collaborate with the Communists! In Ma~, 194'5, when the Soviet a:ranies rolled into Prague, it was only the Ozechs cxf all the peoples of Central Eurorpe who welcomed them with oipen joy and enthusiasm a'S the "armies o,f lilbeTation." In the first Ozech post-wa,r government, Clement Gottwald, chairnnran of the Czech Communist party was named Vice-iPrennier am.d, after the parliamentary elections in 1946, as Premier of the government in Prague by "!president" Benes. At that time no;where did the Communists in a parliamentary election receive so many votes as they did in Bohemia a!Ild MoraJVia; in Slovaikia they were beaten dedsive1y by the SlovaJk electorate. 1 Such was the political line of Benes and his followers. In Prwgue the Cotmmunists, a;nd not Benes and Ripka, 1becrume the "factors." And the Communists lost no time in creating Rilpka's "synthesis" of 1935 between the "old West" and the "new East." Benes and Ripka had prepared for this synthesis already since 1935 and were beaming �SLOVAKIA 36 with joy because the whole world was astounded by · their political recltlessness. Collaib,oration with the Communists in internal politics had begll!Il in 193'5 when Benes needed the votes orf the COimmunist Party · to be elected president. The C.omimunisits promised to vote fOl" Benes on the condition that Gottwald, Kopecky and Stetka, whose political mandates the Court of Election of Czecho-Slovakia would not verify and approve, would be approved as members of the Prague parliament. Benes promised to do that little thing and so enaJbled three Communists to become members of par1i'a,ment in 1935. 'Dhe Communists voted for Benes and later proved their sympathy for him by voting for the presildential budget every ye·a r. The Communists were for everything that •~President" Benes himself asked for in the budget, but either refrained from voting or voted against all other items of the State budget. 1 When Benes resigned as ,president of CzechO-iSlovakia in June, 1948 - the second time within a decade - the Communists voted him full presidential rpay for life and mrugnanimously gruve him the Limy Castle and the properties belonging to it. In a word, Benes and Ripka did collruborate with the Communists for many years. That collaboration did not cease because orf ideological reasons, but only because the Communists in February, 1948, told their collaborators what amounted to: "We thank you with communistic sincerity for your collab.o ration O!f many years with us. You can go now; we do not need you any mo:re. You can even go alb road if you wish; at hQlme you are useless to us, and id' you go abroad we shall not fear you." "The Czechoslovak people" - said Hubert Riplka in his article in the "IL POPOLO" ( 4--30-49) - "with singular joy welcomed the first allied treaty with Russia in 1935." In the first place, no "Czechoslovak" people exists, ethnJ1cally 51peruking. But there are Czechs a!lld Slovaks. There are two nations - the Czech and the Slovak - who do ~ t to all phenomena aocording to their training and traditions. And so it was with the treaty of Benes with Stalin in 193'5: the Czechs reacted one way, while the Slovruks reacted altogether differently. The ~ h s reacted "with singular �SLOVAKIA 37 joy;" they welcomed that treaty, because they thought just as Ripka himself had thought in 1935 - that together they would be able to form a synthesis of the "old" European ciiv:i lization and the "new" civilization which was being born in the Soviet Union. Soviet ci'Vilization was not brought to Europe by Ripka; but by the soldiers of the Soviet armies. The nations of the "old" ciivilization felt the sting of this "new" civilization on their bodies. And they shall continue to feel it as long as they do not :wcept it 100 per cent by discarding the "old" civilization which was founded on Christianity and is almost 2000 yea:rs oJd. Personally, Ri;pka was terrified by Soviet . "'Ciivi.lilzation" in praclice. He did not remain in C?.echo-Slovakia to take part in the creation of the "synthesis," but fled far beyond her borders. Yes, as far a:s he could go Jrorn this "new" civilization which in 1935, he praised highly and recommended so zealously not only to the Czech peoiple, but to the whole world as well. Why did Ripka do that? Did he not ,know what was happemng in the S()IViet Union? From 191,8 to 1935 there were aJbout 100,000 Rlussians, Ukranian and White Russian emrl.grants in OzechoJS[,()IValkia. They had fled from the Soviet Union and told the Czechs what they saw aind e~rienced in Soviet Rlussia. 'Ilhe Benes Oze.chs, however, did not ~Ii.eve those eye-<Witneses. 'Ilhe Czechs were blinded by their old lave for the "Sl01Vanic Ea:st" and thought that Communism of the 1935 vintage was no longer the Communism of 1917. They forgot tllat Communism, as a doctrine and a system of government, is one and the saime for all peoples aJild all times. It does not relate only to the Russian Ozars, but to all n0;tions of the earth and to aH states. The substance of CommuniSIIll is not sulbject to the ohangeis of time. Ripka evidently met with real Communist civilization only in 194'8, in Prague, when it too:k aiway his ministry. He fled before it, we are sruq:~posed to believe, to saive his life. And yet 1n 1949 he wrote that he still believed in colla.borating with the UISSR. so Ripka, too, was a product of Czech na:tiona:l development, whlch was a1ways directed to the left. The Czedhs �38 ::,LOVAKIA made Jan Hus (1'370~141'5) the symlbol of their rebellion aigainst Rome. '.Dhey grolllped ooder his banner and always emphasized more and more the negati~stic ·elements of Hus' character, suppressing all his positive qualities. As a result large grOUfPS of the Ozech nation, matriculated as Catholics at baptism, got themselves. in the periphery of world Christianity, their roots of solidarity w~th the Ohristian civilization of the west dried Ulp in tilme and the Ozech masses aH the more readily joined the "111ew" civiHzation which Ripka said was being born in the Soviet Union. Thrs ideological development of the Czechs to the left explains why in 193'5 the Czechs welcomed a treaty with Moscow and why in 1946 in the parliamentary elections in Ozetcho-1Slovakia the international and atheistic Oommunist Party came out on top in Bohemia and Morrruvia. But the Ozechs were accustomed to belonging to laiI'!ge economiic and politkal units. Their outstanding historian, Francis Palacky, wrote to the FrMllkfurt Assemlbly in 1848: "The preservation of Austria, its integrity and cOl11SOlidation, is and must be a great and important th!ing not only to the Czech nation, but also to the whole, olf IDurope, nay, to all humanity and cultU'l"e." That same Palaciky is the author of the staitement: "H Austria did not exist, we would have to create it." Dr. Edward Benes shared similar ideas. In his bodk, "Le Problem Autrichien et la QuestiO!ll Tcheque" (pg. 307) ·b e wrote in 1908: "Frequently we bear talk about the collapse of Austria. I absolutely do not believe it. The historical and economic ties that mutually unite the 1181tions of Austria are too strong to allow Austria to collapse.'' This was written at a time when the Czechs were becomilllg a nation of oifificia.ils and directors, administering not only in Bohemia, Morruvia and Silesia, but even in Galicia, a signdficant part of Vienna and later even in Bosnta and Hercegcwina. True, this was all under the supernsion of Vienna and ac:corddng to her laws. During the first World War T. G. Masar,yik and Edward Benes came upon the idea of making the Czech nation independent by destroying Austria-Hungary. To help them �SLOVAKIA 39 with that plan tihey SIUCCeeded in getting 1,'500,000 Slovaks to whom T. G. Masaryk had solemruy promised in Pittsburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, that Slovalk ia, within the framewonk af Czecho-SlovaJkia, would hiwe, arrnong other things, her own assembly, her own courts and her own ,s chools. On the 0:ther hand, Dr. Edward Benes, wJth his signature attaiched to the Peace Treaty of St. Germain Se!ptem\ber 19, 1919) , haid guaranteed the Ruthenfans territorial autonomy, a legislative a:ssemlbly, their own governor, etc. Both Masaryk and Benes la~r repudiated their solemn promises. As lonig as Masaryk and Benes · ruled Czecho,.,SloV'akia, neither the Slwaiks nor the Rut>henians were guaranteed autonomy. Nolbody 'bothered to ask the other peoples orf Czecho-SloV1aLkia - the 3,500,000 Germans, albout a miUion Magyars, SOIIIle 200,000 Po.les, etc., whether they wanted to live together with the · Czechs in the common staite of CzeohoSlorvaJkia. The frirst Constitution of 1920 was approved by the Prague parliament when that body did not have a single representative of the Germans, the Poles, Magyars and Ruthenians, and when the Slovaks were represented not by deputies elected by the Slovak people, but by deputies named by Prague, i.e., by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes. And that Constitution - a tyipi~al Benes creation remained tmchanged and was binding U!pon every citizen of Czeicho..iSllovaikia until N oivemlbe~, 193-8. It is understandiaJbJe that the majority Olf nations of the ReipUJblk did not fare well in Ozecho-.Slo,vaikia. The existence of Czecho-1Slovaikia was not supPorted by the will of the majority of her mhrubitants. 'l'he Czechs themseLves knew that, and the old desire for broader economical and political spheres, whereby the life o,f the Czechs could bet.t er be safeguarded and ·p rotected, began to awaken in them. They knew that internally Czecho-Slovakia was weak and that externally she wws threatened lb y the Germans. Czech leaders, therefore, ,b egan looking to;ward the So~fot Union which emlbraces one-SQxth o1: the unilverse. They began to tell their ,people and the world that the So'Viet Union was •a Slovian:ic land, that a "new" cirvi:lization and a new ally and ( 1 �40 SLOVAKIA defender Oif the Ozech nation, especially against German aggression was being born there. This thought was strengthened by the Ozech...SOviet Treaty of 1935. The Czechrs saw before themselves the vast expansiveness Oif the Soviet cowntry which was incomparably larger and rilcher than Austria-iliungacy. Culturally and politicai11y the Russii'am,s were far ~hind the Czechs. The Czeohs dreamed that in time they might even rule the Russian roost! They thought that by collruborating with the Soviets they would sooner or later find themselves on top even if it were oruy in the sense of the old Czech and even sicikly inclination toward Panslavism - at one time the Czarist and Ortlhod-0x variety and now the Red and atheistic kind. Slovaik national development went along a completely different course. The SlOIVruks not only did not welcome the treaty with Moscow in 1935, but openly condemned it through their elected deputies, in the Prague parliament. The Slova3c naition built its spiritual world consistently on its own national tradition. That tradition was Christian. It was created with equal zeal by both the Slovak Catholics and the Slovalk Protestants. Thait S1walk tradition is the common property olf aU Slovalks, no matter what their political or religious beliefs. The Slovak Protestant L'udovit Stur (1815-1856), Slovak patriot and national philogq>her, left the Slovalk nation in his books valua/b'le sources on how to correctly orientate itself in new social and national tendencies. Stur's book "The Slavs and the World of the Future," published after his deaith, has this to sary albout the Communism of his day: ''In every instan1ee Communism means the collapse and the destruiction oif the state. Communism arrived at this aim through atheism and apostacy from Christianity. In every fornn of Communism, no matter w:hat its origin, the outlook on life is da,r,k, laicking every tender j'oy. It brings the most c:mel sJaivery. Commun,i:sm, let it striive. and pretend in any manner whatsoever that it will make all peoples share in all rights, nevertheless, knows nothing a!bout humanity; it degrades humanity and, because it holds to sys- �SLOVAKIA 41 tams that are imipractiea!l and unrealizaJble, it belongs among the most stupid innovations that harve th'llS far been created by the human mind." The Slovak Catholic priest Jan Palarik (1822-1870) wrote a dissel'ta,tion in 1:864 "Albout SlOlVanic Mutuality." In it he resolutely stands fo.r a Slorvalk Sta,te and desires to see it in a federation of staites in EurOipe. But ne:ver under the direction of Russia. Pa1arik strongly repudiated Russia,n Panslavism and ,predicted thart "the whole of Europe wouM rebel against the Slovanic peoples" if they should ever come under the rule of the Russians. The Slovak Protestant, Milan R. Stefanik (1880-1919), a General in the French Army and the first Minister of War in Czooho-lSlovaikiia, was in Rus,s,i a in 191'8..1919 and saw Communism at close range. In February, 191'9, he tele. graphed his government at Prague: "To flirt with Bolshevik tendencies would be comparable to foresaking the path of honor and sane reason. The fight against Bolshevism in all its manifestations must prevail in our politics." On such foundations, then, was, buiilt the Slovak stand against Communism. It was built on the foundations of Christianity and nationalism, and never on the foundation whi~h Mussolini amd Hitler gave to their anti-Communism. The Communists and their friends had pro~1aimed that Mus-solini and Hitler dervised anti-Communism in Europe and that the SIJ.ovaJks had taken it over from them. That does not correspond with the truth. Slovak phifosophers long before Mussolini and Hitler warned their nations not to acceipt Communistic teaJChing. In the po1itiical life w Slov-a kia the party of Msgr. Andrew Hli'Dlka consciously fortified and strengthened this SlovaJk anti-Communism in the broad masses of the Slovak nation. Anti-Communism had thus become a component part of Slovak national beliefs. That is why the pa11ty of Andrew Hllinka pmtested a,g ainst the apprwal of Benes's treaty with Stalin in 1935 when it came up for approval on the floor of the Prague Parliament. At that time Hlinika's Farly haid 30.1 per cent of all the voters in Slovakia, while the Communist Party in Sfovakia had 13 per cent, and the �42 SLOVAKIA party orf Benes and Riipka only 3.2 per cent of the total Slovia:k electorate. The Slovak stanqpoint was ideologically and rightd'uUy represented by Hlinika's Party which was the first and largest political party in Slovakia since 1925. On November 6, 1935, as a Slovak deputy I sipotk e in the IllMil.e of Hlinlka's Party on the floor of the Pra:g,ue parliament. In the presence of the Foreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, I said: "Alas, foreign policy under the direction m Dr. Edward Benes has deviated from the tendency that General Stefanik followed in 1919. He requested the Prag;ue government to fight against Bolsheivism in all its manifestations and warned not even to flirt w.ith Bolshe'Viik tendencies. IDven flirting with Bolshevik tend.endes he called foresaiking the road of hooor and sanity. 1n the meantime the Prague government already conoluded various rugreements with the bloody offspring o;f Bolshevism~ the Soviet Union. "The Hlinlka Slovak People's Party rejects the theory of Bolshevism, co:ndemns its bloody ipra:ctices as well as its inhuman methods, and with a very heavy heart tolerates the fact that OzeichoJSlo'Wllkia has deviated from the course that was 'Plotted b,y her co-d'ounder and first Minister of War, Ge111eral Stman:i!k. The no:mnali.!zation of diplomatic contaiots can be understood even between such st:riucturally different states as is our democrartic Ozecho-slovaJk RepubHc and the SOIVieit Union. Fimdly other states similar to ours have such diiplomatic contacts. But imrrnediatetly following the esta!blishment otf contacts, there were so many expressions of sympathy within the Ozooho.,Slo;va:k Reipublic for the Soviet Union and its system that this must fJll us who are nationally orientated in a Christian way - with fears about the future Czecho-Slovaikia. To· tie ouir destiny with the destinies of the Soviet Union, to build on agreements signed by Bolshevii.ks, I consider as the greatest bl,un. der made by our present foreign policy. "We slovak,s warn the Czechs away from the political mista!kes being committed by our Fcreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, because . too zealously he binds us with the Soviet Union that is so distant to us. In the interests of the �SLOVAKIA 43 State we demamd a change in the lime followed by our foreign polilcy, we demand thait the defense of the State be built on a more realistic 'basi'S - one that conforms mo•r e with the mentality of the poipulation. Stating ·a ll these insufficiencies, I intvoduce them as one of tihe reasons that force us SloivaJks not to express our confidence in the present leailersh'ip of our foreign policy." Is it necessary to bring in more evidence to show that the SloviaJks were conisristently orientJated anti-Cottnlmun.istically? It proives co!D'clusively that Riipka was wrong when he said that "the Ozecho--!Slov.a!k people un:anilmously welc,ooned with joy the first allied agreement with Russia in 1935." The Ozec'hs, especialily the Sovieto,phiie Ozech intellectuals headed by R~pka, were made h~y by the treaty. The Slova!ks, however, eX1perieniced aJbsolutely no joy on that ocoasioo; nay, they aiticized and rejected the treaty and voted against it in 1936 in the Pra:gue Parliament. And this aJso attests to the fact that we are here concerned with two very different nations whose development and political convictio1J1S were altogether distin'Ct and diffe:rent. 1Riipka was rilght when he said that afiter the conclusion of a;greemnts with Moscow, in 19315 and 1943, Benes and his goveI1Il!ment exipressed "their complete confidence in the Soviet government." In return they expected the Sov.iet to return the friendshiip, confidenice and, rubove a'll, tihe assuraI1JCe that the USSR shall not intervene in our internal affairs." "That conrfidence has been betrayed" - Hulbert Ripka is screeching today. In February 1948 Moscow proceeded against democracy in Ozecho~Slovakia, ·be'Cause "it wanted to see in Pra;gue a totalitarian Communistic goivernment swbsement to. its will." So Ripka acknowledges th,at Moscow was dissaJtisfied with coHruborating in the fomnation of Riipk,a 's "synthesis." Ripka finally dis,wvered that Red Moscow wants its allies to be totaHy sulbserivierut to its dictates. But Ripka came upon this self-evident matter only in 1948, when he was thrown out of the g01VeTil!IIlent, or was at least prevented from co-governing in Prague with the Reds, and after he fled Ozecho-SlofVlakia. Before that time, however, Ripka was the man, who - act)ing like somebody in �44 SLOVAKIA the pay of Moscow - assured the Czechs and the uninformed world that reports about Moscow intervening in the internal affairs of individual states were absolutey false! Philip Panetili in his boO!k "Ed.war:d Benes, Leader of Democracy," on pgs. 123-124, notes the commentary of Dr. HUibert Ripka on the treaty of December, 1943, which Dr. Benes concluded with Moscow. "This Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty," said Riipk:a at that time, "had as its aim to strengthen the security of Europe." Ripka rejected the contention that this pact would mean the bolshevization of Euro,pe or Ozecho,Slovaikia. "The treaty," Ripka stated categorically, "gives a clear answer to all those who continue to suspect the Soviet Union of the intention of bolshevizing the countries of Central Europe that are its neighbors, nay, of intending even to annex them to the Soviet Union. The treaty gives a clear answer to all who are continuing to present Czecho-Slovakia as a tool in the hands of the Soviets. In the agr.e ement of 1943, the Soviet Union once again binds itself to respect her independence and that it shall not intervene in her internal affairs. Czecho-Slovakia binds iself in a similar fashion. By these formal ties the fact was confirmed again that the Soviet government had no intention of forcing its political regime on other nations and so much the less to annex the nations of Central Europe or any others to the Soviet framework." Whence did Dr. Ripka know these things? Was he ignorant of the fates of the Caucasian repulblics, or the painful fate oif the three Ba:ltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Est01I1ia? Since the S01viet government acted imperlalisti:c . ally to.ward those states, why did Ri,pka think that the same thing would not aiso happen in the case of Czecho~Sl()IV3ikia? But Riipka wenlt mucli farther . He said thait the treaty which Ozeicho-SlavaJkiia conicluided with the Soviet Union not only did not weaken her S01Verdgnty and independence, but, converseJy, that 'basically it strengthened and secured them. As a real progressive, aJ.way;s wanting to instruct and teach other nations, R1pka offered thi,s instruction: "Not in distrust and in a hostile stand toward the Soviet Union, but in confidence and sincere willingness for a clean, friendly cooperation with the Soviet Union is the re- �SLOVAKIA 45 liable guarant.ee for assuring the freedom and independence of every country, namely, the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. Every nation in this region with which the Soviet Union borders directly can be certain if it cultivates a friendship with this great power - that it certainly shall get from it help to defend its freedom and independence." Note the certainty with whioh Ripka spo!ke in 1943 about the future conduct of Moscow toward the states that trust it. What swperfJdality that was, what irresponsrbility, nay, what rookllesness oif the first degree! The years have proved that the Slovaks were right when they warned in the Piiag,ue Parliament that the union of Ozecho-,Slovakia with Moscow was "the greatest blunder ever committed by Ozecho~Slovaik foceign ,p olitics." The blunder of 1'93'5 was duplii cated in 1943, and its consequences showed up in July, 1947, in a dram'atic way. On Jul,y 7, 1947, the Prrugue Council oif Ministers, whose presidoot was K1lement Gottwald, unanimously aJOCepted the hwitation to the confereI11ce in Paris, where Czecho-Sl'Ovakia was to join the Marshall Plan. Not a single minister voted against it. On Jruly 9th, Gottwald, Jan Masaryk, and Drt1na flew to Moscow. There the representatirves of s01vereign and independent Repulb1ic of Czecllo-Sloviak:ia were ordered by Stalin to annul their unanimous decision. and tell Paris that the Ozecho-Slov;aJk RepuibHc would not join in the · Marshall Plan. Behold the crude Soviet mterventi:on in the internal affairs of a state to which the :S oviets had guaranteed SOIV·· ereignty and independence, in two treaties. And the Czech delegation, of which Gottwald was the only Communist, unanimously accepted Stalin's dictate in Moscow! Gottwald, just as Masaryk, telephoned several tirmes from Moocow to Prague to have the Coun.cil @f Miniisters convene and unanimous!~ "ruccept" Stalin's order. It must be stressed that at this time the Council of Ministers was presided over by Dr. Peter Zenkl, the first Vice-Premier of the government and presently the chairman of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" of Washington, D. C. Capitulation! 1 �4-6 SLOVAKIA The small nation of the. Finns and Tito did not capitulate before the dictates of Moscow. The Czechs C8l{)itulated and t:hey themselves, headed by Benes, Ma.saryk, Zen!kl and Rilpka, voluntariJy went over into the Soviet camp. That is their handiiwork and, hence, they t:hemselrves are responsibie fo1.' it. And it is their ulllpardOO!aJble sin that into their caJmp they also dvrugged the S}QIV'a;ks who never a.greed with the Sovietophile po:lilcy of Benes, Mla.saryik, Zen!ki and Ripka. The Slo:vaks from the very beginning warned the Czechs that they were on the wrong road when they fraternized with Communi'sti:c Moscow. A. J. Janda·cek wrote the truth in his boOlk•l et ''Behind the Iron Curtain'' (Chicago·, 1948) , when he said: "Everything that happened in Prague in February, 1948, was only the result and climax of all former provisions of the Czech government in London." To this I might add, that it was the result of the decisions oif not onJy the London government, but also that government in Prrugue, which, after 1945, rupproved all decrees and accepted all legal motions which the Communists placed before it and the Parliament. Not once did the anti-Communist majority in Parliament reject Communistic bills. Thus, in a,n altogether legal manner, the ground was prepared for Communism in Czecho-Slovakia. Under those laws, serving only Communism, we find the signatures of Zenkl, Ripka and the rest of the Communist collaborators. All these gentlemen thought that they could flirt with Communism to build in Central Europe some kind of greater Czech power, greater than it really was. We s•a w how without ptllblic protest the whole Czech government caipituJl:ated to the dictates of Stalin. It reversed itself completely on the Marshahl Plan. The goverD!ID.ent newspa.pers - which a few days 'befOTe had ,prruised the Marshall Plan and the acwantages of entering into it - now began a heaiviy bomlbardment against America and the Marshall Plan. Now, let us see what was happening in Slcwakiia aJt that same time. Ripka says tJhat President Benes in the summer oif 1947 went to Slwakia for a rest. He went to Toporcia.niky which lies some 2 kilometers from the capital city of Slova:kia , �SLOVAKIA 47 Bratislava. At the Topof,cian:ky castle, for six years (19391944), the president of Slorvaikia, Dr. Joseph Tiso, used to spend his summers. It was the summer holffie df the same Dr. Tiso who was hanged in Bratisilava on Aprii 18, 1947, after Benes refused to grant clemency. Most decent peoiple thought it was tactiless on the part oif Benes to go to Slovakia in 1947. Benes, it seems, with his presence in sorrowing SlOIV'akia wanted to boast of his triumph over Tiso, just as a year before he had done in Bohemia with the former president of Ozecho-Slovaikia, Dr. ffimfil Ha;cha. The Slovak s always lwke to welcome guests. In Slovakia there is a motto: a guest in the home - God in the home. Well, in the case of Benes, this motto did not holld. The Slovaks bitte:rly s:uifd'ered the presence of Benes in their land, in their own home. They de1uged Benes with letters, anonymous and signed, ~n which they called him tlhe heartless mwrderer .o f Dr. T~so, and the greatest enemy oif the Slovaks, predicting for him a most shameful end within a year. In his memoirs RJiipka admits that Benes did not feel physicaJ1y w~ll in Slovrukia. Within a few daJYiS he was threatened with an atta~k of paralysis (aipoplexy). The Slorvaiks loolked upon these re[>Orts with satisifa:cition, seeing ilil them the fJniger of God. As soon as, Benes le:ft .Sloviakia a mass political perseoution olf S'IO!Vaik paitriots began in that hapless countey. The Communists were seeking to gain their ends, while the Ozechs, on the oither hand, their OiWil aims. But their common goal was: to master Slovakia and break her resistance. 1 Both the Communists and the Benes Oze~hs wanrted to frighten the Slava!k'S who had on the who,l e remained tr:ue to the idea of the Slovaik State. The Slorv ~s were forced to live together with the Czechs in a common state against their will from 1945, the State they had parted with on March 14, 1939. It is known that the Communists were more tactfruJ. with the S1oivaJk national question. They admitted th.tat a nation that on.ce had its own State would never re~ nounce it wilfwlly. Ripka recalls correctly that when Ben~ returned from Moscow in 1944, he told his intilmates in London of the possibility of establishing an independent SlovaJk �48 SLOVAKIA State. That was at a time when Moscow, in the agreement of 1943, solemnly recognized Ozecho-Slovaikia, resipected the integrity of her territory, nay, even recognized Benes as the "president" of the "new" Czecho.,SlovaJkia. ·.1n Mosicow, Benes was given to understand that a S1oviak Repulblic was not only possilble, but also quite a~ceiptaible to Stalin. 1 Of course, the Communists at that time (1944) ~pected the Slovaik president, Dr. Jo£qph Tiso, to go to Moscow, or to send his plenipotentiary, to negotiate the possi.bility of saving the SlovaJk Repuiblic under a Communistic disguise. Dr. Tiso, however, refused to go to Mosicow, whilE Benes aJlld the ruJers of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria did go. With Dr. Tiso a ,principle was at stake. With the others only tact. But one cannot malke tad out of principle. It never pays. And nothing permanent or valU'aJble can be attained by surrendering prindples. It was not oruy Dr. Tiso, but all the SlovaJks loyal to him, who refused to go along with the Slova;k CO!mlffiunists or the Commumsts of Moscow. In the elections of 1946, the SlQ!VaJks voted over 70 per cent against Communism and, this, clearly made it known that they did not want to coUa:borate with Communism under any ciroumstainces. The SloiVa;ks pr01Ved in practice their loyalty to the principles exipressed by Stur, Palarik, Stefanik, Hlinika, Tiso and otfue:r rpolitical representatiives of the Slovak nation. This wa:s a pra'CticaJl demonstration of the high political consciousness of the Slovaks, the basis of which was a clean and practical Christianity. Ripka knows well that the Czechs were not i!J:nlbued with any such consciousness. In Bohemia not only Czech workers, but even Czech peasants voted for Communism. What is mo:re, even Kral'ovske VinOihrady, where the wealthiest groups of Ozech boungeoisie resided, voted for Communism. The rich Czechs wanted to save their wealth, their 'b anks and factories, just as Czech wonkers wanted to save their work and the Czech faI'Illers their lands. In Slovakia, however, the fight against Comrnunism was waged on an. ideological basis of clean national traditioo. �SLOVAKIA 49 and of adherence to the Catholic Church. It thus happened that the Communists and Ozeich centralists had to come to grips with a spiritual power such as CatholiciSlm. R~pka wrote that "the Communists, favoring Slovak nationalism, were, not successful in paralyzing the influence of Slovak Catho&cism, which is not only nationalistic, but also passionately anti-Communist." We might add that even the Ozech centralists could not paralyze the influeD1Ce of Catholic-ism on publilc affairs in Slorvaldia. At that time, Riipka mentions in his memoirs, he, Zenkl, the Stra.nskys, father and son, and Drtina came together at Karls1bad. They worked out a plan to haive the Slovak Democrati~ Party - representing aver 60 per cent of the anti-Communist voters olf Slorva.kia - "ta;ke the initiative to rid itsellf olf 'undesirable' elements in its rrunk,~." The Communists were for the plan 100 per cent; not only with words, burt with deeds as wel!l. The Minister of Interior in Bratislava was a certain General Nicholas Ferjenci!k, a man without prindple and a willing exeouito.r of CommUJnistic orders. On Octo!ber 6, 1947, this Ferjenrcik broadcast that his o:5fice had tmcOIVered a plot against the Reipulblic and had already arrested 380 young memlbers of the ,S lovak anti..icentralistic and anti-Communistic intelligentsia. He accused them, as Rijpka states, "of colla:b orating with emigrants who were in foreign lands under the leadershtp of Sidor and :Our- cansky." Immediately the State representatives at Bratislaiva demanded the Prague parLiament to. deprive of immunity two Slovak Catholic gentlemen, deputies and general secretaries of the Slorvak Democratic Party, Dr. Mi<los Bugar and Dr. Jan Kempny, who were, it was chavged, connected with the "plot against the Reipulblic" Rtpka himself confirms that this was all a Communist inrvention. The offidals were not concerned with punishing ou1prits, because there were none. But they did want to terrorize the anti-COimimunistic elements in Sloiviakia, which meant pra-ctically the whole pOipulation of SlovaJkia. And, in this case, a shameful thing happened. Within the SlovaJk Democratic Party and within the Czech Government parties the Red colla!borators began their shady work. �50 SLOVAKIA They demanded Bugar and Kempny be deprived of immunity. These two deputies, mind you, belonged to the largest anti-Comnn,tmist party in. Sl01Vakia tha,t was represented in the Prague Government by Jan Ursiny, Vice-Premier of the Government, Dr. liV'an Pietor, Minister of Railroads, Dr. N. Franetk, Minilster of Unification, and Jan Lic'lmer, State UndersecTetary in the Ministry of National Defense. And in 194 7 the Prague Parliament had an absolute majority of non-Communist deputies. Something that should not have ha.'Ppened dild haq>pen. The Prague Government decided to sur.re:nder both Slo,vak deputies,. and immediately thereafter Parliament deprived both the general secretaries of a Government party in Slovalkia of their deputorial immunity. Dr. Bwgar and Dr. Kempny had to sit in jail, while Dr: Joseph Lettri'ch, president af the Democratic Party, !kept on sitting in the chairman's seat of the Slovak Naition,a;l Council in Bratislava and the other ministers remained sitting in their ministerial chairs in Prague. In the history af parliamentarism this is probably the only case of its kind. It was possible only bec8.lllse none of the people in the Government of Prague and Bratislava had enough co.ura:ge and p&sonal integrity to fight the Commtmists. A1l tihe SlO'V'ak and Czech people in Goive:rmnent were willing to make any and aill compromi<ses, treaties ano concessions, as long as they could pay for them with the freedOIIn and Sltlffering oif others. The case of Bu,gar and Kemipny presented the occasion to begin a .g reat offensive against the extortions af the Communists in the OzechoSlovaik Republic. The Slova!ks, as one man, todk the lead, in this ba,ttle, bec8.lllse here the principle af freedom was· at stake and the freedom of two af their sons was threatened. But they were hopelessly overpowered by the Reds and the Benes Czechs. True it is tha:t Benes, Riipka and others of their kind were of the opinion that onJy the western powers were supiposed to oppose the Communists and to stem the tide of Communism. Benes, Riiipka, and others of their political entourage, thought that their yielding, duplicity, nay, even their hostility toward their two co-workers, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny, was appealing to the Soviets. And such was �SLOVAKIA 51 the case. A great opportunity to sihow up the Reds was lost in the case of Bugar aind Kempny. It meant that the first fight on internal policy was lost, and that only shortly after Pra:gue also lost its first battle on foreign policy by olbeying Stalin and refusing to join in the Ma.I1S:hall P}an. Let us not forget that all this was done with the assent of Dr. Benes. Even here he · had his own "plan," and according t,o it he direct.ed especially the Czech National Socialists. We must rememb.er that Dr. Benes was a deputy and vice-president of the Czech National Soc,ialist Part.y from 1920 to 193'5, and that he financed it generously out of the State treasury. Benes needed that party as a means to gain his ends. He wanted first of all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then, af:ter T. G. Masaryk, the office of -p resident. Then, when he noticed that the pallty hindered him in attaimng his ends, he easily renounced it. And so it was that in 1926 the party of the Ozetch National Socialists went into opposition to the Government rund its deputy, Dr. Edward Benes, was supposed to follow it. But he preferred to .r esign his mandate of deputy so that he cowd remain in the goivernment as an "impartial" (non...politi'cal) Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, the C.oo<!h National Socialists always regarded Benes as their man - their leader. Little wonder, then, that the Czech National Socialist ministers went to President Benes for adMce during the crisis that broke out in the Government between the Communists and the non-Communists in 194-8. Without Benes's assent nothmg was underta.ken, and Benes assured his followers that he Wa!S bacikinig them, that he would not desert them as he did in 1926. That was sUipposed to mean that he wowd not use them as tools to hold his position, but that he wowd stay with them to the end in the fight against the Communists in government, rugainst Gottwald's faction. In the moo:nitime. the Comunists sought to strengthen their positions, the key positions in the government which Benes had given them. In 1947 the Communists held these positions in the Pra;gue Government: Klement Gottwald, Premier; Viliam Siroky, Vi:ce~~ e r ; Vaclav Nosek, Min- �1i2 SLOVAKIA ister of Interior; Ja.romil Dolansky, Minister of Finance; Vaclav Kopecky, Minister of Infomnation; Ant.on Zmrhal, Minister of Internal 00immerce; Zdenek Nejedly, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare; Julius Duris, Minister of Agriculture; Vlado Clementis, StiaJte Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All these Corrununist ministers did what was in the interest of their Party. And this jolb they did loyally and thoroughly. The Minister of the Interior, Nosek, purged the leadership of the Deipartment oif National Security in Bohemia of all non-Co1rmmmist eilements. He had eight regional commanders of the polrce tra..."'lsferred and fiUed their places with eight reliallJle Communists. The non-Communist ministers had a pretext to attack. This was one of the most foolish quarrels thiat ever took pla:ce. But President Benes rupproved it and was happy that the Communists occasioned it. The time to stir Uip the masses in Slovaikia and the whole Reipulblic, as weH a,s for rousing the sincere anger of the people, was when the Corrumunists demanded the arrest of the two SlovaJk deputies, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny. But this opportunity was not used by Benes and his followers. Why should i.t be? Noithing b:uit the freedom and the lives of two Slo:viak Catholic deputies was ait stake ! Benes, Riipka, Zelllkl and company figured that they could better move the masses by starting a fight O!Ver such a great affair as No~ transferring eight po1icemen in Prague and supplanting them witih eight others. The police affair could not enthuse the Slav'c!Jkis and mll!c:h less the Czechs, who never were fighters. Besides the Czechs are educated by their witty journalist P. Haivlicek to hate and ridicule the police. But Benes, Zookl, Ri:pika and others, who did not go a:mong the peo,ple, but made politics in offices and editorial rooms, wanted to rescue eight poHcemen on account of whom a "graJve goveirrnmenual crisis" was initiated. On Felbruary 13, 1948, Zelllkl and other non-Communist ministers demanded that Nosek rescind his order. The Communists answered that the matter belOil!ged to the Ministry of Interior, and Nosek would rescind nothing. Every minister performs his office and does th,i ngs as he noiws best. The �SLOVAKIA 53 government can caiH a minister to answer for his office, but in this case Premier Gottwald would not do that. Gottwald agreed completely with Nosek and would not disavow anything the Minister of t:Jhe futerior had approved. The nonCommunist ministers considered for a few days whether they should or shou;ld not resign. They told Nosek that they would not a,ttend any meetings of the GOfVernment or the National Front as long as Noselk would not rescind his order. On February 18th, Ripka and Zenk.I again hurried to Rresident Benes, who. approved of their taJctics and encouraged them to peraevere. He advised them to resign and so force the Commurusts to yield. Again and again :he asS1Ned them that he would stand by them "no, matter what happens!'' Fiil!ally, on Felbruacy 20, 1948, three parties - the Ozech Nationa,l Socialists, Sramek's Czech People's Party, and the S1ovruk Democrats - reca:Ued their ministers from the Government. Before resigning, Zenkl, as chairman of the National Socialist Party, telephoned President Benes and as Ripka himself tells it - Benes said over the telephone : "Finally! And now 'b e careful! No false moves!" Benes aiso peTsonally assured the resigning ministers that they acted co:rirectly when they resigned. He stated emphatically that he would not aC'Capt their resignations and so force the Comttnunists to yield. J,f there was any one who did not belieive in the strength and persona.:l honesty of Be,. nes, that person was the leader of the Czech Populists, Msgr. Sramelk. A. J. Janda:ceik in his booklet "Behind the !Ton Curtain" writes (ipg. 29): "Verry fow people, however, knew President Benes as well as Msgr. Sramek did. He knew how Benes conducted himself during the Munich crisis and 1kne,w some of his irresolute and 01Verly philosqphk views. That is why he expressed the fear at the time: whether too m1.11ch responsibility WalS not •b eing placed on the President, whether it was wise to put all the burden on the shoulders of one man. In his judgment Sramek went so far as to express a grave fear whether the President - with regard to his health would not aJotually disappoint in this decisive moment and �54 SLOVAKIA whether his nerves woulrl last to oppose the hard and well considered plans olf the Communists. Dr. Peter Zenkl, however, was so satisfied with the president's conduct that he dispelled Srarrnek's fears aJt least partially." In a word, it was known that Benes could not withstand the ordeal, as he could not even in 193'8 in Mund.ch. It was known that Benes's assurances had to be taken with great reserve - on the baisis of past experiences. Burt: why, then, did the tiwe1ve ministers ha,nd in their resignations, when Benes was not supposed to accept them and when with their resignation he was suwosed to peinform some sort of magic before the eyes of the Communists? Such utter silliness was SlllPposed to frighten the Communists and maike them concede, when they ha,d the masses on the move and headed in one direction in the Prwgue "of Benes" - the Prague that was ail Solkol and true to democracy?! The Communists used St.ate funds to call a rally of workers and farmers from the whole Republic to Pragqe. They commanded the streets of Prague. They already had the police safely in their hands since 1945, and General Ludo vik Sloboda, whom Benes named Minister ·of National Defense, promised to have the entire army ready if Gottwald should need it. Into the situation, directly from Moscow, flew Valerian A!exandroviic Zorin, Soviet deputy minister of Foreign Mfuirs and fo:mner Soviet aanibassador in Kosi.ce and, then, in Prrugue. Against these enthusiastic Communist masses that filled the streets of Prague and against· Zorin, who represented the whole diploma:tic and military might of the Soviet Union, Dr. Edward Benes stood alone. Behind him were the twe1ve ministers shaking with fear - the ministers who real1y did not want to resign, but wanted to stay on as .rninistem and in the Government, that is to say, to eogoveI1I1 with the Carrurruunists. That really was a scene for a puppet theatre! SraimeJk, as a good soothsayer, kept on cautioning that Be:nes would not hold up, that Benes was capiturlating even as he had capitulated in the fall of 193·8 to Ado1ph Hitler. And so it happened. Goittwa:ld and Nosek visited Benes two or three times to tallk things over. These were in~ �SLOVAKIA 55 teresting coowersiations. "The president," writes A. J. Janda.eek, "ordered liistening deivices be placed in the room in which Benes conferred with the Communists. President Benes at that moment did not \know that a:ll his conversations and telephone calls were followed and heard 'by a system whi:ch already was rigged up by the Communist police without Benes's knoiwledige." Borth negotiarting parties tried to ,b eat each other in being cralfty. But the Communists were always a step ahead of Benes. Mteir Go.ttwa1d and Nosek left Benes, he was vdsited by two Nat:ionai Socialist ministers, Riipka and Stran. sky: This was Benes's l1ast conive1:1sation with these two ministers. Ripka noted the folloiwing as coming out of that conversation: Benes 'began the colllVersation with an energetic cry: "I shall not give in! I said openly and clearly to Gottwald: 'You are preparing to overthrow the St.ate, for a putsch, but I shall not let myseH be terrorized : by you'!" And then Benes told them the ·contents of his Wk with Premier Gottwald. I (Ripka) tQlld hd,m without mincing words: "That which you are preparing is another Munkh." The President's face grew serious. He said to us: "You .Jroow the Communists. You know that they do not hesitate to use any means to real±ze their pla:ns. We must be ·prepared for anything." There were reports, which I persona:hly _did not believe, that is that Russia was going to at~ck us. I told the President that I thought Russia would ,be S'atisfied to extend political help to our Corrm:i.un~sts, 'but that _w ith regard to the internatio.n•a l comp1ications that ' might result - Russia would not decide on a single military intemrention. The president listened with great attention. Then · he said to me literally: "I agree with you. I also think that way; Moscow will not take a risk -that would mean · military intenvention. Nevertheless, I .cannot -exclude the possi.ibility that the Soviet av.my would cross our · ,'bo:rders and then what would we do?" 1 �56 SLOVAKIA "What would we do?" - repeated the president, looking at me and then at Stransky, "Yes, what would you do?" I answered that in such a case we would be occupied and defeated. But the nation and the whole world would see that we suC'Cumlbed to violence. It would be known that the COiIDmunist regime was forced upon us, that Ozecho.,Slwakia was a victim of an attack, agruinst which she could not defend herself. This defeat woud carry us to a new victory. A moment of silence intet,vened. Then the president 1begain to say: "Maybe," - he said - '~but that is not cerbain. Nolbody will helip us. Moscow knows tha:t." Then with growing feeling, raising his voice, Benes said: "I know them well, those peo,ple frO!lll MOS'COw. I had a chanice to know them more iintimaitely than you have known them. You overrate their intel1igence and their foresight. Even I committed the same mistalke. They do not U!Ilderstand the other states ait a!H. They thinlk they are realists. But, in fact, they are only fain.a.tics. Their whole policy is nothi,IJJg else but one of provoki.n!g war. But with them everything will end up as it did wlith Hitler." Stransky who never heard the president speak so, cried out: "And you tell us that? You who have done more than any!body else on earth to bring albout colla1boraition with Soviet Russia?" ,B enes smiled sadly and said: "I repeat what I have already told you: I shall not yield! You may rest assured on that!" With tha,t sentence our last carwersation with president Benes ended. None orf us ait that moment could know that we shall never again see him. So wrote Ripka albout his last conversation with Benes. The coniversation tells us that Benes knew the Soviet factors in Moscow and 'knew them for a long time. And, yet, he continually and without end recommended to Roosevelt and Churehill to collaborate wlith them. He demanded that the West believe Stalin. Benes dressed up the lies of Soviet �SLOVAKIA 57 propaganda in a gartb of truth and thus, presented them to the uninfoI1II1ed West. That is how Benes sinned against the whole Christian world. He did not go unrewarded. He had to stand alone and face to face wi,t h the Soviet danger knowing that "nl()(body will helip us -- Moscow knows that." Despit,e all hlis assurances that he would not submit, that he knew the Communists well, Benes, nevertheless, did give in to the Communists. He capitulated to Clement Gottwald. He accepted the resignations of the 12 non-Communist minist,ers a-nd named the Government that Gottwald dictated! And what haJPPOOed with the 12 ministers who resigned? Espeicialiy what happened with the four ministers who belonged to, the Czech Na,tional Socia,1ist Party of Dr. :&!ward Benes? On May 6, 1948, deputies Dr. Duchacek, Dr. Krajina, Dr. StraJI1Skiy, VHim and Firt collaJborated in preparing a report on the .Alls,a{!e HoUJSe in FranikfuTt. This is what it says literally: "On the ad:temoon of Februacy 28, 1948, the National Socialist ministers assembled in the residence of Dr. Stransky. Durinig this meeting they telephoned Dr. Jina, political adviser af President Benes, and aslked him whether the President wotrld reiceiive them, as is the custom when ministers resign. Dr. Jina answered tha.t the President will not receive them and he repeated this statement when Dr. Rilpka asked a,g,a.in. Dr. Rilpka then said to Jina: "Tell Mr. President for us that he would not corner wJth the fouir ministers who during the who,l e period stood uncompromisingly behind his program. with him in full agreement. We want Dr. Benes to know just how the people who coUaiborated so closely witlh him feel rubout his not giving them an audience to e:,cplain his stand." Benes had fivst eooouraged the miru.stera to resign, then he assured them of his loyalty and persevea-ence, and, in the end, without theiir knowledge of it, had decided to accept their resignations. Then Benes did not even want to tadlk with them in parting. To keep the presidency Benes no longer needed the Czech N'aittonal Socialist Party nor its �58 S LOVAKIA four ministers. Now he needed only the Communists, because at the m01Inent they were stronge,r and in power. On February 27th Benes received the whole Gottwald gavernrment. Gottiwald said his speech, presented his ministers to Benes, and Benes replied to Gottwald's speech. By doing so, Benes accoided the recognition od' legality to the Coonmll!Ilist ministers for aH their future orders. · ..t\ifter Mlunich Benes proclaimed that he had a "plan." That w,as th~ plan by which he fled from Czecho..SlovaJkia. After cwpitulating t o Gottwald - the caipitulation that Benes himself ca'lied a "second Munich" - Benes burst into tears and said to editor Janda.eek, ,aecordin:g to 'J andacek : "Tell all the people who love democraicy to woiik in its interest and to try to validate its principles everywhere, and that eyen there, where they were for a time outraged." But did not Benes disgrace them? Did he haive to wp• prove the Communistic system? Were only othel's swppooed to work and fight for democracy, while Benes and his people were entitled to roop its advanta:ges and oo.j'Oy its privileges? After this secood capitulation Benes did not have an aerop1ane. He could not fly rubroad. He had only an automdbile. In it he left for his priv,ate residence in Sezimova U sti. He left, but only alter lie had legalired. every~ thing that the Oommumsts did and what they were still to do with the poople oif Ozecho-SfovaJlda. Benes, "the great de~ mocrat and builder," had done all that for the Communists! At the .end of his memoirs Ripk!a displayed .t he pinnacle of his cynicism. He whit~washed the Benes Czechs. They could not prevent the second Munich, even with weapons, he says, because the Soviet army would probably walk in and swbject the Czechs to untold brutalities. "After the oooupation of our country by the Soviet a11my in 1945," Ripka writes cynically, "we knew well what the Soviet army was cwpalble of!" (Il P01polo, Rome, May 15, 1949) . . Whether Ripka was in London or in Prague, until February 1948, he ·a-Iways spoke and wrote about the "liberation" ,of •Czecho,.JSlovakia a,nd the victorious Soviet . ·army; �SLOVAKIA 59 The Czechs actuaHy welcomed that amiy enthusiastically. While Benes and the Czecihs 'kept tal!kiing about "liiberation" from 1945 to 194'8, we Slovaks, on the other hand, claimed that SlovaJkia was octmipied, that the Sio:viruk State was suppressed by force and th at the Soiviet soldiers in 1M4-1946 committed the most terrible bestialities against unarmed Slovak men and women. 1 Even Czech emigrants told me to my face that Slovakia was "liberated" in 1945. But today, even Ripka confesses, rather belatedJy, that his Bohemia, too, was occupied by Red Moscow already in 1946 ! That really is unmitigated cynici,s m, coming as it does from a person who played "independent minister" from 1945 to 1948 in his occupied country and then, looving the country, would agiain - with some other kind of army of "liberation" - save not only his own country, but also our beaten and crucified . SloviaJkia. We began our remarks to Ripka's memoirs by citing the ar.gumenit of R:dbert Ingrim about the possibility of the existenice of a secret a·g rooment between. Benes, Ripka, Zenkl and Gottwa:ld. Now we read in the newspaper of the Czech National Socialist deiputy Fr.anois Klatil ("CA.IS," London, The Wa!Wi(j}c Printing Co. , issue No. 1, 1949) a note from the pen of Dr. Edward Benes a:bout the conferenJce with Gottwald on May 1'4, 194'8. In it Benes carries on a long dialogue with Gottwald aiboot wanting to resign from the presidency. Let us quote at least a few sentences from it: "The president does not want to tell the Communists to do things dififerently, since he does not want to hinder them. That is why he repeats to the Premier o!f the Government not to loOlk for any foreign influences in his action. It is only and only his personal decision. . . . The president again emphasizes that (in Sezimovo Usti) he did not receive any1body, neither did he aiSlk anyibod,y for any exiplanations or to let him kno:w his stand. Eive:rything is exclusively his own.. .. Therefore he .is g1ving the Communist PM'ty freedom of action to arr.ange things to suit its needs. The President further states that he is taLkiDJg with the Prime Minister of the government witlh complete sincerity �60 SL OV AK IA and con1Viction and he is asking him to judge what he is saying from that standpoint. He does not quarrel, nor in the end, does he want to part with t!he Prime Minister of the Governrment in a quarrel. . . . He does not want the Communists to hasve any quaITels with the President, nor the President to quarrel with the Communists, 1because it would be possi!ble to a.lbuse this. The State is so dear to the President, that he will do nothing that might harm it. . . . Prime Minister Gottwald at first replied in general terms to the President's explanation. and his initention orf abdiooting. He says that the Communists wotl'ld prefer not to have to discuss the question olf the departure of the President. He knows what moti1Ves the President has, he respects them aoo thinks that id' it is already necessary to part, that they would want to part as friends. The President answers, that he wishes the same. He said that to Smutny and hopes that they shall pa.rt as friends. He reminded even Dr. Clementi'! that he, Benes, will not undertake any action against his own State, that he will not go against the Communists and he shall not undertake any act that would be direct.e<l against the Soviet Union." That, then, is how Benes spoke to Gottwald in Sezimoivo Usti. He assured him he would do nothing against the Communists or the Soviet Union. He expressed a sincere desire to part with Got:Jtwal:d and the Communists in Governmeint as a friend. He wanted to retire and hand over everything to Gottwald and his Ozech Reds peaoofully. And he did eventually. Gottwald then saw to it th,a t Dr. Edward Benes got full pay "for life," too. Does the international anti-Com.mt.mist pU!blic think that the sa,me principles do not hold for Bene.s's close colila:borators - for Ripka, ZenJk,l , and for the many other Czechs, who fled Ozechoslovaikia after February 19~8? We must be on our g:uard. The legends olf "li'beration" and "Jiberntors" from 1948 to 1945 are well knolWil. to us and must ever be a warning not only for us Slova:ks, but a'lso for the whole civilized Christian world. � 32 SLOVAKIA DR. HUBERT RIPKA'S VERSION OF THE COMMUNliST "PUTSCH" IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA Karol Sidor Fourteen months after the Communists took over Czecho-,Slovalda, Hubert R~pka, former minister orf various resorts cxf the late Dr. Edward Benes, decided to write a series o,f articles under the head.mg of "A Prefabricated Revolution" (Une Revolution Prefabriquee) . The articles, telling what happened in Prague in February 1948, were published in several European dailies. Why Riipka waited so long to tell the world his version of what happened in Ozecho--lSlovaikia early in 1948, he does not d~V'll:lge, but it is quite obvioUIS that he wanted time to do a little healing. Rilpka's trade was journ.alism. He was the editor o:f the "Lldove Noviny" (People's News), the daily cxf · the Czech intelligentsia published in Brno, and during his six years in exile he was Minister of Propaganda - and what propaganda! - of Dr. Benes's London government-in-exile. R iipka, then, was ruble and crupafbJe of writing. The Roman daily "II POipolo" paid quite a tribute to Ripka when it began pUJblishmg his series of articles. It presented Ripka as "the only Czechoslovak democratic minister, who successfully escaped from his country after last February's putsch"! Of course, that was a bit far.fetched, because we know that ministers Zenkl, Kocvara, Stransky, Pieto.r , Prochazka, Majer and Franelk also escruped from Praigue after the Felbruary "putscih ." These collea,gues of Ripka were just a s "Czechoslovak" and "democratic" as he was himself. They all had one thing irn common with Ripka: they helped Benes sell out both the Slovaks and the Czechs to the USSR. It is quite s1gnifiicant that after sUJCh a "terrible putsch" so many Ozeoh ministers, officials and leading politicians could escape without incident or accident. Robert Ingrim -,. author cxf "After Hitler Stalin?" - wrote a:bout this phenomenal exodus in the Swiss "ViATIDRLAND" of �SLOVAKIA 33 September 25, 1948. One is led to suspect with Ingrim that so many Czech ministers, generals, politicians and thousands of Czech go.vernment officials and workers could hardly escaipe wtthout incident or accident without a "deal" with Comrade Gottwald. Any one who has read Riplta's articles must admit that Ripka was careful not to attook Gottwald or Zapotocky. What is more, Riplk a did not conrfess that he played bad politics, or that he was sorry for what he had done, or that he would never again collaiborate with Communism. On the contrary, Ripka wrote: "Today more than ever before, I cannot stop believing that a free and independent Czecho-Slovakia can exist only in Europe that is brought to balance, where the West and Russia find a proper agreement to collaborate. Even the events of February 1948 could not shake me from this conviction, which remains the basis of my whole conception of national politics." - ("Fi,garo., " Paris, April 4, 1949). Stanisl•aN Mikolaj,czylk, Nagy Ferencz, and other refugees frOIID 'beyO!Ild the Lron Cm·tain wrote in a different tone. They corufessed that they were mistaiken in thinking they could negotiate a decent agreement with Soviet Russia. But Riipka stated pulblicly, even arrter the so...;called February "putsch," that he shall persist in his error, and his articles only corufirm the fact that in the "new" CzechoSloivaikia which Ripka would build - he would again cultivate contacts with the Communist USSR just as enthusiastically and loyally as does Antonin Zapotocky today in the name of Czecho-Slovakia. R~pka is lo•a th to admit that politically he is bankrupt. He keeps on talking aJbout a "new agreement" between the West and Russia meaning Czecho..Sl01Vakia when he sarys "West." In fact, w:hat he told us in his articles was equivalent to saying that ne and his "Czechoslovak democratic" colleagues would even now be collaborating with the Communists and Stalin's stooge in Czech-Slovakia, if they would have been allowed to keep their ministries. But in Washington, Ripka, Zenkl and the other soc_alled ·"OzechoslovaJk democrats" - now organized in tihe �34 SLOVAKIA "Council oif Free OzechoSilwakia" - talk aJbout their fight against Communism. Wihat kind of fight agaill'st Comm'll.Ilism? As far as is kno:wn there was no fight against Communism in Czeteho-1Sloivaikia as a whole, but only in Slovakia. Deception, appea:sement, crupitulation, and shameful mght mto other ilands can hardliy be called a "fight against Communism"! The mass "escape" oif Ozech Sociialists was undoulbtedly arranged and assured in advance, and the socalled "OzoohoslovaJk dernoorats" did not esc~ emptyhanded either. What can be tni.rthlfully said about the: fight of the Ozech emigration against Communism? Only this: We are still patiently waiting for it to start! It aippea,rs to us that Czech emigrants - both the right and left wings - are agreed on only one thing: to carry on their fight against Slovak emigrants and refugees whom they have termed "separatists." They vilify them before the Red Cross, the U. S. oocwpation forces and their allies, and the U. S. State Department. The Slovaiks, aocording to them, simply are no good; they are Hitlerites, Fascists, Nazis and, worst of all, "separatists." Aocording to Rilpka, Zenkl, Lebtrich and other "has.beens" of Dr. IDdward Benes's bankrl.llpt political ikd.ngdom, the Slovaks hiwe no right to freedom and independence, no right to an indeipendent po~mcal state. To the "Czechoslovak democrats" the fight against Slovak freedom and independence means more than the fight against Communism. T. G. Masaryk and Benes fooled the world in 1918. Benes did it again in 1945. And their disciples are dete:rmined to continue the propagation of the fraud that was "Czechoslovaik democracy.'' Ripka, Zenikl and their followers are not fighting Communism. The ra'llks oif Ozech emigrants are fiull or' agents of the Ozeich secret police and spies of the Communist Party. More Czech emigrants "escaped" back home than all'y other class of emigrants. That is not suITTprising to any one who really knows the Benes Czechs. There was veriy little difference between Benes's "Czechoslovak democracy" and Communism. The former was in fact a handmaid of the �SLOVAKIA 35 latter. Benes and his "Czechoslovaks" could not suffer political opposition ~ more than the Reds or the Nazis. Loolk at their rewrds: they tell us tihat these queer "democrats" ipla,y ed a'long with Communism and actively collaborated with Communists for many yea,rs. Ripka enthusiastically welcomed the c0Ua.1boration and eternal frien<lshlp between Soviet Russia and Czecho...slovalkia in 1935 (Vd. his article in "Zahranicni politilka," Pra)gue, 1935,pgs. 14-l7). At that tilme Riipka wrote that the Ozechs wanted to 'b e "not only mediators between the old West and the new East, but also factors, actively cocreating a synthesis of lasting values of the old European civilization and the new civilization being born in the Soviet Union." Ten years later - in 19415 - the Benes Ozechs really got the chance to play the role of "factorris." They were given the opporturuty "to aictilvely cocreaite a synthesis" between Russia and Czec'ho~Slovakia. Just how suocessful they were in this, we shall see later when we anal~ Ripka's articles. But let us say at the outset: in Central Europe it was only the BENES CZECHS who actually want.ed to collaborate with the Communists! In Ma~, 194'5, when the Soviet a:ranies rolled into Prague, it was only the Ozechs cxf all the peoples of Central Eurorpe who welcomed them with oipen joy and enthusiasm a'S the "armies o,f lilbeTation." In the first Ozech post-wa,r government, Clement Gottwald, chairnnran of the Czech Communist party was named Vice-iPrennier am.d, after the parliamentary elections in 1946, as Premier of the government in Prague by "!president" Benes. At that time no;where did the Communists in a parliamentary election receive so many votes as they did in Bohemia a!Ild MoraJVia; in Slovaikia they were beaten dedsive1y by the SlovaJk electorate. 1 Such was the political line of Benes and his followers. In Prwgue the Cotmmunists, a;nd not Benes and Ripka, 1becrume the "factors." And the Communists lost no time in creating Rilpka's "synthesis" of 1935 between the "old West" and the "new East." Benes and Ripka had prepared for this synthesis already since 1935 and were beaming �SLOVAKIA 36 with joy because the whole world was astounded by · their political recltlessness. Collaib,oration with the Communists in internal politics had begll!Il in 193'5 when Benes needed the votes orf the COimmunist Party · to be elected president. The C.omimunisits promised to vote fOl" Benes on the condition that Gottwald, Kopecky and Stetka, whose political mandates the Court of Election of Czecho-Slovakia would not verify and approve, would be approved as members of the Prague parliament. Benes promised to do that little thing and so enaJbled three Communists to become members of par1i'a,ment in 1935. 'Dhe Communists voted for Benes and later proved their sympathy for him by voting for the presildential budget every ye·a r. The Communists were for everything that •~President" Benes himself asked for in the budget, but either refrained from voting or voted against all other items of the State budget. 1 When Benes resigned as ,president of CzechO-iSlovakia in June, 1948 - the second time within a decade - the Communists voted him full presidential rpay for life and mrugnanimously gruve him the Limy Castle and the properties belonging to it. In a word, Benes and Ripka did collruborate with the Communists for many years. That collaboration did not cease because orf ideological reasons, but only because the Communists in February, 1948, told their collaborators what amounted to: "We thank you with communistic sincerity for your collab.o ration O!f many years with us. You can go now; we do not need you any mo:re. You can even go alb road if you wish; at hQlme you are useless to us, and id' you go abroad we shall not fear you." "The Czechoslovak people" - said Hubert Riplka in his article in the "IL POPOLO" ( 4--30-49) - "with singular joy welcomed the first allied treaty with Russia in 1935." In the first place, no "Czechoslovak" people exists, ethnJ1cally 51peruking. But there are Czechs a!lld Slovaks. There are two nations - the Czech and the Slovak - who do ~ t to all phenomena aocording to their training and traditions. And so it was with the treaty of Benes with Stalin in 193'5: the Czechs reacted one way, while the Slovruks reacted altogether differently. The ~ h s reacted "with singular �SLOVAKIA 37 joy;" they welcomed that treaty, because they thought just as Ripka himself had thought in 1935 - that together they would be able to form a synthesis of the "old" European ciiv:i lization and the "new" civilization which was being born in the Soviet Union. Soviet ci'Vilization was not brought to Europe by Ripka; but by the soldiers of the Soviet armies. The nations of the "old" ciivilization felt the sting of this "new" civilization on their bodies. And they shall continue to feel it as long as they do not :wcept it 100 per cent by discarding the "old" civilization which was founded on Christianity and is almost 2000 yea:rs oJd. Personally, Ri;pka was terrified by Soviet . "'Ciivi.lilzation" in praclice. He did not remain in C?.echo-Slovakia to take part in the creation of the "synthesis," but fled far beyond her borders. Yes, as far a:s he could go Jrorn this "new" civilization which in 1935, he praised highly and recommended so zealously not only to the Czech peoiple, but to the whole world as well. Why did Ripka do that? Did he not ,know what was happemng in the S()IViet Union? From 191,8 to 1935 there were aJbout 100,000 Rlussians, Ukranian and White Russian emrl.grants in OzechoJS[,()IValkia. They had fled from the Soviet Union and told the Czechs what they saw aind e~rienced in Soviet Rlussia. 'Ilhe Benes Oze.chs, however, did not ~Ii.eve those eye-<Witneses. 'Ilhe Czechs were blinded by their old lave for the "Sl01Vanic Ea:st" and thought that Communism of the 1935 vintage was no longer the Communism of 1917. They forgot tllat Communism, as a doctrine and a system of government, is one and the saime for all peoples aJild all times. It does not relate only to the Russian Ozars, but to all n0;tions of the earth and to aH states. The substance of CommuniSIIll is not sulbject to the ohangeis of time. Ripka evidently met with real Communist civilization only in 194'8, in Prague, when it too:k aiway his ministry. He fled before it, we are sruq:~posed to believe, to saive his life. And yet 1n 1949 he wrote that he still believed in colla.borating with the UISSR. so Ripka, too, was a product of Czech na:tiona:l development, whlch was a1ways directed to the left. The Czedhs �38 ::,LOVAKIA made Jan Hus (1'370~141'5) the symlbol of their rebellion aigainst Rome. '.Dhey grolllped ooder his banner and always emphasized more and more the negati~stic ·elements of Hus' character, suppressing all his positive qualities. As a result large grOUfPS of the Ozech nation, matriculated as Catholics at baptism, got themselves. in the periphery of world Christianity, their roots of solidarity w~th the Ohristian civilization of the west dried Ulp in tilme and the Ozech masses aH the more readily joined the "111ew" civiHzation which Ripka said was being born in the Soviet Union. Thrs ideological development of the Czechs to the left explains why in 193'5 the Czechs welcomed a treaty with Moscow and why in 1946 in the parliamentary elections in Ozetcho-1Slovakia the international and atheistic Oommunist Party came out on top in Bohemia and Morrruvia. But the Ozechs were accustomed to belonging to laiI'!ge economiic and politkal units. Their outstanding historian, Francis Palacky, wrote to the FrMllkfurt Assemlbly in 1848: "The preservation of Austria, its integrity and cOl11SOlidation, is and must be a great and important th!ing not only to the Czech nation, but also to the whole, olf IDurope, nay, to all humanity and cultU'l"e." That same Palaciky is the author of the staitement: "H Austria did not exist, we would have to create it." Dr. Edward Benes shared similar ideas. In his bodk, "Le Problem Autrichien et la QuestiO!ll Tcheque" (pg. 307) ·b e wrote in 1908: "Frequently we bear talk about the collapse of Austria. I absolutely do not believe it. The historical and economic ties that mutually unite the 1181tions of Austria are too strong to allow Austria to collapse.'' This was written at a time when the Czechs were becomilllg a nation of oifificia.ils and directors, administering not only in Bohemia, Morruvia and Silesia, but even in Galicia, a signdficant part of Vienna and later even in Bosnta and Hercegcwina. True, this was all under the supernsion of Vienna and ac:corddng to her laws. During the first World War T. G. Masar,yik and Edward Benes came upon the idea of making the Czech nation independent by destroying Austria-Hungary. To help them �SLOVAKIA 39 with that plan tihey SIUCCeeded in getting 1,'500,000 Slovaks to whom T. G. Masaryk had solemruy promised in Pittsburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, that Slovalk ia, within the framewonk af Czecho-SlovaJkia, would hiwe, arrnong other things, her own assembly, her own courts and her own ,s chools. On the 0:ther hand, Dr. Edward Benes, wJth his signature attaiched to the Peace Treaty of St. Germain Se!ptem\ber 19, 1919) , haid guaranteed the Ruthenfans territorial autonomy, a legislative a:ssemlbly, their own governor, etc. Both Masaryk and Benes la~r repudiated their solemn promises. As lonig as Masaryk and Benes · ruled Czecho,.,SloV'akia, neither the Slwaiks nor the Rut>henians were guaranteed autonomy. Nolbody 'bothered to ask the other peoples orf Czecho-SloV1aLkia - the 3,500,000 Germans, albout a miUion Magyars, SOIIIle 200,000 Po.les, etc., whether they wanted to live together with the · Czechs in the common staite of CzeohoSlorvaJkia. The frirst Constitution of 1920 was approved by the Prague parliament when that body did not have a single representative of the Germans, the Poles, Magyars and Ruthenians, and when the Slovaks were represented not by deputies elected by the Slovak people, but by deputies named by Prague, i.e., by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes. And that Constitution - a tyipi~al Benes creation remained tmchanged and was binding U!pon every citizen of Czeicho..iSllovaikia until N oivemlbe~, 193-8. It is understandiaJbJe that the majority Olf nations of the ReipUJblk did not fare well in Ozecho-.Slo,vaikia. The existence of Czecho-1Slovaikia was not supPorted by the will of the majority of her mhrubitants. 'l'he Czechs themseLves knew that, and the old desire for broader economical and political spheres, whereby the life o,f the Czechs could bet.t er be safeguarded and ·p rotected, began to awaken in them. They knew that internally Czecho-Slovakia was weak and that externally she wws threatened lb y the Germans. Czech leaders, therefore, ,b egan looking to;ward the So~fot Union which emlbraces one-SQxth o1: the unilverse. They began to tell their ,people and the world that the So'Viet Union was •a Slovian:ic land, that a "new" cirvi:lization and a new ally and ( 1 �40 SLOVAKIA defender Oif the Ozech nation, especially against German aggression was being born there. This thought was strengthened by the Ozech...SOviet Treaty of 1935. The Czechrs saw before themselves the vast expansiveness Oif the Soviet cowntry which was incomparably larger and rilcher than Austria-iliungacy. Culturally and politicai11y the Russii'am,s were far ~hind the Czechs. The Czeohs dreamed that in time they might even rule the Russian roost! They thought that by collruborating with the Soviets they would sooner or later find themselves on top even if it were oruy in the sense of the old Czech and even sicikly inclination toward Panslavism - at one time the Czarist and Ortlhod-0x variety and now the Red and atheistic kind. Slovaik national development went along a completely different course. The SlOIVruks not only did not welcome the treaty with Moscow in 1935, but openly condemned it through their elected deputies, in the Prague parliament. The Slova3c naition built its spiritual world consistently on its own national tradition. That tradition was Christian. It was created with equal zeal by both the Slovak Catholics and the Slovalk Protestants. Thait S1walk tradition is the common property olf aU Slovalks, no matter what their political or religious beliefs. The Slovak Protestant L'udovit Stur (1815-1856), Slovak patriot and national philogq>her, left the Slovalk nation in his books valua/b'le sources on how to correctly orientate itself in new social and national tendencies. Stur's book "The Slavs and the World of the Future," published after his deaith, has this to sary albout the Communism of his day: ''In every instan1ee Communism means the collapse and the destruiction oif the state. Communism arrived at this aim through atheism and apostacy from Christianity. In every fornn of Communism, no matter w:hat its origin, the outlook on life is da,r,k, laicking every tender j'oy. It brings the most c:mel sJaivery. Commun,i:sm, let it striive. and pretend in any manner whatsoever that it will make all peoples share in all rights, nevertheless, knows nothing a!bout humanity; it degrades humanity and, because it holds to sys- �SLOVAKIA 41 tams that are imipractiea!l and unrealizaJble, it belongs among the most stupid innovations that harve th'llS far been created by the human mind." The Slovak Catholic priest Jan Palarik (1822-1870) wrote a dissel'ta,tion in 1:864 "Albout SlOlVanic Mutuality." In it he resolutely stands fo.r a Slorvalk Sta,te and desires to see it in a federation of staites in EurOipe. But ne:ver under the direction of Russia. Pa1arik strongly repudiated Russia,n Panslavism and ,predicted thart "the whole of Europe wouM rebel against the Slovanic peoples" if they should ever come under the rule of the Russians. The Slovak Protestant, Milan R. Stefanik (1880-1919), a General in the French Army and the first Minister of War in Czooho-lSlovaikiia, was in Rus,s,i a in 191'8..1919 and saw Communism at close range. In February, 191'9, he tele. graphed his government at Prague: "To flirt with Bolshevik tendencies would be comparable to foresaking the path of honor and sane reason. The fight against Bolshevism in all its manifestations must prevail in our politics." On such foundations, then, was, buiilt the Slovak stand against Communism. It was built on the foundations of Christianity and nationalism, and never on the foundation whi~h Mussolini amd Hitler gave to their anti-Communism. The Communists and their friends had pro~1aimed that Mus-solini and Hitler dervised anti-Communism in Europe and that the SIJ.ovaJks had taken it over from them. That does not correspond with the truth. Slovak phifosophers long before Mussolini and Hitler warned their nations not to acceipt Communistic teaJChing. In the po1itiical life w Slov-a kia the party of Msgr. Andrew Hli'Dlka consciously fortified and strengthened this SlovaJk anti-Communism in the broad masses of the Slovak nation. Anti-Communism had thus become a component part of Slovak national beliefs. That is why the pa11ty of Andrew Hllinka pmtested a,g ainst the apprwal of Benes's treaty with Stalin in 1935 when it came up for approval on the floor of the Prague Parliament. At that time Hlinika's Farly haid 30.1 per cent of all the voters in Slovakia, while the Communist Party in Sfovakia had 13 per cent, and the �42 SLOVAKIA party orf Benes and Riipka only 3.2 per cent of the total Slovia:k electorate. The Slovak stanqpoint was ideologically and rightd'uUy represented by Hlinika's Party which was the first and largest political party in Slovakia since 1925. On November 6, 1935, as a Slovak deputy I sipotk e in the IllMil.e of Hlinlka's Party on the floor of the Pra:g,ue parliament. In the presence of the Foreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, I said: "Alas, foreign policy under the direction m Dr. Edward Benes has deviated from the tendency that General Stefanik followed in 1919. He requested the Prag;ue government to fight against Bolsheivism in all its manifestations and warned not even to flirt w.ith Bolshe'Viik tendencies. IDven flirting with Bolshevik tend.endes he called foresaiking the road of hooor and sanity. 1n the meantime the Prague government already conoluded various rugreements with the bloody offspring o;f Bolshevism~ the Soviet Union. "The Hlinlka Slovak People's Party rejects the theory of Bolshevism, co:ndemns its bloody ipra:ctices as well as its inhuman methods, and with a very heavy heart tolerates the fact that OzeichoJSlo'Wllkia has deviated from the course that was 'Plotted b,y her co-d'ounder and first Minister of War, Ge111eral Stman:i!k. The no:mnali.!zation of diplomatic contaiots can be understood even between such st:riucturally different states as is our democrartic Ozecho-slovaJk RepubHc and the SOIVieit Union. Fimdly other states similar to ours have such diiplomatic contacts. But imrrnediatetly following the esta!blishment otf contacts, there were so many expressions of sympathy within the Ozooho.,Slo;va:k Reipublic for the Soviet Union and its system that this must fJll us who are nationally orientated in a Christian way - with fears about the future Czecho-Slovaikia. To· tie ouir destiny with the destinies of the Soviet Union, to build on agreements signed by Bolshevii.ks, I consider as the greatest bl,un. der made by our present foreign policy. "We slovak,s warn the Czechs away from the political mista!kes being committed by our Fcreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, because . too zealously he binds us with the Soviet Union that is so distant to us. In the interests of the �SLOVAKIA 43 State we demamd a change in the lime followed by our foreign polilcy, we demand thait the defense of the State be built on a more realistic 'basi'S - one that conforms mo•r e with the mentality of the poipulation. Stating ·a ll these insufficiencies, I intvoduce them as one of tihe reasons that force us SloivaJks not to express our confidence in the present leailersh'ip of our foreign policy." Is it necessary to bring in more evidence to show that the SloviaJks were conisristently orientJated anti-Cottnlmun.istically? It proives co!D'clusively that Riipka was wrong when he said that "the Ozecho--!Slov.a!k people un:anilmously welc,ooned with joy the first allied agreement with Russia in 1935." The Ozec'hs, especialily the Sovieto,phiie Ozech intellectuals headed by R~pka, were made h~y by the treaty. The Slova!ks, however, eX1perieniced aJbsolutely no joy on that ocoasioo; nay, they aiticized and rejected the treaty and voted against it in 1936 in the Pra:gue Parliament. And this aJso attests to the fact that we are here concerned with two very different nations whose development and political convictio1J1S were altogether distin'Ct and diffe:rent. 1Riipka was rilght when he said that afiter the conclusion of a;greemnts with Moscow, in 19315 and 1943, Benes and his goveI1Il!ment exipressed "their complete confidence in the Soviet government." In return they expected the Sov.iet to return the friendshiip, confidenice and, rubove a'll, tihe assuraI1JCe that the USSR shall not intervene in our internal affairs." "That conrfidence has been betrayed" - Hulbert Ripka is screeching today. In February 1948 Moscow proceeded against democracy in Ozecho~Slovakia, ·be'Cause "it wanted to see in Pra;gue a totalitarian Communistic goivernment swbsement to. its will." So Ripka acknowledges th,at Moscow was dissaJtisfied with coHruborating in the fomnation of Riipk,a 's "synthesis." Ripka finally dis,wvered that Red Moscow wants its allies to be totaHy sulbserivierut to its dictates. But Ripka came upon this self-evident matter only in 1948, when he was thrown out of the g01VeTil!IIlent, or was at least prevented from co-governing in Prague with the Reds, and after he fled Ozecho-SlofVlakia. Before that time, however, Ripka was the man, who - act)ing like somebody in �44 SLOVAKIA the pay of Moscow - assured the Czechs and the uninformed world that reports about Moscow intervening in the internal affairs of individual states were absolutey false! Philip Panetili in his boO!k "Ed.war:d Benes, Leader of Democracy," on pgs. 123-124, notes the commentary of Dr. HUibert Ripka on the treaty of December, 1943, which Dr. Benes concluded with Moscow. "This Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty," said Riipk:a at that time, "had as its aim to strengthen the security of Europe." Ripka rejected the contention that this pact would mean the bolshevization of Euro,pe or Ozecho,Slovaikia. "The treaty," Ripka stated categorically, "gives a clear answer to all those who continue to suspect the Soviet Union of the intention of bolshevizing the countries of Central Europe that are its neighbors, nay, of intending even to annex them to the Soviet Union. The treaty gives a clear answer to all who are continuing to present Czecho-Slovakia as a tool in the hands of the Soviets. In the agr.e ement of 1943, the Soviet Union once again binds itself to respect her independence and that it shall not intervene in her internal affairs. Czecho-Slovakia binds iself in a similar fashion. By these formal ties the fact was confirmed again that the Soviet government had no intention of forcing its political regime on other nations and so much the less to annex the nations of Central Europe or any others to the Soviet framework." Whence did Dr. Ripka know these things? Was he ignorant of the fates of the Caucasian repulblics, or the painful fate oif the three Ba:ltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Est01I1ia? Since the S01viet government acted imperlalisti:c . ally to.ward those states, why did Ri,pka think that the same thing would not aiso happen in the case of Czecho~Sl()IV3ikia? But Riipka wenlt mucli farther . He said thait the treaty which Ozeicho-SlavaJkiia conicluided with the Soviet Union not only did not weaken her S01Verdgnty and independence, but, converseJy, that 'basically it strengthened and secured them. As a real progressive, aJ.way;s wanting to instruct and teach other nations, R1pka offered thi,s instruction: "Not in distrust and in a hostile stand toward the Soviet Union, but in confidence and sincere willingness for a clean, friendly cooperation with the Soviet Union is the re- �SLOVAKIA 45 liable guarant.ee for assuring the freedom and independence of every country, namely, the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. Every nation in this region with which the Soviet Union borders directly can be certain if it cultivates a friendship with this great power - that it certainly shall get from it help to defend its freedom and independence." Note the certainty with whioh Ripka spo!ke in 1943 about the future conduct of Moscow toward the states that trust it. What swperfJdality that was, what irresponsrbility, nay, what rookllesness oif the first degree! The years have proved that the Slovaks were right when they warned in the Piiag,ue Parliament that the union of Ozecho-,Slovakia with Moscow was "the greatest blunder ever committed by Ozecho~Slovaik foceign ,p olitics." The blunder of 1'93'5 was duplii cated in 1943, and its consequences showed up in July, 1947, in a dram'atic way. On Jul,y 7, 1947, the Prrugue Council oif Ministers, whose presidoot was K1lement Gottwald, unanimously aJOCepted the hwitation to the confereI11ce in Paris, where Czecho-Sl'Ovakia was to join the Marshall Plan. Not a single minister voted against it. On Jruly 9th, Gottwald, Jan Masaryk, and Drt1na flew to Moscow. There the representatirves of s01vereign and independent Repulb1ic of Czecllo-Sloviak:ia were ordered by Stalin to annul their unanimous decision. and tell Paris that the Ozecho-Slov;aJk RepuibHc would not join in the · Marshall Plan. Behold the crude Soviet mterventi:on in the internal affairs of a state to which the :S oviets had guaranteed SOIV·· ereignty and independence, in two treaties. And the Czech delegation, of which Gottwald was the only Communist, unanimously accepted Stalin's dictate in Moscow! Gottwald, just as Masaryk, telephoned several tirmes from Moocow to Prague to have the Coun.cil @f Miniisters convene and unanimous!~ "ruccept" Stalin's order. It must be stressed that at this time the Council of Ministers was presided over by Dr. Peter Zenkl, the first Vice-Premier of the government and presently the chairman of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" of Washington, D. C. Capitulation! 1 �4-6 SLOVAKIA The small nation of the. Finns and Tito did not capitulate before the dictates of Moscow. The Czechs C8l{)itulated and t:hey themselves, headed by Benes, Ma.saryk, Zen!kl and Rilpka, voluntariJy went over into the Soviet camp. That is their handiiwork and, hence, they t:hemselrves are responsibie fo1.' it. And it is their ulllpardOO!aJble sin that into their caJmp they also dvrugged the S}QIV'a;ks who never a.greed with the Sovietophile po:lilcy of Benes, Mla.saryik, Zen!ki and Ripka. The Slo:vaks from the very beginning warned the Czechs that they were on the wrong road when they fraternized with Communi'sti:c Moscow. A. J. Janda·cek wrote the truth in his boOlk•l et ''Behind the Iron Curtain'' (Chicago·, 1948) , when he said: "Everything that happened in Prague in February, 1948, was only the result and climax of all former provisions of the Czech government in London." To this I might add, that it was the result of the decisions oif not onJy the London government, but also that government in Prrugue, which, after 1945, rupproved all decrees and accepted all legal motions which the Communists placed before it and the Parliament. Not once did the anti-Communist majority in Parliament reject Communistic bills. Thus, in a,n altogether legal manner, the ground was prepared for Communism in Czecho-Slovakia. Under those laws, serving only Communism, we find the signatures of Zenkl, Ripka and the rest of the Communist collaborators. All these gentlemen thought that they could flirt with Communism to build in Central Europe some kind of greater Czech power, greater than it really was. We s•a w how without ptllblic protest the whole Czech government caipituJl:ated to the dictates of Stalin. It reversed itself completely on the Marshahl Plan. The goverD!ID.ent newspa.pers - which a few days 'befOTe had ,prruised the Marshall Plan and the acwantages of entering into it - now began a heaiviy bomlbardment against America and the Marshall Plan. Now, let us see what was happening in Slcwakiia aJt that same time. Ripka says tJhat President Benes in the summer oif 1947 went to Slwakia for a rest. He went to Toporcia.niky which lies some 2 kilometers from the capital city of Slova:kia , �SLOVAKIA 47 Bratislava. At the Topof,cian:ky castle, for six years (19391944), the president of Slorvaikia, Dr. Joseph Tiso, used to spend his summers. It was the summer holffie df the same Dr. Tiso who was hanged in Bratisilava on Aprii 18, 1947, after Benes refused to grant clemency. Most decent peoiple thought it was tactiless on the part oif Benes to go to Slovakia in 1947. Benes, it seems, with his presence in sorrowing SlOIV'akia wanted to boast of his triumph over Tiso, just as a year before he had done in Bohemia with the former president of Ozecho-Slovaikia, Dr. ffimfil Ha;cha. The Slovak s always lwke to welcome guests. In Slovakia there is a motto: a guest in the home - God in the home. Well, in the case of Benes, this motto did not holld. The Slovaks bitte:rly s:uifd'ered the presence of Benes in their land, in their own home. They de1uged Benes with letters, anonymous and signed, ~n which they called him tlhe heartless mwrderer .o f Dr. T~so, and the greatest enemy oif the Slovaks, predicting for him a most shameful end within a year. In his memoirs RJiipka admits that Benes did not feel physicaJ1y w~ll in Slovrukia. Within a few daJYiS he was threatened with an atta~k of paralysis (aipoplexy). The Slorvaiks loolked upon these re[>Orts with satisifa:cition, seeing ilil them the fJniger of God. As soon as, Benes le:ft .Sloviakia a mass political perseoution olf S'IO!Vaik paitriots began in that hapless countey. The Communists were seeking to gain their ends, while the Ozechs, on the oither hand, their OiWil aims. But their common goal was: to master Slovakia and break her resistance. 1 Both the Communists and the Benes Oze~hs wanrted to frighten the Slava!k'S who had on the who,l e remained tr:ue to the idea of the Slovaik State. The Slorv ~s were forced to live together with the Czechs in a common state against their will from 1945, the State they had parted with on March 14, 1939. It is known that the Communists were more tactfruJ. with the S1oivaJk national question. They admitted th.tat a nation that on.ce had its own State would never re~ nounce it wilfwlly. Ripka recalls correctly that when Ben~ returned from Moscow in 1944, he told his intilmates in London of the possibility of establishing an independent SlovaJk �48 SLOVAKIA State. That was at a time when Moscow, in the agreement of 1943, solemnly recognized Ozecho-Slovaikia, resipected the integrity of her territory, nay, even recognized Benes as the "president" of the "new" Czecho.,SlovaJkia. ·.1n Mosicow, Benes was given to understand that a S1oviak Repulblic was not only possilble, but also quite a~ceiptaible to Stalin. 1 Of course, the Communists at that time (1944) ~pected the Slovaik president, Dr. Jo£qph Tiso, to go to Moscow, or to send his plenipotentiary, to negotiate the possi.bility of saving the SlovaJk Repuiblic under a Communistic disguise. Dr. Tiso, however, refused to go to Mosicow, whilE Benes aJlld the ruJers of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria did go. With Dr. Tiso a ,principle was at stake. With the others only tact. But one cannot malke tad out of principle. It never pays. And nothing permanent or valU'aJble can be attained by surrendering prindples. It was not oruy Dr. Tiso, but all the SlovaJks loyal to him, who refused to go along with the Slova;k CO!mlffiunists or the Commumsts of Moscow. In the elections of 1946, the SlQ!VaJks voted over 70 per cent against Communism and, this, clearly made it known that they did not want to coUa:borate with Communism under any ciroumstainces. The SloiVa;ks pr01Ved in practice their loyalty to the principles exipressed by Stur, Palarik, Stefanik, Hlinika, Tiso and otfue:r rpolitical representatiives of the Slovak nation. This wa:s a pra'CticaJl demonstration of the high political consciousness of the Slovaks, the basis of which was a clean and practical Christianity. Ripka knows well that the Czechs were not i!J:nlbued with any such consciousness. In Bohemia not only Czech workers, but even Czech peasants voted for Communism. What is mo:re, even Kral'ovske VinOihrady, where the wealthiest groups of Ozech boungeoisie resided, voted for Communism. The rich Czechs wanted to save their wealth, their 'b anks and factories, just as Czech wonkers wanted to save their work and the Czech faI'Illers their lands. In Slovakia, however, the fight against Comrnunism was waged on an. ideological basis of clean national traditioo. �SLOVAKIA 49 and of adherence to the Catholic Church. It thus happened that the Communists and Ozeich centralists had to come to grips with a spiritual power such as CatholiciSlm. R~pka wrote that "the Communists, favoring Slovak nationalism, were, not successful in paralyzing the influence of Slovak Catho&cism, which is not only nationalistic, but also passionately anti-Communist." We might add that even the Ozech centralists could not paralyze the influeD1Ce of Catholic-ism on publilc affairs in Slorvaldia. At that time, Riipka mentions in his memoirs, he, Zenkl, the Stra.nskys, father and son, and Drtina came together at Karls1bad. They worked out a plan to haive the Slovak Democrati~ Party - representing aver 60 per cent of the anti-Communist voters olf Slorva.kia - "ta;ke the initiative to rid itsellf olf 'undesirable' elements in its rrunk,~." The Communists were for the plan 100 per cent; not only with words, burt with deeds as wel!l. The Minister of Interior in Bratislava was a certain General Nicholas Ferjenci!k, a man without prindple and a willing exeouito.r of CommUJnistic orders. On Octo!ber 6, 1947, this Ferjenrcik broadcast that his o:5fice had tmcOIVered a plot against the Reipulblic and had already arrested 380 young memlbers of the ,S lovak anti..icentralistic and anti-Communistic intelligentsia. He accused them, as Rijpka states, "of colla:b orating with emigrants who were in foreign lands under the leadershtp of Sidor and :Our- cansky." Immediately the State representatives at Bratislaiva demanded the Prague parLiament to. deprive of immunity two Slovak Catholic gentlemen, deputies and general secretaries of the Slorvak Democratic Party, Dr. Mi<los Bugar and Dr. Jan Kempny, who were, it was chavged, connected with the "plot against the Reipulblic" Rtpka himself confirms that this was all a Communist inrvention. The offidals were not concerned with punishing ou1prits, because there were none. But they did want to terrorize the anti-COimimunistic elements in Sloiviakia, which meant pra-ctically the whole pOipulation of SlovaJkia. And, in this case, a shameful thing happened. Within the SlovaJk Democratic Party and within the Czech Government parties the Red colla!borators began their shady work. �50 SLOVAKIA They demanded Bugar and Kempny be deprived of immunity. These two deputies, mind you, belonged to the largest anti-Comnn,tmist party in. Sl01Vakia tha,t was represented in the Prague Government by Jan Ursiny, Vice-Premier of the Government, Dr. liV'an Pietor, Minister of Railroads, Dr. N. Franetk, Minilster of Unification, and Jan Lic'lmer, State UndersecTetary in the Ministry of National Defense. And in 194 7 the Prague Parliament had an absolute majority of non-Communist deputies. Something that should not have ha.'Ppened dild haq>pen. The Prague Government decided to sur.re:nder both Slo,vak deputies,. and immediately thereafter Parliament deprived both the general secretaries of a Government party in Slovalkia of their deputorial immunity. Dr. Bwgar and Dr. Kempny had to sit in jail, while Dr: Joseph Lettri'ch, president af the Democratic Party, !kept on sitting in the chairman's seat of the Slovak Naition,a;l Council in Bratislava and the other ministers remained sitting in their ministerial chairs in Prague. In the history af parliamentarism this is probably the only case of its kind. It was possible only bec8.lllse none of the people in the Government of Prague and Bratislava had enough co.ura:ge and p&sonal integrity to fight the Commtmists. A1l tihe SlO'V'ak and Czech people in Goive:rmnent were willing to make any and aill compromi<ses, treaties ano concessions, as long as they could pay for them with the freedOIIn and Sltlffering oif others. The case of Bu,gar and Kemipny presented the occasion to begin a .g reat offensive against the extortions af the Communists in the OzechoSlovaik Republic. The Slova!ks, as one man, todk the lead, in this ba,ttle, bec8.lllse here the principle af freedom was· at stake and the freedom of two af their sons was threatened. But they were hopelessly overpowered by the Reds and the Benes Czechs. True it is tha:t Benes, Riipka and others of their kind were of the opinion that onJy the western powers were supiposed to oppose the Communists and to stem the tide of Communism. Benes, Riiipka, and others of their political entourage, thought that their yielding, duplicity, nay, even their hostility toward their two co-workers, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny, was appealing to the Soviets. And such was �SLOVAKIA 51 the case. A great opportunity to sihow up the Reds was lost in the case of Bugar aind Kempny. It meant that the first fight on internal policy was lost, and that only shortly after Pra:gue also lost its first battle on foreign policy by olbeying Stalin and refusing to join in the Ma.I1S:hall P}an. Let us not forget that all this was done with the assent of Dr. Benes. Even here he · had his own "plan," and according t,o it he direct.ed especially the Czech National Socialists. We must rememb.er that Dr. Benes was a deputy and vice-president of the Czech National Soc,ialist Part.y from 1920 to 193'5, and that he financed it generously out of the State treasury. Benes needed that party as a means to gain his ends. He wanted first of all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then, af:ter T. G. Masaryk, the office of -p resident. Then, when he noticed that the pallty hindered him in attaimng his ends, he easily renounced it. And so it was that in 1926 the party of the Ozetch National Socialists went into opposition to the Government rund its deputy, Dr. Edward Benes, was supposed to follow it. But he preferred to .r esign his mandate of deputy so that he cowd remain in the goivernment as an "impartial" (non...politi'cal) Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, the C.oo<!h National Socialists always regarded Benes as their man - their leader. Little wonder, then, that the Czech National Socialist ministers went to President Benes for adMce during the crisis that broke out in the Government between the Communists and the non-Communists in 194-8. Without Benes's assent nothmg was underta.ken, and Benes assured his followers that he Wa!S bacikinig them, that he would not desert them as he did in 1926. That was sUipposed to mean that he wowd not use them as tools to hold his position, but that he wowd stay with them to the end in the fight against the Communists in government, rugainst Gottwald's faction. In the moo:nitime. the Comunists sought to strengthen their positions, the key positions in the government which Benes had given them. In 1947 the Communists held these positions in the Pra;gue Government: Klement Gottwald, Premier; Viliam Siroky, Vi:ce~~ e r ; Vaclav Nosek, Min- �1i2 SLOVAKIA ister of Interior; Ja.romil Dolansky, Minister of Finance; Vaclav Kopecky, Minister of Infomnation; Ant.on Zmrhal, Minister of Internal 00immerce; Zdenek Nejedly, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare; Julius Duris, Minister of Agriculture; Vlado Clementis, StiaJte Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All these Corrununist ministers did what was in the interest of their Party. And this jolb they did loyally and thoroughly. The Minister of the Interior, Nosek, purged the leadership of the Deipartment oif National Security in Bohemia of all non-Co1rmmmist eilements. He had eight regional commanders of the polrce tra..."'lsferred and fiUed their places with eight reliallJle Communists. The non-Communist ministers had a pretext to attack. This was one of the most foolish quarrels thiat ever took pla:ce. But President Benes rupproved it and was happy that the Communists occasioned it. The time to stir Uip the masses in Slovaikia and the whole Reipulblic, as weH a,s for rousing the sincere anger of the people, was when the Corrumunists demanded the arrest of the two SlovaJk deputies, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny. But this opportunity was not used by Benes and his followers. Why should i.t be? Noithing b:uit the freedom and the lives of two Slo:viak Catholic deputies was ait stake ! Benes, Riipka, Zelllkl and company figured that they could better move the masses by starting a fight O!Ver such a great affair as No~ transferring eight po1icemen in Prague and supplanting them witih eight others. The police affair could not enthuse the Slav'c!Jkis and mll!c:h less the Czechs, who never were fighters. Besides the Czechs are educated by their witty journalist P. Haivlicek to hate and ridicule the police. But Benes, Zookl, Ri:pika and others, who did not go a:mong the peo,ple, but made politics in offices and editorial rooms, wanted to rescue eight poHcemen on account of whom a "graJve goveirrnmenual crisis" was initiated. On Felbruary 13, 1948, Zelllkl and other non-Communist ministers demanded that Nosek rescind his order. The Communists answered that the matter belOil!ged to the Ministry of Interior, and Nosek would rescind nothing. Every minister performs his office and does th,i ngs as he noiws best. The �SLOVAKIA 53 government can caiH a minister to answer for his office, but in this case Premier Gottwald would not do that. Gottwald agreed completely with Nosek and would not disavow anything the Minister of t:Jhe futerior had approved. The nonCommunist ministers considered for a few days whether they should or shou;ld not resign. They told Nosek that they would not a,ttend any meetings of the GOfVernment or the National Front as long as Noselk would not rescind his order. On February 18th, Ripka and Zenk.I again hurried to Rresident Benes, who. approved of their taJctics and encouraged them to peraevere. He advised them to resign and so force the Commurusts to yield. Again and again :he asS1Ned them that he would stand by them "no, matter what happens!'' Fiil!ally, on Felbruacy 20, 1948, three parties - the Ozech Nationa,l Socialists, Sramek's Czech People's Party, and the S1ovruk Democrats - reca:Ued their ministers from the Government. Before resigning, Zenkl, as chairman of the National Socialist Party, telephoned President Benes and as Ripka himself tells it - Benes said over the telephone : "Finally! And now 'b e careful! No false moves!" Benes aiso peTsonally assured the resigning ministers that they acted co:rirectly when they resigned. He stated emphatically that he would not aC'Capt their resignations and so force the Comttnunists to yield. J,f there was any one who did not belieive in the strength and persona.:l honesty of Be,. nes, that person was the leader of the Czech Populists, Msgr. Sramelk. A. J. Janda:ceik in his booklet "Behind the !Ton Curtain" writes (ipg. 29): "Verry fow people, however, knew President Benes as well as Msgr. Sramek did. He knew how Benes conducted himself during the Munich crisis and 1kne,w some of his irresolute and 01Verly philosqphk views. That is why he expressed the fear at the time: whether too m1.11ch responsibility WalS not •b eing placed on the President, whether it was wise to put all the burden on the shoulders of one man. In his judgment Sramek went so far as to express a grave fear whether the President - with regard to his health would not aJotually disappoint in this decisive moment and �54 SLOVAKIA whether his nerves woulrl last to oppose the hard and well considered plans olf the Communists. Dr. Peter Zenkl, however, was so satisfied with the president's conduct that he dispelled Srarrnek's fears aJt least partially." In a word, it was known that Benes could not withstand the ordeal, as he could not even in 193'8 in Mund.ch. It was known that Benes's assurances had to be taken with great reserve - on the baisis of past experiences. Burt: why, then, did the tiwe1ve ministers ha,nd in their resignations, when Benes was not supposed to accept them and when with their resignation he was suwosed to peinform some sort of magic before the eyes of the Communists? Such utter silliness was SlllPposed to frighten the Communists and maike them concede, when they ha,d the masses on the move and headed in one direction in the Prwgue "of Benes" - the Prague that was ail Solkol and true to democracy?! The Communists used St.ate funds to call a rally of workers and farmers from the whole Republic to Pragqe. They commanded the streets of Prague. They already had the police safely in their hands since 1945, and General Ludo vik Sloboda, whom Benes named Minister ·of National Defense, promised to have the entire army ready if Gottwald should need it. Into the situation, directly from Moscow, flew Valerian A!exandroviic Zorin, Soviet deputy minister of Foreign Mfuirs and fo:mner Soviet aanibassador in Kosi.ce and, then, in Prrugue. Against these enthusiastic Communist masses that filled the streets of Prague and against· Zorin, who represented the whole diploma:tic and military might of the Soviet Union, Dr. Edward Benes stood alone. Behind him were the twe1ve ministers shaking with fear - the ministers who real1y did not want to resign, but wanted to stay on as .rninistem and in the Government, that is to say, to eogoveI1I1 with the Carrurruunists. That really was a scene for a puppet theatre! SraimeJk, as a good soothsayer, kept on cautioning that Be:nes would not hold up, that Benes was capiturlating even as he had capitulated in the fall of 193·8 to Ado1ph Hitler. And so it happened. Goittwa:ld and Nosek visited Benes two or three times to tallk things over. These were in~ �SLOVAKIA 55 teresting coowersiations. "The president," writes A. J. Janda.eek, "ordered liistening deivices be placed in the room in which Benes conferred with the Communists. President Benes at that moment did not \know that a:ll his conversations and telephone calls were followed and heard 'by a system whi:ch already was rigged up by the Communist police without Benes's knoiwledige." Borth negotiarting parties tried to ,b eat each other in being cralfty. But the Communists were always a step ahead of Benes. Mteir Go.ttwa1d and Nosek left Benes, he was vdsited by two Nat:ionai Socialist ministers, Riipka and Stran. sky: This was Benes's l1ast conive1:1sation with these two ministers. Ripka noted the folloiwing as coming out of that conversation: Benes 'began the colllVersation with an energetic cry: "I shall not give in! I said openly and clearly to Gottwald: 'You are preparing to overthrow the St.ate, for a putsch, but I shall not let myseH be terrorized : by you'!" And then Benes told them the ·contents of his Wk with Premier Gottwald. I (Ripka) tQlld hd,m without mincing words: "That which you are preparing is another Munkh." The President's face grew serious. He said to us: "You .Jroow the Communists. You know that they do not hesitate to use any means to real±ze their pla:ns. We must be ·prepared for anything." There were reports, which I persona:hly _did not believe, that is that Russia was going to at~ck us. I told the President that I thought Russia would ,be S'atisfied to extend political help to our Corrm:i.un~sts, 'but that _w ith regard to the internatio.n•a l comp1ications that ' might result - Russia would not decide on a single military intemrention. The president listened with great attention. Then · he said to me literally: "I agree with you. I also think that way; Moscow will not take a risk -that would mean · military intenvention. Nevertheless, I .cannot -exclude the possi.ibility that the Soviet av.my would cross our · ,'bo:rders and then what would we do?" 1 �56 SLOVAKIA "What would we do?" - repeated the president, looking at me and then at Stransky, "Yes, what would you do?" I answered that in such a case we would be occupied and defeated. But the nation and the whole world would see that we suC'Cumlbed to violence. It would be known that the COiIDmunist regime was forced upon us, that Ozecho.,Slwakia was a victim of an attack, agruinst which she could not defend herself. This defeat woud carry us to a new victory. A moment of silence intet,vened. Then the president 1begain to say: "Maybe," - he said - '~but that is not cerbain. Nolbody will helip us. Moscow knows tha:t." Then with growing feeling, raising his voice, Benes said: "I know them well, those peo,ple frO!lll MOS'COw. I had a chanice to know them more iintimaitely than you have known them. You overrate their intel1igence and their foresight. Even I committed the same mistalke. They do not U!Ilderstand the other states ait a!H. They thinlk they are realists. But, in fact, they are only fain.a.tics. Their whole policy is nothi,IJJg else but one of provoki.n!g war. But with them everything will end up as it did wlith Hitler." Stransky who never heard the president speak so, cried out: "And you tell us that? You who have done more than any!body else on earth to bring albout colla1boraition with Soviet Russia?" ,B enes smiled sadly and said: "I repeat what I have already told you: I shall not yield! You may rest assured on that!" With tha,t sentence our last carwersation with president Benes ended. None orf us ait that moment could know that we shall never again see him. So wrote Ripka albout his last conversation with Benes. The coniversation tells us that Benes knew the Soviet factors in Moscow and 'knew them for a long time. And, yet, he continually and without end recommended to Roosevelt and Churehill to collaborate wlith them. He demanded that the West believe Stalin. Benes dressed up the lies of Soviet �SLOVAKIA 57 propaganda in a gartb of truth and thus, presented them to the uninfoI1II1ed West. That is how Benes sinned against the whole Christian world. He did not go unrewarded. He had to stand alone and face to face wi,t h the Soviet danger knowing that "nl()(body will helip us -- Moscow knows that." Despit,e all hlis assurances that he would not submit, that he knew the Communists well, Benes, nevertheless, did give in to the Communists. He capitulated to Clement Gottwald. He accepted the resignations of the 12 non-Communist minist,ers a-nd named the Government that Gottwald dictated! And what haJPPOOed with the 12 ministers who resigned? Espeicialiy what happened with the four ministers who belonged to, the Czech Na,tional Socia,1ist Party of Dr. :&!ward Benes? On May 6, 1948, deputies Dr. Duchacek, Dr. Krajina, Dr. StraJI1Skiy, VHim and Firt collaJborated in preparing a report on the .Alls,a{!e HoUJSe in FranikfuTt. This is what it says literally: "On the ad:temoon of Februacy 28, 1948, the National Socialist ministers assembled in the residence of Dr. Stransky. Durinig this meeting they telephoned Dr. Jina, political adviser af President Benes, and aslked him whether the President wotrld reiceiive them, as is the custom when ministers resign. Dr. Jina answered tha.t the President will not receive them and he repeated this statement when Dr. Rilpka asked a,g,a.in. Dr. Rilpka then said to Jina: "Tell Mr. President for us that he would not corner wJth the fouir ministers who during the who,l e period stood uncompromisingly behind his program. with him in full agreement. We want Dr. Benes to know just how the people who coUaiborated so closely witlh him feel rubout his not giving them an audience to e:,cplain his stand." Benes had fivst eooouraged the miru.stera to resign, then he assured them of his loyalty and persevea-ence, and, in the end, without theiir knowledge of it, had decided to accept their resignations. Then Benes did not even want to tadlk with them in parting. To keep the presidency Benes no longer needed the Czech N'aittonal Socialist Party nor its �58 S LOVAKIA four ministers. Now he needed only the Communists, because at the m01Inent they were stronge,r and in power. On February 27th Benes received the whole Gottwald gavernrment. Gottiwald said his speech, presented his ministers to Benes, and Benes replied to Gottwald's speech. By doing so, Benes accoided the recognition od' legality to the Coonmll!Ilist ministers for aH their future orders. · ..t\ifter Mlunich Benes proclaimed that he had a "plan." That w,as th~ plan by which he fled from Czecho..SlovaJkia. After cwpitulating t o Gottwald - the caipitulation that Benes himself ca'lied a "second Munich" - Benes burst into tears and said to editor Janda.eek, ,aecordin:g to 'J andacek : "Tell all the people who love democraicy to woiik in its interest and to try to validate its principles everywhere, and that eyen there, where they were for a time outraged." But did not Benes disgrace them? Did he haive to wp• prove the Communistic system? Were only othel's swppooed to work and fight for democracy, while Benes and his people were entitled to roop its advanta:ges and oo.j'Oy its privileges? After this secood capitulation Benes did not have an aerop1ane. He could not fly rubroad. He had only an automdbile. In it he left for his priv,ate residence in Sezimova U sti. He left, but only alter lie had legalired. every~ thing that the Oommumsts did and what they were still to do with the poople oif Ozecho-SfovaJlda. Benes, "the great de~ mocrat and builder," had done all that for the Communists! At the .end of his memoirs Ripk!a displayed .t he pinnacle of his cynicism. He whit~washed the Benes Czechs. They could not prevent the second Munich, even with weapons, he says, because the Soviet army would probably walk in and swbject the Czechs to untold brutalities. "After the oooupation of our country by the Soviet a11my in 1945," Ripka writes cynically, "we knew well what the Soviet army was cwpalble of!" (Il P01polo, Rome, May 15, 1949) . . Whether Ripka was in London or in Prague, until February 1948, he ·a-Iways spoke and wrote about the "liberation" ,of •Czecho,.JSlovakia a,nd the victorious Soviet . ·army; �SLOVAKIA 59 The Czechs actuaHy welcomed that amiy enthusiastically. While Benes and the Czecihs 'kept tal!kiing about "liiberation" from 1945 to 194'8, we Slovaks, on the other hand, claimed that SlovaJkia was octmipied, that the Sio:viruk State was suppressed by force and th at the Soiviet soldiers in 1M4-1946 committed the most terrible bestialities against unarmed Slovak men and women. 1 Even Czech emigrants told me to my face that Slovakia was "liberated" in 1945. But today, even Ripka confesses, rather belatedJy, that his Bohemia, too, was occupied by Red Moscow already in 1946 ! That really is unmitigated cynici,s m, coming as it does from a person who played "independent minister" from 1945 to 1948 in his occupied country and then, looving the country, would agiain - with some other kind of army of "liberation" - save not only his own country, but also our beaten and crucified . SloviaJkia. We began our remarks to Ripka's memoirs by citing the ar.gumenit of R:dbert Ingrim about the possibility of the existenice of a secret a·g rooment between. Benes, Ripka, Zenkl and Gottwa:ld. Now we read in the newspaper of the Czech National Socialist deiputy Fr.anois Klatil ("CA.IS," London, The Wa!Wi(j}c Printing Co. , issue No. 1, 1949) a note from the pen of Dr. Edward Benes a:bout the conferenJce with Gottwald on May 1'4, 194'8. In it Benes carries on a long dialogue with Gottwald aiboot wanting to resign from the presidency. Let us quote at least a few sentences from it: "The president does not want to tell the Communists to do things dififerently, since he does not want to hinder them. That is why he repeats to the Premier o!f the Government not to loOlk for any foreign influences in his action. It is only and only his personal decision. . . . The president again emphasizes that (in Sezimovo Usti) he did not receive any1body, neither did he aiSlk anyibod,y for any exiplanations or to let him kno:w his stand. Eive:rything is exclusively his own.. .. Therefore he .is g1ving the Communist PM'ty freedom of action to arr.ange things to suit its needs. The President further states that he is taLkiDJg with the Prime Minister of the government witlh complete sincerity �60 SL OV AK IA and con1Viction and he is asking him to judge what he is saying from that standpoint. He does not quarrel, nor in the end, does he want to part with t!he Prime Minister of the Governrment in a quarrel. . . . He does not want the Communists to hasve any quaITels with the President, nor the President to quarrel with the Communists, 1because it would be possi!ble to a.lbuse this. The State is so dear to the President, that he will do nothing that might harm it. . . . Prime Minister Gottwald at first replied in general terms to the President's explanation. and his initention orf abdiooting. He says that the Communists wotl'ld prefer not to have to discuss the question olf the departure of the President. He knows what moti1Ves the President has, he respects them aoo thinks that id' it is already necessary to part, that they would want to part as friends. The President answers, that he wishes the same. He said that to Smutny and hopes that they shall pa.rt as friends. He reminded even Dr. Clementi'! that he, Benes, will not undertake any action against his own State, that he will not go against the Communists and he shall not undertake any act that would be direct.e<l against the Soviet Union." That, then, is how Benes spoke to Gottwald in Sezimoivo Usti. He assured him he would do nothing against the Communists or the Soviet Union. He expressed a sincere desire to part with Got:Jtwal:d and the Communists in Governmeint as a friend. He wanted to retire and hand over everything to Gottwald and his Ozech Reds peaoofully. And he did eventually. Gottwald then saw to it th,a t Dr. Edward Benes got full pay "for life," too. Does the international anti-Com.mt.mist pU!blic think that the sa,me principles do not hold for Bene.s's close colila:borators - for Ripka, ZenJk,l , and for the many other Czechs, who fled Ozechoslovaikia after February 19~8? We must be on our g:uard. The legends olf "li'beration" and "Jiberntors" from 1948 to 1945 are well knolWil. to us and must ever be a warning not only for us Slova:ks, but a'lso for the whole civilized Christian world. � 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 1953, Vol. 3 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 6), April 1953.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 7), July 1953.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 8), September 1953.</li> <li>Issue 4 (No. 9), December 1953.</li> </ul> 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 1953 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 DR. HUBERT RIPKA'S VERSION OF THE COMMUNliST "PUTSCH" IN CZECHO-SLOVAKIA Karol Sidor Fourteen months after the Communists took over Czecho-,Slovalda, Hubert R~pka, former minister orf various resorts cxf the late Dr. Edward Benes, decided to write a series o,f articles under the head.mg of "A Prefabricated Revolution" (Une Revolution Prefabriquee) . The articles, telling what happened in Prague in February 1948, were published in several European dailies. Why Riipka waited so long to tell the world his version of what happened in Ozecho--lSlovaikia early in 1948, he does not d~V'll:lge, but it is quite obvioUIS that he wanted time to do a little healing. Rilpka's trade was journ.alism. He was the editor o:f the "Lldove Noviny" (People's News), the daily cxf · the Czech intelligentsia published in Brno, and during his six years in exile he was Minister of Propaganda - and what propaganda! - of Dr. Benes's London government-in-exile. R iipka, then, was ruble and crupafbJe of writing. The Roman daily "II POipolo" paid quite a tribute to Ripka when it began pUJblishmg his series of articles. It presented Ripka as "the only Czechoslovak democratic minister, who successfully escaped from his country after last February's putsch"! Of course, that was a bit far.fetched, because we know that ministers Zenkl, Kocvara, Stransky, Pieto.r , Prochazka, Majer and Franelk also escruped from Praigue after the Felbruary "putscih ." These collea,gues of Ripka were just a s "Czechoslovak" and "democratic" as he was himself. They all had one thing irn common with Ripka: they helped Benes sell out both the Slovaks and the Czechs to the USSR. It is quite s1gnifiicant that after sUJCh a "terrible putsch" so many Ozeoh ministers, officials and leading politicians could escape without incident or accident. Robert Ingrim -,. author cxf "After Hitler Stalin?" - wrote a:bout this phenomenal exodus in the Swiss "ViATIDRLAND" of SLOVAKIA 33 September 25, 1948. One is led to suspect with Ingrim that so many Czech ministers, generals, politicians and thousands of Czech go.vernment officials and workers could hardly escaipe wtthout incident or accident without a "deal" with Comrade Gottwald. Any one who has read Riplta's articles must admit that Ripka was careful not to attook Gottwald or Zapotocky. What is more, Riplk a did not conrfess that he played bad politics, or that he was sorry for what he had done, or that he would never again collaiborate with Communism. On the contrary, Ripka wrote: "Today more than ever before, I cannot stop believing that a free and independent Czecho-Slovakia can exist only in Europe that is brought to balance, where the West and Russia find a proper agreement to collaborate. Even the events of February 1948 could not shake me from this conviction, which remains the basis of my whole conception of national politics." - ("Fi,garo., " Paris, April 4, 1949). Stanisl•aN Mikolaj,czylk, Nagy Ferencz, and other refugees frOIID 'beyO!Ild the Lron Cm·tain wrote in a different tone. They corufessed that they were mistaiken in thinking they could negotiate a decent agreement with Soviet Russia. But Riipka stated pulblicly, even arrter the so...;called February "putsch," that he shall persist in his error, and his articles only corufirm the fact that in the "new" CzechoSloivaikia which Ripka would build - he would again cultivate contacts with the Communist USSR just as enthusiastically and loyally as does Antonin Zapotocky today in the name of Czecho-Slovakia. R~pka is lo•a th to admit that politically he is bankrupt. He keeps on talking aJbout a "new agreement" between the West and Russia meaning Czecho..Sl01Vakia when he sarys "West." In fact, w:hat he told us in his articles was equivalent to saying that ne and his "Czechoslovak democratic" colleagues would even now be collaborating with the Communists and Stalin's stooge in Czech-Slovakia, if they would have been allowed to keep their ministries. But in Washington, Ripka, Zenkl and the other soc_alled ·"OzechoslovaJk democrats" - now organized in tihe 34 SLOVAKIA "Council oif Free OzechoSilwakia" - talk aJbout their fight against Communism. Wihat kind of fight agaill'st Comm'll.Ilism? As far as is kno:wn there was no fight against Communism in Czeteho-1Sloivaikia as a whole, but only in Slovakia. Deception, appea:sement, crupitulation, and shameful mght mto other ilands can hardliy be called a "fight against Communism"! The mass "escape" oif Ozech Sociialists was undoulbtedly arranged and assured in advance, and the socalled "OzoohoslovaJk dernoorats" did not esc~ emptyhanded either. What can be tni.rthlfully said about the: fight of the Ozech emigration against Communism? Only this: We are still patiently waiting for it to start! It aippea,rs to us that Czech emigrants - both the right and left wings - are agreed on only one thing: to carry on their fight against Slovak emigrants and refugees whom they have termed "separatists." They vilify them before the Red Cross, the U. S. oocwpation forces and their allies, and the U. S. State Department. The Slovaiks, aocording to them, simply are no good; they are Hitlerites, Fascists, Nazis and, worst of all, "separatists." Aocording to Rilpka, Zenkl, Lebtrich and other "has.beens" of Dr. IDdward Benes's bankrl.llpt political ikd.ngdom, the Slovaks hiwe no right to freedom and independence, no right to an indeipendent po~mcal state. To the "Czechoslovak democrats" the fight against Slovak freedom and independence means more than the fight against Communism. T. G. Masaryk and Benes fooled the world in 1918. Benes did it again in 1945. And their disciples are dete:rmined to continue the propagation of the fraud that was "Czechoslovaik democracy.'' Ripka, Zenikl and their followers are not fighting Communism. The ra'llks oif Ozech emigrants are fiull or' agents of the Ozeich secret police and spies of the Communist Party. More Czech emigrants "escaped" back home than all'y other class of emigrants. That is not suITTprising to any one who really knows the Benes Czechs. There was veriy little difference between Benes's "Czechoslovak democracy" and Communism. The former was in fact a handmaid of the SLOVAKIA 35 latter. Benes and his "Czechoslovaks" could not suffer political opposition ~ more than the Reds or the Nazis. Loolk at their rewrds: they tell us tihat these queer "democrats" ipla,y ed a'long with Communism and actively collaborated with Communists for many yea,rs. Ripka enthusiastically welcomed the c0Ua.1boration and eternal frien<lshlp between Soviet Russia and Czecho...slovalkia in 1935 (Vd. his article in "Zahranicni politilka," Pra)gue, 1935,pgs. 14-l7). At that tilme Riipka wrote that the Ozechs wanted to 'b e "not only mediators between the old West and the new East, but also factors, actively cocreating a synthesis of lasting values of the old European civilization and the new civilization being born in the Soviet Union." Ten years later - in 19415 - the Benes Ozechs really got the chance to play the role of "factorris." They were given the opporturuty "to aictilvely cocreaite a synthesis" between Russia and Czec'ho~Slovakia. Just how suocessful they were in this, we shall see later when we anal~ Ripka's articles. But let us say at the outset: in Central Europe it was only the BENES CZECHS who actually want.ed to collaborate with the Communists! In Ma~, 194'5, when the Soviet a:ranies rolled into Prague, it was only the Ozechs cxf all the peoples of Central Eurorpe who welcomed them with oipen joy and enthusiasm a'S the "armies o,f lilbeTation." In the first Ozech post-wa,r government, Clement Gottwald, chairnnran of the Czech Communist party was named Vice-iPrennier am.d, after the parliamentary elections in 1946, as Premier of the government in Prague by "!president" Benes. At that time no;where did the Communists in a parliamentary election receive so many votes as they did in Bohemia a!Ild MoraJVia; in Slovaikia they were beaten dedsive1y by the SlovaJk electorate. 1 Such was the political line of Benes and his followers. In Prwgue the Cotmmunists, a;nd not Benes and Ripka, 1becrume the "factors." And the Communists lost no time in creating Rilpka's "synthesis" of 1935 between the "old West" and the "new East." Benes and Ripka had prepared for this synthesis already since 1935 and were beaming SLOVAKIA 36 with joy because the whole world was astounded by · their political recltlessness. Collaib,oration with the Communists in internal politics had begll!Il in 193'5 when Benes needed the votes orf the COimmunist Party · to be elected president. The C.omimunisits promised to vote fOl" Benes on the condition that Gottwald, Kopecky and Stetka, whose political mandates the Court of Election of Czecho-Slovakia would not verify and approve, would be approved as members of the Prague parliament. Benes promised to do that little thing and so enaJbled three Communists to become members of par1i'a,ment in 1935. 'Dhe Communists voted for Benes and later proved their sympathy for him by voting for the presildential budget every ye·a r. The Communists were for everything that •~President" Benes himself asked for in the budget, but either refrained from voting or voted against all other items of the State budget. 1 When Benes resigned as ,president of CzechO-iSlovakia in June, 1948 - the second time within a decade - the Communists voted him full presidential rpay for life and mrugnanimously gruve him the Limy Castle and the properties belonging to it. In a word, Benes and Ripka did collruborate with the Communists for many years. That collaboration did not cease because orf ideological reasons, but only because the Communists in February, 1948, told their collaborators what amounted to: "We thank you with communistic sincerity for your collab.o ration O!f many years with us. You can go now; we do not need you any mo:re. You can even go alb road if you wish; at hQlme you are useless to us, and id' you go abroad we shall not fear you." "The Czechoslovak people" - said Hubert Riplka in his article in the "IL POPOLO" ( 4--30-49) - "with singular joy welcomed the first allied treaty with Russia in 1935." In the first place, no "Czechoslovak" people exists, ethnJ1cally 51peruking. But there are Czechs a!lld Slovaks. There are two nations - the Czech and the Slovak - who do ~ t to all phenomena aocording to their training and traditions. And so it was with the treaty of Benes with Stalin in 193'5: the Czechs reacted one way, while the Slovruks reacted altogether differently. The ~ h s reacted "with singular SLOVAKIA 37 joy;" they welcomed that treaty, because they thought just as Ripka himself had thought in 1935 - that together they would be able to form a synthesis of the "old" European ciiv:i lization and the "new" civilization which was being born in the Soviet Union. Soviet ci'Vilization was not brought to Europe by Ripka; but by the soldiers of the Soviet armies. The nations of the "old" ciivilization felt the sting of this "new" civilization on their bodies. And they shall continue to feel it as long as they do not :wcept it 100 per cent by discarding the "old" civilization which was founded on Christianity and is almost 2000 yea:rs oJd. Personally, Ri;pka was terrified by Soviet . "'Ciivi.lilzation" in praclice. He did not remain in C?.echo-Slovakia to take part in the creation of the "synthesis," but fled far beyond her borders. Yes, as far a:s he could go Jrorn this "new" civilization which in 1935, he praised highly and recommended so zealously not only to the Czech peoiple, but to the whole world as well. Why did Ripka do that? Did he not ,know what was happemng in the S()IViet Union? From 191,8 to 1935 there were aJbout 100,000 Rlussians, Ukranian and White Russian emrl.grants in OzechoJS[,()IValkia. They had fled from the Soviet Union and told the Czechs what they saw aind e~rienced in Soviet Rlussia. 'Ilhe Benes Oze.chs, however, did not ~Ii.eve those eye-<Witneses. 'Ilhe Czechs were blinded by their old lave for the "Sl01Vanic Ea:st" and thought that Communism of the 1935 vintage was no longer the Communism of 1917. They forgot tllat Communism, as a doctrine and a system of government, is one and the saime for all peoples aJild all times. It does not relate only to the Russian Ozars, but to all n0;tions of the earth and to aH states. The substance of CommuniSIIll is not sulbject to the ohangeis of time. Ripka evidently met with real Communist civilization only in 194'8, in Prague, when it too:k aiway his ministry. He fled before it, we are sruq:~posed to believe, to saive his life. And yet 1n 1949 he wrote that he still believed in colla.borating with the UISSR. so Ripka, too, was a product of Czech na:tiona:l development, whlch was a1ways directed to the left. The Czedhs 38 ::,LOVAKIA made Jan Hus (1'370~141'5) the symlbol of their rebellion aigainst Rome. '.Dhey grolllped ooder his banner and always emphasized more and more the negati~stic ·elements of Hus' character, suppressing all his positive qualities. As a result large grOUfPS of the Ozech nation, matriculated as Catholics at baptism, got themselves. in the periphery of world Christianity, their roots of solidarity w~th the Ohristian civilization of the west dried Ulp in tilme and the Ozech masses aH the more readily joined the "111ew" civiHzation which Ripka said was being born in the Soviet Union. Thrs ideological development of the Czechs to the left explains why in 193'5 the Czechs welcomed a treaty with Moscow and why in 1946 in the parliamentary elections in Ozetcho-1Slovakia the international and atheistic Oommunist Party came out on top in Bohemia and Morrruvia. But the Ozechs were accustomed to belonging to laiI'!ge economiic and politkal units. Their outstanding historian, Francis Palacky, wrote to the FrMllkfurt Assemlbly in 1848: "The preservation of Austria, its integrity and cOl11SOlidation, is and must be a great and important th!ing not only to the Czech nation, but also to the whole, olf IDurope, nay, to all humanity and cultU'l"e." That same Palaciky is the author of the staitement: "H Austria did not exist, we would have to create it." Dr. Edward Benes shared similar ideas. In his bodk, "Le Problem Autrichien et la QuestiO!ll Tcheque" (pg. 307) ·b e wrote in 1908: "Frequently we bear talk about the collapse of Austria. I absolutely do not believe it. The historical and economic ties that mutually unite the 1181tions of Austria are too strong to allow Austria to collapse.'' This was written at a time when the Czechs were becomilllg a nation of oifificia.ils and directors, administering not only in Bohemia, Morruvia and Silesia, but even in Galicia, a signdficant part of Vienna and later even in Bosnta and Hercegcwina. True, this was all under the supernsion of Vienna and ac:corddng to her laws. During the first World War T. G. Masar,yik and Edward Benes came upon the idea of making the Czech nation independent by destroying Austria-Hungary. To help them SLOVAKIA 39 with that plan tihey SIUCCeeded in getting 1,'500,000 Slovaks to whom T. G. Masaryk had solemruy promised in Pittsburgh, Pa., on May 30, 1918, that Slovalk ia, within the framewonk af Czecho-SlovaJkia, would hiwe, arrnong other things, her own assembly, her own courts and her own ,s chools. On the 0:ther hand, Dr. Edward Benes, wJth his signature attaiched to the Peace Treaty of St. Germain Se!ptem\ber 19, 1919) , haid guaranteed the Ruthenfans territorial autonomy, a legislative a:ssemlbly, their own governor, etc. Both Masaryk and Benes la~r repudiated their solemn promises. As lonig as Masaryk and Benes · ruled Czecho,.,SloV'akia, neither the Slwaiks nor the Rut>henians were guaranteed autonomy. Nolbody 'bothered to ask the other peoples orf Czecho-SloV1aLkia - the 3,500,000 Germans, albout a miUion Magyars, SOIIIle 200,000 Po.les, etc., whether they wanted to live together with the · Czechs in the common staite of CzeohoSlorvaJkia. The frirst Constitution of 1920 was approved by the Prague parliament when that body did not have a single representative of the Germans, the Poles, Magyars and Ruthenians, and when the Slovaks were represented not by deputies elected by the Slovak people, but by deputies named by Prague, i.e., by T. G. Masaryk and Edward Benes. And that Constitution - a tyipi~al Benes creation remained tmchanged and was binding U!pon every citizen of Czeicho..iSllovaikia until N oivemlbe~, 193-8. It is understandiaJbJe that the majority Olf nations of the ReipUJblk did not fare well in Ozecho-.Slo,vaikia. The existence of Czecho-1Slovaikia was not supPorted by the will of the majority of her mhrubitants. 'l'he Czechs themseLves knew that, and the old desire for broader economical and political spheres, whereby the life o,f the Czechs could bet.t er be safeguarded and ·p rotected, began to awaken in them. They knew that internally Czecho-Slovakia was weak and that externally she wws threatened lb y the Germans. Czech leaders, therefore, ,b egan looking to;ward the So~fot Union which emlbraces one-SQxth o1: the unilverse. They began to tell their ,people and the world that the So'Viet Union was •a Slovian:ic land, that a "new" cirvi:lization and a new ally and ( 1 40 SLOVAKIA defender Oif the Ozech nation, especially against German aggression was being born there. This thought was strengthened by the Ozech...SOviet Treaty of 1935. The Czechrs saw before themselves the vast expansiveness Oif the Soviet cowntry which was incomparably larger and rilcher than Austria-iliungacy. Culturally and politicai11y the Russii'am,s were far ~hind the Czechs. The Czeohs dreamed that in time they might even rule the Russian roost! They thought that by collruborating with the Soviets they would sooner or later find themselves on top even if it were oruy in the sense of the old Czech and even sicikly inclination toward Panslavism - at one time the Czarist and Ortlhod-0x variety and now the Red and atheistic kind. Slovaik national development went along a completely different course. The SlOIVruks not only did not welcome the treaty with Moscow in 1935, but openly condemned it through their elected deputies, in the Prague parliament. The Slova3c naition built its spiritual world consistently on its own national tradition. That tradition was Christian. It was created with equal zeal by both the Slovak Catholics and the Slovalk Protestants. Thait S1walk tradition is the common property olf aU Slovalks, no matter what their political or religious beliefs. The Slovak Protestant L'udovit Stur (1815-1856), Slovak patriot and national philogq>her, left the Slovalk nation in his books valua/b'le sources on how to correctly orientate itself in new social and national tendencies. Stur's book "The Slavs and the World of the Future," published after his deaith, has this to sary albout the Communism of his day: ''In every instan1ee Communism means the collapse and the destruiction oif the state. Communism arrived at this aim through atheism and apostacy from Christianity. In every fornn of Communism, no matter w:hat its origin, the outlook on life is da,r,k, laicking every tender j'oy. It brings the most c:mel sJaivery. Commun,i:sm, let it striive. and pretend in any manner whatsoever that it will make all peoples share in all rights, nevertheless, knows nothing a!bout humanity; it degrades humanity and, because it holds to sys- SLOVAKIA 41 tams that are imipractiea!l and unrealizaJble, it belongs among the most stupid innovations that harve th'llS far been created by the human mind." The Slovak Catholic priest Jan Palarik (1822-1870) wrote a dissel'ta,tion in 1:864 "Albout SlOlVanic Mutuality." In it he resolutely stands fo.r a Slorvalk Sta,te and desires to see it in a federation of staites in EurOipe. But ne:ver under the direction of Russia. Pa1arik strongly repudiated Russia,n Panslavism and ,predicted thart "the whole of Europe wouM rebel against the Slovanic peoples" if they should ever come under the rule of the Russians. The Slovak Protestant, Milan R. Stefanik (1880-1919), a General in the French Army and the first Minister of War in Czooho-lSlovaikiia, was in Rus,s,i a in 191'8..1919 and saw Communism at close range. In February, 191'9, he tele. graphed his government at Prague: "To flirt with Bolshevik tendencies would be comparable to foresaking the path of honor and sane reason. The fight against Bolshevism in all its manifestations must prevail in our politics." On such foundations, then, was, buiilt the Slovak stand against Communism. It was built on the foundations of Christianity and nationalism, and never on the foundation whi~h Mussolini amd Hitler gave to their anti-Communism. The Communists and their friends had pro~1aimed that Mus-solini and Hitler dervised anti-Communism in Europe and that the SIJ.ovaJks had taken it over from them. That does not correspond with the truth. Slovak phifosophers long before Mussolini and Hitler warned their nations not to acceipt Communistic teaJChing. In the po1itiical life w Slov-a kia the party of Msgr. Andrew Hli'Dlka consciously fortified and strengthened this SlovaJk anti-Communism in the broad masses of the Slovak nation. Anti-Communism had thus become a component part of Slovak national beliefs. That is why the pa11ty of Andrew Hllinka pmtested a,g ainst the apprwal of Benes's treaty with Stalin in 1935 when it came up for approval on the floor of the Prague Parliament. At that time Hlinika's Farly haid 30.1 per cent of all the voters in Slovakia, while the Communist Party in Sfovakia had 13 per cent, and the 42 SLOVAKIA party orf Benes and Riipka only 3.2 per cent of the total Slovia:k electorate. The Slovak stanqpoint was ideologically and rightd'uUy represented by Hlinika's Party which was the first and largest political party in Slovakia since 1925. On November 6, 1935, as a Slovak deputy I sipotk e in the IllMil.e of Hlinlka's Party on the floor of the Pra:g,ue parliament. In the presence of the Foreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, I said: "Alas, foreign policy under the direction m Dr. Edward Benes has deviated from the tendency that General Stefanik followed in 1919. He requested the Prag;ue government to fight against Bolsheivism in all its manifestations and warned not even to flirt w.ith Bolshe'Viik tendencies. IDven flirting with Bolshevik tend.endes he called foresaiking the road of hooor and sanity. 1n the meantime the Prague government already conoluded various rugreements with the bloody offspring o;f Bolshevism~ the Soviet Union. "The Hlinlka Slovak People's Party rejects the theory of Bolshevism, co:ndemns its bloody ipra:ctices as well as its inhuman methods, and with a very heavy heart tolerates the fact that OzeichoJSlo'Wllkia has deviated from the course that was 'Plotted b,y her co-d'ounder and first Minister of War, Ge111eral Stman:i!k. The no:mnali.!zation of diplomatic contaiots can be understood even between such st:riucturally different states as is our democrartic Ozecho-slovaJk RepubHc and the SOIVieit Union. Fimdly other states similar to ours have such diiplomatic contacts. But imrrnediatetly following the esta!blishment otf contacts, there were so many expressions of sympathy within the Ozooho.,Slo;va:k Reipublic for the Soviet Union and its system that this must fJll us who are nationally orientated in a Christian way - with fears about the future Czecho-Slovaikia. To· tie ouir destiny with the destinies of the Soviet Union, to build on agreements signed by Bolshevii.ks, I consider as the greatest bl,un. der made by our present foreign policy. "We slovak,s warn the Czechs away from the political mista!kes being committed by our Fcreign Minister, Dr. Edward Benes, because . too zealously he binds us with the Soviet Union that is so distant to us. In the interests of the SLOVAKIA 43 State we demamd a change in the lime followed by our foreign polilcy, we demand thait the defense of the State be built on a more realistic 'basi'S - one that conforms mo•r e with the mentality of the poipulation. Stating ·a ll these insufficiencies, I intvoduce them as one of tihe reasons that force us SloivaJks not to express our confidence in the present leailersh'ip of our foreign policy." Is it necessary to bring in more evidence to show that the SloviaJks were conisristently orientJated anti-Cottnlmun.istically? It proives co!D'clusively that Riipka was wrong when he said that "the Ozecho--!Slov.a!k people un:anilmously welc,ooned with joy the first allied agreement with Russia in 1935." The Ozec'hs, especialily the Sovieto,phiie Ozech intellectuals headed by R~pka, were made h~y by the treaty. The Slova!ks, however, eX1perieniced aJbsolutely no joy on that ocoasioo; nay, they aiticized and rejected the treaty and voted against it in 1936 in the Pra:gue Parliament. And this aJso attests to the fact that we are here concerned with two very different nations whose development and political convictio1J1S were altogether distin'Ct and diffe:rent. 1Riipka was rilght when he said that afiter the conclusion of a;greemnts with Moscow, in 19315 and 1943, Benes and his goveI1Il!ment exipressed "their complete confidence in the Soviet government." In return they expected the Sov.iet to return the friendshiip, confidenice and, rubove a'll, tihe assuraI1JCe that the USSR shall not intervene in our internal affairs." "That conrfidence has been betrayed" - Hulbert Ripka is screeching today. In February 1948 Moscow proceeded against democracy in Ozecho~Slovakia, ·be'Cause "it wanted to see in Pra;gue a totalitarian Communistic goivernment swbsement to. its will." So Ripka acknowledges th,at Moscow was dissaJtisfied with coHruborating in the fomnation of Riipk,a 's "synthesis." Ripka finally dis,wvered that Red Moscow wants its allies to be totaHy sulbserivierut to its dictates. But Ripka came upon this self-evident matter only in 1948, when he was thrown out of the g01VeTil!IIlent, or was at least prevented from co-governing in Prague with the Reds, and after he fled Ozecho-SlofVlakia. Before that time, however, Ripka was the man, who - act)ing like somebody in 44 SLOVAKIA the pay of Moscow - assured the Czechs and the uninformed world that reports about Moscow intervening in the internal affairs of individual states were absolutey false! Philip Panetili in his boO!k "Ed.war:d Benes, Leader of Democracy," on pgs. 123-124, notes the commentary of Dr. HUibert Ripka on the treaty of December, 1943, which Dr. Benes concluded with Moscow. "This Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty," said Riipk:a at that time, "had as its aim to strengthen the security of Europe." Ripka rejected the contention that this pact would mean the bolshevization of Euro,pe or Ozecho,Slovaikia. "The treaty," Ripka stated categorically, "gives a clear answer to all those who continue to suspect the Soviet Union of the intention of bolshevizing the countries of Central Europe that are its neighbors, nay, of intending even to annex them to the Soviet Union. The treaty gives a clear answer to all who are continuing to present Czecho-Slovakia as a tool in the hands of the Soviets. In the agr.e ement of 1943, the Soviet Union once again binds itself to respect her independence and that it shall not intervene in her internal affairs. Czecho-Slovakia binds iself in a similar fashion. By these formal ties the fact was confirmed again that the Soviet government had no intention of forcing its political regime on other nations and so much the less to annex the nations of Central Europe or any others to the Soviet framework." Whence did Dr. Ripka know these things? Was he ignorant of the fates of the Caucasian repulblics, or the painful fate oif the three Ba:ltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Est01I1ia? Since the S01viet government acted imperlalisti:c . ally to.ward those states, why did Ri,pka think that the same thing would not aiso happen in the case of Czecho~Sl()IV3ikia? But Riipka wenlt mucli farther . He said thait the treaty which Ozeicho-SlavaJkiia conicluided with the Soviet Union not only did not weaken her S01Verdgnty and independence, but, converseJy, that 'basically it strengthened and secured them. As a real progressive, aJ.way;s wanting to instruct and teach other nations, R1pka offered thi,s instruction: "Not in distrust and in a hostile stand toward the Soviet Union, but in confidence and sincere willingness for a clean, friendly cooperation with the Soviet Union is the re- SLOVAKIA 45 liable guarant.ee for assuring the freedom and independence of every country, namely, the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. Every nation in this region with which the Soviet Union borders directly can be certain if it cultivates a friendship with this great power - that it certainly shall get from it help to defend its freedom and independence." Note the certainty with whioh Ripka spo!ke in 1943 about the future conduct of Moscow toward the states that trust it. What swperfJdality that was, what irresponsrbility, nay, what rookllesness oif the first degree! The years have proved that the Slovaks were right when they warned in the Piiag,ue Parliament that the union of Ozecho-,Slovakia with Moscow was "the greatest blunder ever committed by Ozecho~Slovaik foceign ,p olitics." The blunder of 1'93'5 was duplii cated in 1943, and its consequences showed up in July, 1947, in a dram'atic way. On Jul,y 7, 1947, the Prrugue Council oif Ministers, whose presidoot was K1lement Gottwald, unanimously aJOCepted the hwitation to the confereI11ce in Paris, where Czecho-Sl'Ovakia was to join the Marshall Plan. Not a single minister voted against it. On Jruly 9th, Gottwald, Jan Masaryk, and Drt1na flew to Moscow. There the representatirves of s01vereign and independent Repulb1ic of Czecllo-Sloviak:ia were ordered by Stalin to annul their unanimous decision. and tell Paris that the Ozecho-Slov;aJk RepuibHc would not join in the · Marshall Plan. Behold the crude Soviet mterventi:on in the internal affairs of a state to which the :S oviets had guaranteed SOIV·· ereignty and independence, in two treaties. And the Czech delegation, of which Gottwald was the only Communist, unanimously accepted Stalin's dictate in Moscow! Gottwald, just as Masaryk, telephoned several tirmes from Moocow to Prague to have the Coun.cil @f Miniisters convene and unanimous!~ "ruccept" Stalin's order. It must be stressed that at this time the Council of Ministers was presided over by Dr. Peter Zenkl, the first Vice-Premier of the government and presently the chairman of the "Council of Free Czechoslovakia" of Washington, D. C. Capitulation! 1 4-6 SLOVAKIA The small nation of the. Finns and Tito did not capitulate before the dictates of Moscow. The Czechs C8l{)itulated and t:hey themselves, headed by Benes, Ma.saryk, Zen!kl and Rilpka, voluntariJy went over into the Soviet camp. That is their handiiwork and, hence, they t:hemselrves are responsibie fo1.' it. And it is their ulllpardOO!aJble sin that into their caJmp they also dvrugged the S}QIV'a;ks who never a.greed with the Sovietophile po:lilcy of Benes, Mla.saryik, Zen!ki and Ripka. The Slo:vaks from the very beginning warned the Czechs that they were on the wrong road when they fraternized with Communi'sti:c Moscow. A. J. Janda·cek wrote the truth in his boOlk•l et ''Behind the Iron Curtain'' (Chicago·, 1948) , when he said: "Everything that happened in Prague in February, 1948, was only the result and climax of all former provisions of the Czech government in London." To this I might add, that it was the result of the decisions oif not onJy the London government, but also that government in Prrugue, which, after 1945, rupproved all decrees and accepted all legal motions which the Communists placed before it and the Parliament. Not once did the anti-Communist majority in Parliament reject Communistic bills. Thus, in a,n altogether legal manner, the ground was prepared for Communism in Czecho-Slovakia. Under those laws, serving only Communism, we find the signatures of Zenkl, Ripka and the rest of the Communist collaborators. All these gentlemen thought that they could flirt with Communism to build in Central Europe some kind of greater Czech power, greater than it really was. We s•a w how without ptllblic protest the whole Czech government caipituJl:ated to the dictates of Stalin. It reversed itself completely on the Marshahl Plan. The goverD!ID.ent newspa.pers - which a few days 'befOTe had ,prruised the Marshall Plan and the acwantages of entering into it - now began a heaiviy bomlbardment against America and the Marshall Plan. Now, let us see what was happening in Slcwakiia aJt that same time. Ripka says tJhat President Benes in the summer oif 1947 went to Slwakia for a rest. He went to Toporcia.niky which lies some 2 kilometers from the capital city of Slova:kia , SLOVAKIA 47 Bratislava. At the Topof,cian:ky castle, for six years (19391944), the president of Slorvaikia, Dr. Joseph Tiso, used to spend his summers. It was the summer holffie df the same Dr. Tiso who was hanged in Bratisilava on Aprii 18, 1947, after Benes refused to grant clemency. Most decent peoiple thought it was tactiless on the part oif Benes to go to Slovakia in 1947. Benes, it seems, with his presence in sorrowing SlOIV'akia wanted to boast of his triumph over Tiso, just as a year before he had done in Bohemia with the former president of Ozecho-Slovaikia, Dr. ffimfil Ha;cha. The Slovak s always lwke to welcome guests. In Slovakia there is a motto: a guest in the home - God in the home. Well, in the case of Benes, this motto did not holld. The Slovaks bitte:rly s:uifd'ered the presence of Benes in their land, in their own home. They de1uged Benes with letters, anonymous and signed, ~n which they called him tlhe heartless mwrderer .o f Dr. T~so, and the greatest enemy oif the Slovaks, predicting for him a most shameful end within a year. In his memoirs RJiipka admits that Benes did not feel physicaJ1y w~ll in Slovrukia. Within a few daJYiS he was threatened with an atta~k of paralysis (aipoplexy). The Slorvaiks loolked upon these re[>Orts with satisifa:cition, seeing ilil them the fJniger of God. As soon as, Benes le:ft .Sloviakia a mass political perseoution olf S'IO!Vaik paitriots began in that hapless countey. The Communists were seeking to gain their ends, while the Ozechs, on the oither hand, their OiWil aims. But their common goal was: to master Slovakia and break her resistance. 1 Both the Communists and the Benes Oze~hs wanrted to frighten the Slava!k'S who had on the who,l e remained tr:ue to the idea of the Slovaik State. The Slorv ~s were forced to live together with the Czechs in a common state against their will from 1945, the State they had parted with on March 14, 1939. It is known that the Communists were more tactfruJ. with the S1oivaJk national question. They admitted th.tat a nation that on.ce had its own State would never re~ nounce it wilfwlly. Ripka recalls correctly that when Ben~ returned from Moscow in 1944, he told his intilmates in London of the possibility of establishing an independent SlovaJk 48 SLOVAKIA State. That was at a time when Moscow, in the agreement of 1943, solemnly recognized Ozecho-Slovaikia, resipected the integrity of her territory, nay, even recognized Benes as the "president" of the "new" Czecho.,SlovaJkia. ·.1n Mosicow, Benes was given to understand that a S1oviak Repulblic was not only possilble, but also quite a~ceiptaible to Stalin. 1 Of course, the Communists at that time (1944) ~pected the Slovaik president, Dr. Jo£qph Tiso, to go to Moscow, or to send his plenipotentiary, to negotiate the possi.bility of saving the SlovaJk Repuiblic under a Communistic disguise. Dr. Tiso, however, refused to go to Mosicow, whilE Benes aJlld the ruJers of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria did go. With Dr. Tiso a ,principle was at stake. With the others only tact. But one cannot malke tad out of principle. It never pays. And nothing permanent or valU'aJble can be attained by surrendering prindples. It was not oruy Dr. Tiso, but all the SlovaJks loyal to him, who refused to go along with the Slova;k CO!mlffiunists or the Commumsts of Moscow. In the elections of 1946, the SlQ!VaJks voted over 70 per cent against Communism and, this, clearly made it known that they did not want to coUa:borate with Communism under any ciroumstainces. The SloiVa;ks pr01Ved in practice their loyalty to the principles exipressed by Stur, Palarik, Stefanik, Hlinika, Tiso and otfue:r rpolitical representatiives of the Slovak nation. This wa:s a pra'CticaJl demonstration of the high political consciousness of the Slovaks, the basis of which was a clean and practical Christianity. Ripka knows well that the Czechs were not i!J:nlbued with any such consciousness. In Bohemia not only Czech workers, but even Czech peasants voted for Communism. What is mo:re, even Kral'ovske VinOihrady, where the wealthiest groups of Ozech boungeoisie resided, voted for Communism. The rich Czechs wanted to save their wealth, their 'b anks and factories, just as Czech wonkers wanted to save their work and the Czech faI'Illers their lands. In Slovakia, however, the fight against Comrnunism was waged on an. ideological basis of clean national traditioo. SLOVAKIA 49 and of adherence to the Catholic Church. It thus happened that the Communists and Ozeich centralists had to come to grips with a spiritual power such as CatholiciSlm. R~pka wrote that "the Communists, favoring Slovak nationalism, were, not successful in paralyzing the influence of Slovak Catho&cism, which is not only nationalistic, but also passionately anti-Communist." We might add that even the Ozech centralists could not paralyze the influeD1Ce of Catholic-ism on publilc affairs in Slorvaldia. At that time, Riipka mentions in his memoirs, he, Zenkl, the Stra.nskys, father and son, and Drtina came together at Karls1bad. They worked out a plan to haive the Slovak Democrati~ Party - representing aver 60 per cent of the anti-Communist voters olf Slorva.kia - "ta;ke the initiative to rid itsellf olf 'undesirable' elements in its rrunk,~." The Communists were for the plan 100 per cent; not only with words, burt with deeds as wel!l. The Minister of Interior in Bratislava was a certain General Nicholas Ferjenci!k, a man without prindple and a willing exeouito.r of CommUJnistic orders. On Octo!ber 6, 1947, this Ferjenrcik broadcast that his o:5fice had tmcOIVered a plot against the Reipulblic and had already arrested 380 young memlbers of the ,S lovak anti..icentralistic and anti-Communistic intelligentsia. He accused them, as Rijpka states, "of colla:b orating with emigrants who were in foreign lands under the leadershtp of Sidor and :Our- cansky." Immediately the State representatives at Bratislaiva demanded the Prague parLiament to. deprive of immunity two Slovak Catholic gentlemen, deputies and general secretaries of the Slorvak Democratic Party, Dr. Mi<los Bugar and Dr. Jan Kempny, who were, it was chavged, connected with the "plot against the Reipulblic" Rtpka himself confirms that this was all a Communist inrvention. The offidals were not concerned with punishing ou1prits, because there were none. But they did want to terrorize the anti-COimimunistic elements in Sloiviakia, which meant pra-ctically the whole pOipulation of SlovaJkia. And, in this case, a shameful thing happened. Within the SlovaJk Democratic Party and within the Czech Government parties the Red colla!borators began their shady work. 50 SLOVAKIA They demanded Bugar and Kempny be deprived of immunity. These two deputies, mind you, belonged to the largest anti-Comnn,tmist party in. Sl01Vakia tha,t was represented in the Prague Government by Jan Ursiny, Vice-Premier of the Government, Dr. liV'an Pietor, Minister of Railroads, Dr. N. Franetk, Minilster of Unification, and Jan Lic'lmer, State UndersecTetary in the Ministry of National Defense. And in 194 7 the Prague Parliament had an absolute majority of non-Communist deputies. Something that should not have ha.'Ppened dild haq>pen. The Prague Government decided to sur.re:nder both Slo,vak deputies,. and immediately thereafter Parliament deprived both the general secretaries of a Government party in Slovalkia of their deputorial immunity. Dr. Bwgar and Dr. Kempny had to sit in jail, while Dr: Joseph Lettri'ch, president af the Democratic Party, !kept on sitting in the chairman's seat of the Slovak Naition,a;l Council in Bratislava and the other ministers remained sitting in their ministerial chairs in Prague. In the history af parliamentarism this is probably the only case of its kind. It was possible only bec8.lllse none of the people in the Government of Prague and Bratislava had enough co.ura:ge and p&sonal integrity to fight the Commtmists. A1l tihe SlO'V'ak and Czech people in Goive:rmnent were willing to make any and aill compromi<ses, treaties ano concessions, as long as they could pay for them with the freedOIIn and Sltlffering oif others. The case of Bu,gar and Kemipny presented the occasion to begin a .g reat offensive against the extortions af the Communists in the OzechoSlovaik Republic. The Slova!ks, as one man, todk the lead, in this ba,ttle, bec8.lllse here the principle af freedom was· at stake and the freedom of two af their sons was threatened. But they were hopelessly overpowered by the Reds and the Benes Czechs. True it is tha:t Benes, Riipka and others of their kind were of the opinion that onJy the western powers were supiposed to oppose the Communists and to stem the tide of Communism. Benes, Riiipka, and others of their political entourage, thought that their yielding, duplicity, nay, even their hostility toward their two co-workers, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny, was appealing to the Soviets. And such was SLOVAKIA 51 the case. A great opportunity to sihow up the Reds was lost in the case of Bugar aind Kempny. It meant that the first fight on internal policy was lost, and that only shortly after Pra:gue also lost its first battle on foreign policy by olbeying Stalin and refusing to join in the Ma.I1S:hall P}an. Let us not forget that all this was done with the assent of Dr. Benes. Even here he · had his own "plan," and according t,o it he direct.ed especially the Czech National Socialists. We must rememb.er that Dr. Benes was a deputy and vice-president of the Czech National Soc,ialist Part.y from 1920 to 193'5, and that he financed it generously out of the State treasury. Benes needed that party as a means to gain his ends. He wanted first of all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then, af:ter T. G. Masaryk, the office of -p resident. Then, when he noticed that the pallty hindered him in attaimng his ends, he easily renounced it. And so it was that in 1926 the party of the Ozetch National Socialists went into opposition to the Government rund its deputy, Dr. Edward Benes, was supposed to follow it. But he preferred to .r esign his mandate of deputy so that he cowd remain in the goivernment as an "impartial" (non...politi'cal) Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, the C.oo<!h National Socialists always regarded Benes as their man - their leader. Little wonder, then, that the Czech National Socialist ministers went to President Benes for adMce during the crisis that broke out in the Government between the Communists and the non-Communists in 194-8. Without Benes's assent nothmg was underta.ken, and Benes assured his followers that he Wa!S bacikinig them, that he would not desert them as he did in 1926. That was sUipposed to mean that he wowd not use them as tools to hold his position, but that he wowd stay with them to the end in the fight against the Communists in government, rugainst Gottwald's faction. In the moo:nitime. the Comunists sought to strengthen their positions, the key positions in the government which Benes had given them. In 1947 the Communists held these positions in the Pra;gue Government: Klement Gottwald, Premier; Viliam Siroky, Vi:ce~~ e r ; Vaclav Nosek, Min- 1i2 SLOVAKIA ister of Interior; Ja.romil Dolansky, Minister of Finance; Vaclav Kopecky, Minister of Infomnation; Ant.on Zmrhal, Minister of Internal 00immerce; Zdenek Nejedly, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare; Julius Duris, Minister of Agriculture; Vlado Clementis, StiaJte Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All these Corrununist ministers did what was in the interest of their Party. And this jolb they did loyally and thoroughly. The Minister of the Interior, Nosek, purged the leadership of the Deipartment oif National Security in Bohemia of all non-Co1rmmmist eilements. He had eight regional commanders of the polrce tra..."'lsferred and fiUed their places with eight reliallJle Communists. The non-Communist ministers had a pretext to attack. This was one of the most foolish quarrels thiat ever took pla:ce. But President Benes rupproved it and was happy that the Communists occasioned it. The time to stir Uip the masses in Slovaikia and the whole Reipulblic, as weH a,s for rousing the sincere anger of the people, was when the Corrumunists demanded the arrest of the two SlovaJk deputies, Dr. Bugar and Dr. Kempny. But this opportunity was not used by Benes and his followers. Why should i.t be? Noithing b:uit the freedom and the lives of two Slo:viak Catholic deputies was ait stake ! Benes, Riipka, Zelllkl and company figured that they could better move the masses by starting a fight O!Ver such a great affair as No~ transferring eight po1icemen in Prague and supplanting them witih eight others. The police affair could not enthuse the Slav'c!Jkis and mll!c:h less the Czechs, who never were fighters. Besides the Czechs are educated by their witty journalist P. Haivlicek to hate and ridicule the police. But Benes, Zookl, Ri:pika and others, who did not go a:mong the peo,ple, but made politics in offices and editorial rooms, wanted to rescue eight poHcemen on account of whom a "graJve goveirrnmenual crisis" was initiated. On Felbruary 13, 1948, Zelllkl and other non-Communist ministers demanded that Nosek rescind his order. The Communists answered that the matter belOil!ged to the Ministry of Interior, and Nosek would rescind nothing. Every minister performs his office and does th,i ngs as he noiws best. The SLOVAKIA 53 government can caiH a minister to answer for his office, but in this case Premier Gottwald would not do that. Gottwald agreed completely with Nosek and would not disavow anything the Minister of t:Jhe futerior had approved. The nonCommunist ministers considered for a few days whether they should or shou;ld not resign. They told Nosek that they would not a,ttend any meetings of the GOfVernment or the National Front as long as Noselk would not rescind his order. On February 18th, Ripka and Zenk.I again hurried to Rresident Benes, who. approved of their taJctics and encouraged them to peraevere. He advised them to resign and so force the Commurusts to yield. Again and again :he asS1Ned them that he would stand by them "no, matter what happens!'' Fiil!ally, on Felbruacy 20, 1948, three parties - the Ozech Nationa,l Socialists, Sramek's Czech People's Party, and the S1ovruk Democrats - reca:Ued their ministers from the Government. Before resigning, Zenkl, as chairman of the National Socialist Party, telephoned President Benes and as Ripka himself tells it - Benes said over the telephone : "Finally! And now 'b e careful! No false moves!" Benes aiso peTsonally assured the resigning ministers that they acted co:rirectly when they resigned. He stated emphatically that he would not aC'Capt their resignations and so force the Comttnunists to yield. J,f there was any one who did not belieive in the strength and persona.:l honesty of Be,. nes, that person was the leader of the Czech Populists, Msgr. Sramelk. A. J. Janda:ceik in his booklet "Behind the !Ton Curtain" writes (ipg. 29): "Verry fow people, however, knew President Benes as well as Msgr. Sramek did. He knew how Benes conducted himself during the Munich crisis and 1kne,w some of his irresolute and 01Verly philosqphk views. That is why he expressed the fear at the time: whether too m1.11ch responsibility WalS not •b eing placed on the President, whether it was wise to put all the burden on the shoulders of one man. In his judgment Sramek went so far as to express a grave fear whether the President - with regard to his health would not aJotually disappoint in this decisive moment and 54 SLOVAKIA whether his nerves woulrl last to oppose the hard and well considered plans olf the Communists. Dr. Peter Zenkl, however, was so satisfied with the president's conduct that he dispelled Srarrnek's fears aJt least partially." In a word, it was known that Benes could not withstand the ordeal, as he could not even in 193'8 in Mund.ch. It was known that Benes's assurances had to be taken with great reserve - on the baisis of past experiences. Burt: why, then, did the tiwe1ve ministers ha,nd in their resignations, when Benes was not supposed to accept them and when with their resignation he was suwosed to peinform some sort of magic before the eyes of the Communists? Such utter silliness was SlllPposed to frighten the Communists and maike them concede, when they ha,d the masses on the move and headed in one direction in the Prwgue "of Benes" - the Prague that was ail Solkol and true to democracy?! The Communists used St.ate funds to call a rally of workers and farmers from the whole Republic to Pragqe. They commanded the streets of Prague. They already had the police safely in their hands since 1945, and General Ludo vik Sloboda, whom Benes named Minister ·of National Defense, promised to have the entire army ready if Gottwald should need it. Into the situation, directly from Moscow, flew Valerian A!exandroviic Zorin, Soviet deputy minister of Foreign Mfuirs and fo:mner Soviet aanibassador in Kosi.ce and, then, in Prrugue. Against these enthusiastic Communist masses that filled the streets of Prague and against· Zorin, who represented the whole diploma:tic and military might of the Soviet Union, Dr. Edward Benes stood alone. Behind him were the twe1ve ministers shaking with fear - the ministers who real1y did not want to resign, but wanted to stay on as .rninistem and in the Government, that is to say, to eogoveI1I1 with the Carrurruunists. That really was a scene for a puppet theatre! SraimeJk, as a good soothsayer, kept on cautioning that Be:nes would not hold up, that Benes was capiturlating even as he had capitulated in the fall of 193·8 to Ado1ph Hitler. And so it happened. Goittwa:ld and Nosek visited Benes two or three times to tallk things over. These were in~ SLOVAKIA 55 teresting coowersiations. "The president," writes A. J. Janda.eek, "ordered liistening deivices be placed in the room in which Benes conferred with the Communists. President Benes at that moment did not \know that a:ll his conversations and telephone calls were followed and heard 'by a system whi:ch already was rigged up by the Communist police without Benes's knoiwledige." Borth negotiarting parties tried to ,b eat each other in being cralfty. But the Communists were always a step ahead of Benes. Mteir Go.ttwa1d and Nosek left Benes, he was vdsited by two Nat:ionai Socialist ministers, Riipka and Stran. sky: This was Benes's l1ast conive1:1sation with these two ministers. Ripka noted the folloiwing as coming out of that conversation: Benes 'began the colllVersation with an energetic cry: "I shall not give in! I said openly and clearly to Gottwald: 'You are preparing to overthrow the St.ate, for a putsch, but I shall not let myseH be terrorized : by you'!" And then Benes told them the ·contents of his Wk with Premier Gottwald. I (Ripka) tQlld hd,m without mincing words: "That which you are preparing is another Munkh." The President's face grew serious. He said to us: "You .Jroow the Communists. You know that they do not hesitate to use any means to real±ze their pla:ns. We must be ·prepared for anything." There were reports, which I persona:hly _did not believe, that is that Russia was going to at~ck us. I told the President that I thought Russia would ,be S'atisfied to extend political help to our Corrm:i.un~sts, 'but that _w ith regard to the internatio.n•a l comp1ications that ' might result - Russia would not decide on a single military intemrention. The president listened with great attention. Then · he said to me literally: "I agree with you. I also think that way; Moscow will not take a risk -that would mean · military intenvention. Nevertheless, I .cannot -exclude the possi.ibility that the Soviet av.my would cross our · ,'bo:rders and then what would we do?" 1 56 SLOVAKIA "What would we do?" - repeated the president, looking at me and then at Stransky, "Yes, what would you do?" I answered that in such a case we would be occupied and defeated. But the nation and the whole world would see that we suC'Cumlbed to violence. It would be known that the COiIDmunist regime was forced upon us, that Ozecho.,Slwakia was a victim of an attack, agruinst which she could not defend herself. This defeat woud carry us to a new victory. A moment of silence intet,vened. Then the president 1begain to say: "Maybe," - he said - '~but that is not cerbain. Nolbody will helip us. Moscow knows tha:t." Then with growing feeling, raising his voice, Benes said: "I know them well, those peo,ple frO!lll MOS'COw. I had a chanice to know them more iintimaitely than you have known them. You overrate their intel1igence and their foresight. Even I committed the same mistalke. They do not U!Ilderstand the other states ait a!H. They thinlk they are realists. But, in fact, they are only fain.a.tics. Their whole policy is nothi,IJJg else but one of provoki.n!g war. But with them everything will end up as it did wlith Hitler." Stransky who never heard the president speak so, cried out: "And you tell us that? You who have done more than any!body else on earth to bring albout colla1boraition with Soviet Russia?" ,B enes smiled sadly and said: "I repeat what I have already told you: I shall not yield! You may rest assured on that!" With tha,t sentence our last carwersation with president Benes ended. None orf us ait that moment could know that we shall never again see him. So wrote Ripka albout his last conversation with Benes. The coniversation tells us that Benes knew the Soviet factors in Moscow and 'knew them for a long time. And, yet, he continually and without end recommended to Roosevelt and Churehill to collaborate wlith them. He demanded that the West believe Stalin. Benes dressed up the lies of Soviet SLOVAKIA 57 propaganda in a gartb of truth and thus, presented them to the uninfoI1II1ed West. That is how Benes sinned against the whole Christian world. He did not go unrewarded. He had to stand alone and face to face wi,t h the Soviet danger knowing that "nl()(body will helip us -- Moscow knows that." Despit,e all hlis assurances that he would not submit, that he knew the Communists well, Benes, nevertheless, did give in to the Communists. He capitulated to Clement Gottwald. He accepted the resignations of the 12 non-Communist minist,ers a-nd named the Government that Gottwald dictated! And what haJPPOOed with the 12 ministers who resigned? Espeicialiy what happened with the four ministers who belonged to, the Czech Na,tional Socia,1ist Party of Dr. :&!ward Benes? On May 6, 1948, deputies Dr. Duchacek, Dr. Krajina, Dr. StraJI1Skiy, VHim and Firt collaJborated in preparing a report on the .Alls,a{!e HoUJSe in FranikfuTt. This is what it says literally: "On the ad:temoon of Februacy 28, 1948, the National Socialist ministers assembled in the residence of Dr. Stransky. Durinig this meeting they telephoned Dr. Jina, political adviser af President Benes, and aslked him whether the President wotrld reiceiive them, as is the custom when ministers resign. Dr. Jina answered tha.t the President will not receive them and he repeated this statement when Dr. Rilpka asked a,g,a.in. Dr. Rilpka then said to Jina: "Tell Mr. President for us that he would not corner wJth the fouir ministers who during the who,l e period stood uncompromisingly behind his program. with him in full agreement. We want Dr. Benes to know just how the people who coUaiborated so closely witlh him feel rubout his not giving them an audience to e:,cplain his stand." Benes had fivst eooouraged the miru.stera to resign, then he assured them of his loyalty and persevea-ence, and, in the end, without theiir knowledge of it, had decided to accept their resignations. Then Benes did not even want to tadlk with them in parting. To keep the presidency Benes no longer needed the Czech N'aittonal Socialist Party nor its 58 S LOVAKIA four ministers. Now he needed only the Communists, because at the m01Inent they were stronge,r and in power. On February 27th Benes received the whole Gottwald gavernrment. Gottiwald said his speech, presented his ministers to Benes, and Benes replied to Gottwald's speech. By doing so, Benes accoided the recognition od' legality to the Coonmll!Ilist ministers for aH their future orders. · ..t\ifter Mlunich Benes proclaimed that he had a "plan." That w,as th~ plan by which he fled from Czecho..SlovaJkia. After cwpitulating t o Gottwald - the caipitulation that Benes himself ca'lied a "second Munich" - Benes burst into tears and said to editor Janda.eek, ,aecordin:g to 'J andacek : "Tell all the people who love democraicy to woiik in its interest and to try to validate its principles everywhere, and that eyen there, where they were for a time outraged." But did not Benes disgrace them? Did he haive to wp• prove the Communistic system? Were only othel's swppooed to work and fight for democracy, while Benes and his people were entitled to roop its advanta:ges and oo.j'Oy its privileges? After this secood capitulation Benes did not have an aerop1ane. He could not fly rubroad. He had only an automdbile. In it he left for his priv,ate residence in Sezimova U sti. He left, but only alter lie had legalired. every~ thing that the Oommumsts did and what they were still to do with the poople oif Ozecho-SfovaJlda. Benes, "the great de~ mocrat and builder," had done all that for the Communists! At the .end of his memoirs Ripk!a displayed .t he pinnacle of his cynicism. He whit~washed the Benes Czechs. They could not prevent the second Munich, even with weapons, he says, because the Soviet army would probably walk in and swbject the Czechs to untold brutalities. "After the oooupation of our country by the Soviet a11my in 1945," Ripka writes cynically, "we knew well what the Soviet army was cwpalble of!" (Il P01polo, Rome, May 15, 1949) . . Whether Ripka was in London or in Prague, until February 1948, he ·a-Iways spoke and wrote about the "liberation" ,of •Czecho,.JSlovakia a,nd the victorious Soviet . ·army; SLOVAKIA 59 The Czechs actuaHy welcomed that amiy enthusiastically. While Benes and the Czecihs 'kept tal!kiing about "liiberation" from 1945 to 194'8, we Slovaks, on the other hand, claimed that SlovaJkia was octmipied, that the Sio:viruk State was suppressed by force and th at the Soiviet soldiers in 1M4-1946 committed the most terrible bestialities against unarmed Slovak men and women. 1 Even Czech emigrants told me to my face that Slovakia was "liberated" in 1945. But today, even Ripka confesses, rather belatedJy, that his Bohemia, too, was occupied by Red Moscow already in 1946 ! That really is unmitigated cynici,s m, coming as it does from a person who played "independent minister" from 1945 to 1948 in his occupied country and then, looving the country, would agiain - with some other kind of army of "liberation" - save not only his own country, but also our beaten and crucified . SloviaJkia. We began our remarks to Ripka's memoirs by citing the ar.gumenit of R:dbert Ingrim about the possibility of the existenice of a secret a·g rooment between. Benes, Ripka, Zenkl and Gottwa:ld. Now we read in the newspaper of the Czech National Socialist deiputy Fr.anois Klatil ("CA.IS," London, The Wa!Wi(j}c Printing Co. , issue No. 1, 1949) a note from the pen of Dr. Edward Benes a:bout the conferenJce with Gottwald on May 1'4, 194'8. In it Benes carries on a long dialogue with Gottwald aiboot wanting to resign from the presidency. Let us quote at least a few sentences from it: "The president does not want to tell the Communists to do things dififerently, since he does not want to hinder them. That is why he repeats to the Premier o!f the Government not to loOlk for any foreign influences in his action. It is only and only his personal decision. . . . The president again emphasizes that (in Sezimovo Usti) he did not receive any1body, neither did he aiSlk anyibod,y for any exiplanations or to let him kno:w his stand. Eive:rything is exclusively his own.. .. Therefore he .is g1ving the Communist PM'ty freedom of action to arr.ange things to suit its needs. The President further states that he is taLkiDJg with the Prime Minister of the government witlh complete sincerity 60 SL OV AK IA and con1Viction and he is asking him to judge what he is saying from that standpoint. He does not quarrel, nor in the end, does he want to part with t!he Prime Minister of the Governrment in a quarrel. . . . He does not want the Communists to hasve any quaITels with the President, nor the President to quarrel with the Communists, 1because it would be possi!ble to a.lbuse this. The State is so dear to the President, that he will do nothing that might harm it. . . . Prime Minister Gottwald at first replied in general terms to the President's explanation. and his initention orf abdiooting. He says that the Communists wotl'ld prefer not to have to discuss the question olf the departure of the President. He knows what moti1Ves the President has, he respects them aoo thinks that id' it is already necessary to part, that they would want to part as friends. The President answers, that he wishes the same. He said that to Smutny and hopes that they shall pa.rt as friends. He reminded even Dr. Clementi'! that he, Benes, will not undertake any action against his own State, that he will not go against the Communists and he shall not undertake any act that would be direct.e<l against the Soviet Union." That, then, is how Benes spoke to Gottwald in Sezimoivo Usti. He assured him he would do nothing against the Communists or the Soviet Union. He expressed a sincere desire to part with Got:Jtwal:d and the Communists in Governmeint as a friend. He wanted to retire and hand over everything to Gottwald and his Ozech Reds peaoofully. And he did eventually. Gottwald then saw to it th,a t Dr. Edward Benes got full pay "for life," too. Does the international anti-Com.mt.mist pU!blic think that the sa,me principles do not hold for Bene.s's close colila:borators - for Ripka, ZenJk,l , and for the many other Czechs, who fled Ozechoslovaikia after February 19~8? We must be on our g:uard. The legends olf "li'beration" and "Jiberntors" from 1948 to 1945 are well knolWil. to us and must ever be a warning not only for us Slova:ks, but a'lso for the whole civilized Christian world.  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 Dr. Hubert Ripka's Version of the Communist "Putsch" in Czecho-Slovakia Description An account of the resource Karol Sidor Slovakia, Vol. 3, No. 3 (8), September 1953 pp. 32-60 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sidor, Karol, 1901-1953 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 1953 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/63749f7745c997602cee8d3af04af090.pdf e98eafb5dfbacbd626c3e9146b470a02 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 29 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE SLOVAK NATION'S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY By Karoi Sidor I have selected the quarter of a century of history of the Slovak League of America (1914-1939 ) as my topic for r eview and analysis in order to show its influence on the future destiny of the Slovak nation in its historic homeland. My work " Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji" (The Slovaks ±n the Struggle Abroad ), 264 pp., which was published in 1928 in Bratislava, serves me well in the present instance. My book, as I noted in the preface, proves that liberation of the Slovak nation from Magyar rule was not the work of the Czechs, nor was it a gift from them, but the main work in Slovakia's liberation in the first World War ( 19141918 ) was accomplished by the Slovaks under the auspices of the Slovak League of America. "It is impossible to evaluate the participation of the Slovaks in the fight for freedom in Czecho-Slovakia", I wrote in the preface, " without delving into the history of the Slovak League of America. During the war the Slovak League influenced the great majority of our emigrant Slovaks in America through membership, and its influence extended to other parts of the world wherever Slovaks had settled. For that reason I chose this title for my book to include all emigrant Slovaks instead of limiting it to t he Slovaks in America and their role in our fight for freedom. Nonetheless, it was the American Slovaks who were actually our liberators - without their assistance the claim that others gave the Slovak nation freedom on a silver platter would have been well founded on reality." The Slovaks in America were the real liberators of their fellow countrymen from Magyar oppression in their homeland beneath the Tatras. They formulated the modern political program for their fellow Slovaks in Cleveland (1915 ) and later in Pittsburgh (1918 ) . For two decades after World War I the Slovaks struggled for recognition of this program drawn up in America and they ultimately won their struggle with the moral and financial help of �30 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks in 1938. Slovakia finally had its own parliament, its own government, courts, and schools. This phase of Slovak political activity is a bright chapter in the Slovak nation's history, and all those who were engaged in the movement, either directly or indirectly, are fortunate indeed to have been a part of the nationwide struggle for liberty. Memorandum of 1914-1915 No Slovak can remain unmoved as he reads the 'Slovak League Memorandum in behalf of the Slovaks of Hungary 1914-1915' in the name of the American Slovaks. It is truly an amazing political document which shows the vision, foresight and profound thinking of its authors. It placed the Slovak cause in the forefront of world politics and progress. Essentially, this historic memorandum demands "complete self-government and free self-determination in the political field , as well as in the cultural and economic spheres, with the Slovak nation as a legal and equal partner among all nations of the world." These identical ideas were adopted somewhat later in the official documents and statements of world statesmen who determined the destiny of the countries of the world. It is thrilling for us Slovaks to realize that fully three years elapsed before the ideas of self-determination, equality of nations, the right to self-government (as enunciated originally in this Slovak Memorandum) were at last accepted and repeated by world diplomats and statesmen until they became integral parts of a new political world order after World War I. Note the timing of the Slovak Memorandum. World War I had just begun and the roar of guns on the western and eastern fronts signalled initial German and AustroHungarian victories. There was not as yet an organized liberating force among the American Slovaks. America was flooded with favorable German propaganda, and it even penetrated into official circles. But the 'word' was already out at the outset of World War I. The Slovak statement "the right of self-determination for nations" was destined to play an important role in �SLOVAKIA 31 the development of the idea and its official expression in America. In full support of this 'word' (self-determination) the organized strength of the American Slovaks was arrayed behind the unified leadership of the Slovak League of America. All the Slovak organizations, both Catholic and nonCatholic, followed the lead of the Slovak League. All periodicals, weeklies and monthlies, were at its service and willingly propagated the 'word' and greatly influenced public opinion throughout the country. Rev. Anton Filkorn, a Catholic priest, was the president and Ivan Daxner, a prominent Lutheran member of the Slovak dynasty of national leaders, was the secretary of the Slovak League at this time. Six Slovak dailies currently indicate how vigorous and dynamic was Slovak Life in America. In Slovakia there was not one daily in 1914 or 1915. (In Budapest, however, the Hungarian government subsidized the Slovenske Noviny for its own propaganda purposes). In New York City the Slovdlc v Amerike daily was directed by an impressive editorial staff of Orbach, stiasny, Baran and Molitoris, in Chicago the Ndrodny Slovensky Dennik was in the capable hands of Editor Marsal-Petrovsky, Krizan, Laucik and Bzduch, in Pittsburgh the Ndrodny Dennik was edited by P . Kompis, Ignac Gessay and Jan culen were the editors of the Newyorksky Slovensky Dennik, Jan Kadlecik edited the Slovensky Dennik, while J. E. Chudatsik and Grigl'ak were at the helm of the Eudovy Dennik, the sixth Slovak Daily in America. These half-dozen Slovak dailies and a host of weeklies, particularly, the Jednota, the Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Bratstvo, Slovenskd Obrana and many monthly publications kept the Slovaks in America well informed about political developments and helped to unite them around the central idea of the right to self-determination of the Slovak nation Jiving beneath the Tatras - in actual fact these were the spokesmen for the Slovak people who were silenced in their own native land. Only two Slovaks represented their nation in the Hungarian parliament at Budapest: Dr. Ferko Skycak, who had �32 SLOVAKIA been elected in his native Bobrov (Orava district), surrendered his mandate on the eve of World War I to Baron Ghillany, a Magyar. Dr. Ferdis Juriga and Dr. Pavol Blaha, however, courageously kept their seats in the Magyar diet in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. It was perfectly clear that the Slovaks inside Hungary could not decide their future political destiny. Under such circumstances, it is evident that American Slovaks, well organized and having reached high political status in world opinion, must of necessity assume the responsibility of making their ideas of political liberty a reality. Albert Mamatej succeeded Father Filkorn as president of the Slovak League at the end of 1914. There were no changes, however, in the political ideology of the Slovak League . In December, 1914, Mamatej wrote to the Czechs in Paris : We seek self-government for Slovakia not as an individual state, but as a political administrati \'e unit without regards to what greater state is created provided it is assigned to it as a co-partner at the council table of diplomats and statesmen. Emphasis is unquestionably on the status of self-government for Slovakia as 'a special and integral part of an administrative whole' leaving to future developments ostensibly the unsolved questions of both what type and to what state-creation Slovakia would be attached in the immediate future. The Cleveland Agreement Later it became increasingly imperative that Mamatej's "zvlastny administrativno-politicky celok" (a special administrative-political whole ) be spelled out in detail. This was fully and clearly set forth in the Cleveland Agreement. This mutual agreement was made between the Czech National Alliance in America which represented the American Czechs and the Slovak League of America as the representative of the American Slovaks in political affairs. According to the testimony of Emanuel Vos, one of the Czech representatives said at the memorable meeting: "The text of this agreement is known to Professor Masaryk, president of the national council, and he agrees with it." �SLOVAKIA 33 Masaryk at that very moment represented the entire Czech emigration in Europe, even though the Allied powers did not recognize him as such. What was, in substance, the agreement between the American Slovaks and Czechs and the Czechs in Europe headed by T. G. Masaryk? On two points the two groups agreed as registered in the Cleveland Agreement of October 25, 1915: 1) Self-government of Czech lands and Slovakia. 2) Union of Czech and Slovak nations in a federation of states with full national autonomy for Slovakia, i.e., the country was to have its own parliament, its own state administrative system, complete cultural freedom with the exclusive use of the Slovak language offically in the Slovak schools, courts, etc., a separate financial and political administration with Slovak as the official language of the country. Again we are confronted with the question of what was meant by the term, "in a federative union of states." There are only two interpretations possible: 1) A federation of Slovak, Czech, Polish, perhaps Austrian, Magyar and Croatian states. 2) A federation of the Slovak and Czech states. It soon becomes clear that in both cases the creators and signers of the Cleveland Agreement had in mind the type of unity we have in the federal union of the American states, i.e., the U.S. For a union of states, therefore; there could not be the union of one state! It requires two or more to create a union. There remains no doubt whatsoever that they did not in any manner or form intend to create the state of Czecho-Slovakia to be centralized in one parliament in Prague and operate as a monopoly from the Czech capital. A parliament of its own, a state administration, complete cultural freedom , its own finances and its own official Slovak language - all these articles as incorporated in the Cleveland Agreement leave no alternative! It meant one thing and one thing only, namely, a self-governing Slovak state. This had been the goal of all Slovak fighters for freedom and it still remained an objective to be attained on �34 SLOVAKIA the basis of the agreement above. The means to the goal was the cooperation of the Slovaks and Czechs in America, and with the Czech emigrants in Europe led by T. G. Masaryk. Cooperation, not subjugation; equality of partnership, equality of rights, even as expressed so aptly in the financial field, a '50-50 proposition!' Exclusively with the Czechs The scintillating fact that the Slovaks in America drew up this agreement with the Czechs alone indicates rather ostensibly that they voluntarily renounced advantages that other nations, and nationality forces, fighting for the liberation of their fellow countrymen in Europe might have offered the Slovaks. I refer to the Poles, Croatians, Slovenians, Serbs, Ukrainians and Sub-Carpathian Rusenes, or Ruthenians. If the Slovaks in America at that moment had united their efforts with those of other Slavic nationality groups, the Slovak cause would certainly have increased its potentialities for a more complete development of its future destiny; in a word, it would not have become so enmeshed in the Czechoslovak maze. On the part of the other Slav groups, there was a real desire for cooperation with the Slovaks, especially on the part of the Poles. The "Polonia w Ameryce" newspaper favored a union of Poles and Slovaks: "The spirit of both nations is the same, the languages not much different. That would, indeed, be the most natural union we can imagine." And the influential "Tygodnik Polski" declared: "Polak Wenger two brothers? 0, what irony! Away from this so-called mad brother, Magyar! Brother Slovak is much closer to us than that so-called brother!" Aside from the religious motif, there existed, too, the mistaken notion of the Slavic ideal, which eventually nullified cooperation between the Slovaks and Poles. It was the attitude toward Czarist Russia. Czarism, orthodoxy and imperialism - those were the underlying causes of so many Polish sufferings and obstacles to Polish freedom . Among the Slovaks there was a feeling of affection for �SLOVAKlA 35 the 'bat'uska car' (a genial uncle), the father of all Slavdom and holy Russia. These would bring freedom to the Slovak nation. The Russian nation would be the liberator. Albert Mamatej, president of the Slovak League of America, under the obvious influence of this complex, made an indignant attack on the Poles at an All Slav conference jn Cleveland. That incident closed the doors to probably close friendship with the Poles and forever destroyed the possibility of an advantageous understanding between the Slovaks and Poles. Mamatej's statement was triggered by uncomplimentary remarks about the Russians, the Czar, etc. by a number of Polish leaders at the conference. It was this refusal to work with the Poles that narrowed the path that led straight into the Czech camp. This pathway was a dangerous one, for it gave the Czechs the upperhand and they took full advantage of it by assuming sole leadership, by the isolation of Slovak spokesmen, by intentionally and maliciously misrepresenting the Slovak political concept as set forth in the text of the Cleveland Agreement. Kosik and Osusky in Europe Two delegates with a precise program were authorized to go to Europe by the Congress of the Slovak League of America. The Congress selected Gustav Kosik, editor of the Katolicky Sokol weekly, and Dr. Stefan Osusky, a lawyer and Lutheran Minister. The purpose of the mission was expressed in the program thus: "To inform the civilized world about the demands of the Slovak nation and to secure positive aid for the realization of these demands." First, their journey led to London and then on to Paris in June, 1916. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Eduard Benes, both Czech emigrants, were in Paris. "Their work" - as Dr. Lev Borsky, an emigrant, too, writes in his book, "Znovudobyti samostatnosti" (Winning Independence Again): "consisted of drawing up memoranda, writing articles and local news. As yet, they had not made any impact on the world nor had they penetrated the influential circles to present the Czech cause." Dr. Borsky writes further: �36 SLOVAKIA It was only when Milan Rastislav Stefanik ente.red the picture that their action took the first semblance of political leadership. It was through Stefanik's influence that members of the National Council got into prominent political circles. Stefanik's ability and influence 5 ot them both a hearing in high government circles and helped them a<:quire necessary experience in the delicate game of international r;olitics and diplomacy. stefanik's coming to the scene among Czech emigrants gave Masaryk's and Benes's memoranda, articles and news a certain importance. Out of ordinary propaganda efforts in which Masaryk and Benes had been engaged a serious form of political action now began taking shape. This was the logical development because the Slovak scientist was not a political emigrant but a French citizen, known in various diplomatic and international circles where diplomats, politicians, scientists and the elite met quite frequently. Stefanik had entre to the highest French circles. He moved in high society. He was well acquainted, highly respected and admired for his scientific achievements in astronomy. The cause which he represented gained tremendous prestige precisely because of his name. It is baffling to the human mind why Kosik and Osusky - later is still living in America and could tell us sincerely why they as delegates of the American Slovaks did not establish a closer relationship with M. R. Stefanik, a fellow Slovak countryman. At first they wanted to work jndependen\ly. T. G. Masaryk in a letter to the Czech National Alliance in America complained that neither Kosik nor Osusky would take orders from him: "They refused to work for me in London." He had been told by the American Czechs that the American Slovaks were sending him r Slovak secretary! Mamatej made a public statement that appeared in the newspapers during the month of August, 1916: This seemed rather strange to me. At the Congress of the Slovak League in Chicago , we American Slovaks at a united conference on April 12, 19il6, resolved to send two of our American Slovaks to Europe not as secretaries to Professor Masaryk but as our representatives who were assigned to go to England, France and especially to Russia to work for our cause in the spirit of our Cleveland Agreement and, therefore, in behalf of our common goal. How Professor Masaryk got the impression that we were forwarding him a Slovak secretary, I simply do not know. At the end, Gustav Kosik, who, together with Stef~nik went to Russia in August, 1916, accepted and signed the Kiev Agreement for �SLOVAKIA the Slovak League of America by which the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris (and dent) as the sole responsible and competent tion that was to cooperate with the official P owers and their associates. 37 League recognized the T. G. Masaryk as presirepresentative organizaagencies of the Allied Thus a delegate of the Slovak League of America formally confirmed the leading position to T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Benes and empowered the Czechs to meet directly "with the official agencies of the Allied Powers." In effect the American Slovaks in deference to the Czecho-Slovak National Council surrendered their right to meet directly with the rest of the nations and their spokesmen. From the contents of the Kiev Agreement (Kijevsky zapis-Kiev document) of August 16-19, 1916, the Czechoslovak nation is mentioned: The Czechs and Slovaks . . . wish to establish a united political and indivisible free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a four-power pact. Almost immediately Gustav Kosik became the prime target of the American Slovak press for having made this unilateral agreement. Cleveland's Denny Hlas asked: We would like to know who ordered our delegate to sign such a manifesto when we already have a complete and concise agreement that we are in no way working for a Czechoslovak nation but for the Czech and Slovak nations. We call attention to the fact that nowhere in the manifesto are the Slovaks mentioned. There is only the union with the Czechs. How is that? The Ndrodne Noviny observed: In the Cleveland Agreement there was talk of two nations, not of a united nation, an indivisible nation. We do not want to be hoodwinked by anyone. Our delegates in Europe were not admitted to the source of the right information by the 'b rother Czechs who are having conferences with high authorities and speak in our name while completely ignoring the cardinal points of our mutual Cleveland Agreement. We are aware of this, too, in our meetings with them. Our delegates remain outside of closed doors while inside unauthorized persons speak in our name. After a year in Europe, G. Kosik returned to America on May 13, 1917. Upon being asked whether he signed the Kiev Agreement, he answered that both he and Stefanik had signed it. Then he proceeded to explain his action as follows: �38 SLOVAKIA We have long observed in your newspapers the attacks on the point in the Kiev document, namely, that "The Czechs and Slovaks wish to develop into a united political, indivisible and free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a fourspower pact." Now, to this very day some of our radicals are disgruntled because Kosik signed that agreement. What if he did? By signing it did Stefanik and Kosik abandon anything from the Slovak program? It is necessary only to change the one word, "narod-nation," to "§tat-state" and everything will quiet down. From now on after the public announcement of the Agreement this may be re-written. Then, it was not expedient because we could not anticipate the development of present circumstances and that particular word, may I add, required hard work of both our diplomats and the Czechoslovak military forces. Kosik's explanation satisfied the majority of the American Slovaks, perhaps chiefly because it was Kosik who said it and reassured them, Kosik's reputation and personal integrity, as well as his Slovak patriotism were unquestioned. Essentially, however, there still remained the suspicion that while the Slovaks actually thought the word, "narod", was merely to be interpreted in the sense of "stat" ie., state, the Czechs really and secretly adhered to the literal meaning, ie., in fact it was to be a Czechoslovak nation, and not merely a Czechoslovak state! Dr. Stefan Osusky, the other delegate of the Slovak League, at first known to hold the line precisely to the Slovak national idea, did not return to America nor did he send any further reports to the American Slovaks who had paid his trip to Europe. In a formal sense Osusky was right. The head of the entire movement for the liberation of the Slovaks from the rule of Hungary became the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris with the agreement of the delegates of the Slovak League. Osusky made his reports to the Council and from now on followed its orders. He was no longer in the service of the Slovak League but of the Council in Paris. Milan R. Stefanik in America Freedom for the Slovaks and liberation was not possible without the destruction of Austro-Hungary. This monarchy had many influential friends not only in France, England and America but also at the imperial Czar's court in Russia. Economic conditions, as well as centuries-old diplo- �SLOVAKIA 39 matic, political, personal and family connections were on the side of retaining the empire, and it appeared that there were sufficient guarantees for its future existence after the war came to an end. Memorandas, articles and news bulletins of Czech and Slovak emigrants in opposition to this monarchial state would have remained worthless scraps of paper had not the war ended in victory over Austro-Hungary. This was the prelude to a radical turn-over of events. Only war could change an institution that had been created and buttressed by a series of wars. At the opening of the year, 1917, Russia dropped out of the war against Germany and Austro-Hungary. An internal revolution rocked the country and weakened the military resources of Russia, thereby, conveniently removing a formidable foe of Germany and the Central Powers. Accordingly, the Russians made a separate treaty with Germany. The Slovaks lost an ally upon whom they had counted on so heavily. Imperial Russia, the Czar and the army vanished as if in thin air. The Slovaks who had pinned all their hopes on this great power were suddenly disillusioned. They had never thought liberation and freedom could be won without the aid of Russia. For the moment they were stunned and did not know where to turn for much needed help in their struggle. America declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917, and began sending supplies and soldiers to the western front. This coincided with the withdrawal of Russia from the war. The balance of power was more than restored. It was now only a matter of time until one or the other side would triumph. Entry of the United States into the conflict was enthusiastically hailed by the Slovak League of America. President Wilson now replaced the fallen Czar as the Slovak nation's hope for the winning of freedom. M. R. Stefanik came to America in June, 1917, just as the U.S. began sending its military forces in strength to Europe. He came primarily to seek permission to enroll Slovak and Czech volunteers (legionaires) to fight along- �4-0 SLOVAKIA side the allies on the western front. At a meeting in New York City on September 17, 1917, he said: "Our struggle against Austria-Hungary will end only when both of our brother nations, the Czechs and Slovaks, united in an independent state will be rid of MagyarGerman rule." Stefanik succeeded in achieving his purpose of uniting the Slovaks in the final surge to victory. A group of Slovak Catholic priests who met with Stefanik at the Hotel Plaza in New York City on September 20, 1917, accepted a resolution in which they promised to work for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and that "they would cooperate with the Slovak League, and the program of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, our supreme political institution." The Slovak League of America ceased to be "the supreme political institution for the Slovak nation", instead the national council of Masaryk, Stefanik and Benes was now the supreme political institution in Paris. And what was disastrous was the fact that its program did not include the concept of a free and individual Slovak nation but a Czechoslovak nation in a Czechoslovak state! Military Assistance and Support Incredible as it may seem, this is precisely the way the Slovak League of America came under the political control of the Czech and Slovak emigrants in Paris. Its executive power was usurped and it was exploited for conscription of volunteers and enlistments of Slovak legionaires for the Czechoslovak armed forces . Moreover, the Slovak League was used for raising funds for carrying on the international work of the council in Paris. To fight and pay the bills - that was the ultimate role of the Slovak League of America. It had been pushed aside from political leadership. American Slovaks answered the call to arms in great numbers. They willingly wanted to fight for the freedom of the Slovak nation. Milan Getting who had little faith in the resources of the Slovaks said on this occasion: Taking everything into consider ation, American Slovaks are surprising everybody by their r esponse. Our nation grasps the great im- �SLOVAKIA 41 portance of a corps of fighting men and has shown greater faith in the future destiny of the Slovaks than its leaders. So far, we have more than matched the number of Czech recruits. Each enlistment has brought in at least a half or more than half of Slovak young men ready to fight. Among these volunteers are many of our most respected and beloved young men in various Slovak communities. These are on their way to fight on the battlefields of France. In France, however, the officers' corps was limited to a very small Slovak minority. Father Slavo Moravek volunteered for military duty to serve with his fellow Slovak legionaires. Dr. Eduard Benes, the secretary of the CzechoSlovak National Council, replied from Paris : "I guess our army has no need for a priest." Slovak women in America, either in their own organizations or as members of the 'Vcielky' or 'Priadky' groups carried on a nation-wide campaign for supplies. Jano Jancek, Slovak emigrant soldier who was released from a Russian military camp, came to America and was elected Secretary of the Slovak League. He credited these women with a total amount of goods valued at more than a half-million dollars that was distributed to the armed forces overseas . Both the military and material ai_d by the Slovaks exceeded all expectations. The Million Dollar Campaign War funds were established in every Slovak organization which taxed males 10 cents and females 5 cents each month. A special committee of nine members: 3 Catholic priests, 3 Protestant ministers and 3 civilian leaders were named in the fall of 1917 to raise a million dollars for the financial support of political action in international affairs . Enthusiasm ran high: Two Catholic clergymen, Father Joseph Murgas and Father John Martvon, launched the campaign by each contributing $2,000 and Michael Bosak added his pledge of $5,000. This initial good example followed until approximately $1,000,000 was collected from Slovaks from all walks of life throughout America. This money was allocated by the Slovak League as follows (as Peter P. Jurcak, president of the Slovak League in 1946 records it in his, "The Slovaks", pp. 190-191): �SLOVAKIA 42 Year 1916 1917 1917 1918 1918 1918 1918 1919 1919 1919 1919 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1921 1921 Name Amount Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Paris . $ 5,000.00 20,000 .00 ditto in Russia .......... . ....... .. 10,000.00 . ....... .......... ditto in America 120,000.00 .. Council Nat. T. G. Masaryk, Pres. C.S. 36,000.00 Czecho-Slo vak Council in America .... . 3,184.00 Slav Press Bureau .......... ......... . 19,631.00 Expenses of delegation to Slovakia .... . 55,000.00 Dr. Eduard Benes .......... . . ....... . 5,194.00 For Magyar Counter-Pr opaganda in U.S . . 44,500.00 Czecho-Slo vak Nat. Council in America .. Dr. Vavro srobar for propagand a publi10,000.00 cations ... . . . . . . . .... . ...... . ........ . vak Czecho-Slo for Hurban Col. Vladimir 25,000.00 Legionaire s returning from Russia .. .. . Czechothe of T. G. Masaryk, President Slovak Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000.00 Dr. Alice Masaryk, for Czecho-Slo vak Red 25,000.00 Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relief sent to Czecho-Slo vakia . . . . . . . . . . 126,000.00 For print. presses, etc., for Slovak Ministry 68,000.00 5,000.00 Bratislava University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For counteract ing Magyar propagand a and helping secure loan for Czecho-Slo 9,500.00 vak Republic . .... . .......... ... . . . . . . .00 4,572 Aid to disabled Czecho-Slo vak Veterans . 4,000.00 For High School in Petrovec . ........ . Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Amer5,000.00 ica .......... .......... .......... .... . Total ....... ... .......... . .... . ....... . $800,911.00 It is significant to note that not one dollar was given to M. R. Stefanik! Everything went to T . G. Masaryk, to his daughter or followers, Benes and srobar. The expenses of G. Kosik's and st. Osusky's trip to Europe are not listed. Nothing is recorded as aid to Slovak prisoners of war in Russia. This and other expenses for publicity in America, the pay of employees , press, etc., must have added up to an additional tidy sum. As the war came to an end there is a marked drop-off �SLOVAKIA 43 in donations, as also seen in the above report. This was quite in evidence in the political field, too. The Pittsburgh Pact Note that the United States, which declared war on Germany in April, 1917, did not declare hostilities upon Austria-Hungary. But the Slovaks in America from 1914 on openly declared themselves hostile to a monarchy that deprived the Slovaks of their freedom in their European homeland. The moment of decision for the Slovaks was based on their convictions, not on a calculated risk, as was the case of many American Czechs who could not be persuaded to accept the possibility of the destruction of the ancient Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even after the outbreak of war between America and Germany the position of Austria-Hungary in America was not hopeless. Defenders of the old Empire had high hopes of saving it. But these hopes were somewhat dimmed by President Wilson's recommendation to Congress on December 4, 1917, to declare war on Austria-Hungary. Yet, this act did not doom the Hapsburg Empire, for there was not any plan at the time to break up the ancient imperial state. Wilson, himself, on December 4, 1917, and on January 8, 1918, in his 14 points did not recommend the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, he said: "We do not wish to weaken or reorganize the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Reaction of the allied powers to Wilson's speech in January, 1918, was of a general nature. Liberation on the Slovaks and Czechs from foreign rule did not necessarily mean the disintegration of the old empire and much less the creation of a new state of Czecho-Slovakia. Declaration of war on Austria-Hungary by the U.S. changed the situation quite radically, however. Demands for the break-up of the Hapsburg empire became more insistent. Foremost among the new states proposed was Czecho-Slovakia. As the movement for liberation became more certain, the more vociferously did the adherents of Czechoslovak- �44 SLOVAKIA ism push the Slovak League into Czech clutches. Accordingly, on February 9, 1918, in Chicago representatives of the Slovaks and Czechs organized a branch of the CzechoSlovak National Council in which eight Slovaks from the Slovak League and eight Czechs from the Bohemian National Alliance were enrolled. This eventually resulted in unity of action and organization, and in effect was a virtual recognition by the Slovak League that the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris was now the supreme agency for the struggle for freedom. T. G. Masaryk had waited for this development. He immediately announced that he would come to America. In six weeks he was here to lead the Czechs and Slovaks to victory . . . a triumph of his Czechoslovak ideology of a 'Czechoslovak nation' in a united Czechoslovak state! At first Masaryk was welcomed with great enthusiasm but this was short-lived. Jednota (May 22, 1918) had these comments: This activity, as Masaryk understands it, is only for the benefit of the Czechs, with the Slovaks helping, of course. If we are fighting and working for a Greater Bohemia, we are not fighting or working for our own interests but only for the Czechs. The struggle for a Greater Czechia is not worth one Slovak cent, nor one drop of Slovak blood. We want pure wine. We want to know whether we are fighting for a Greater Czechia or for a free, self-governing Slovakia and for a free, self-governing Czechia. T . G. Masaryk was informed of this challenge. In his subsequent remarks - as a wily tactician - he directed a few inane statements for the benefit of the Slovaks. These, oddly enough, inspired the Slovak League's press bureau to hail him as 'the greatest living Slovak' and as 'our great father and leader'! Moreover, all the Slovak newspapers got into the spirit of the moment and out did each other in an outburst of superlatives, expressing their affection, loyalty and trust in the hero of the moment, Masaryk himself. Nevertheless, the bulk of the American Slovaks was not taken in by this synthetic expression of admiration for Masaryk. What he said so nicely and smoothly they wanted down on paper, black on white, so to speak. Finally, on May 30, 1918, T. G. Masaryk picked up a copy of the Cleveland Agreement, read it, took a sheet �SLOVAKIA 45 of paper and wrote down in pencil a personal draft to be proposed as an "Agreement or Contract." Masaryk's original copy, announced the press bureau of the Slovak League of America, "firmly establishes the relationship between the two branches." (Not nations, as it stood properly in the Cleveland Agreement-my comment) . "One copy of this agreement," reported the bureau, "will be forwarded to Albert Mamatej , president of the Slovak League, who will officially make it public shortly. Professor Masaryk thus has completed his mission among the Slovaks with whom he met in a conference in Pittsburgh." Thomas Masaryk's agreement written and signed by him is called the Pittsburgh Pact, therefore as of May 30, 1918. Its main articles are these : Slovakia will have its own administration, its own parliament, its own courts. Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in the administration and in public life. Did Masaryk intend to abide by the agreement when he drew it up and personally signed it? This question was intriguing until he clarified it in his book, "World Revolution-Svetova revolucia," 1925, p. 262: "I signed the agreement," writes the author, "which was an agreement between American Slovaks and American Czechs. This was done to satisfy a small Slovak faction which dreamed of God knows what kind of independent Slovakia . . . the agreement was a local one . . . among the Czechs and Slovaks of America." According to Masaryk's testimony, therefore, the agreement was not between the Slovak and Czech nations, not even between a group of Slovak and Czech representatives of their respective societies in this country, but an ordinary local expedient agreement "to satisfy a small Slovak faction." Obviously, it was never meant to be considered in the planning of the foundation of the Czecho-Slovak state either by Masaryk or the Czechs themselves. Masaryk brushed aside the Slovaks rudely by this action, broke his word of honor and proclaimed his signature genuine but worthless, and in the same work (World Revolution-Svetova revolucia, 1925, page 105) he discounted the financial aid of the Slovaks as insignificant: �46 SLOVAKIA While I was in Russia. Dr. Benes received money in Paris. I estimate the amount at about $300,000. The cost of our activity did not reach the sum of a million Dollars. The money came from Czech sources. During the war Slovak contributions were very small. As president, after the war I received $200,000 but in this was included money from my personal American friends. What these 'very small' contributions actually were we have noted above in Jurcak's official report, as contained in his book, "The Slovaks". The fact is they were not 'very small' and the payment each time in sums of several hundred thousands dollars during and after the war to Masaryk directly or indirectly ( to the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris) were ear-marked from the Slovaks in America, and not from the Czechs. Masaryk's career as a statesman and his enduring fame would have been crowned by an aura of glory instead of being clouded by suspicion and disillusionment had he, as a man of honor, kept his word and publicly recognized the genuine contributions of the American Slovaks to the building of the Czecho-Slovak state. Delegates of the Slovak League in Slovakia Czecho-Slovakia as a free and independent republic was not proclaimed by the National Council in Paris but in the United States, and that by its branch, the CzechoSlovak National Council in America. It was on October 18, 1918, in Washington, D.C. in the form of a proclamation by Thomas G. Masaryk, provisional president, and for Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, minister of national defense, and Dr. Eduard Benes, minister of internal and foreign affairs. Neither Stefanik nor Benes were present but Masaryk signed for them by proxy. Thomas G. Masaryk compiled the proclamation but, as he writes later, he first submitted it to the scrutiny of American legal advisers. Then he presented a handwritten document to the State Department and the White House. "I presented the proclamation to the Secretary of State, Lansing, so that I would be assured of the approval of the American government," Masaryk explained in his memoirs. Official reference to the Slovaks in this historical document was unfortunate. indeed. He wrote: "The rights �SLOVAKIA 47 of the Czechs may be united with their Slovak brethren in Slovakia, once a part of our (Czech) state .. ." In effect, this meant that Slovakia was being re-united with the Czech state to which it had at one time been united as r. part of a whole. Not historically true at all. An agreement between the Czechs and Slovaks had been made as a 50-50 proposition but Masaryk ignored it completely. The new state was to be organized on his own terms. The Slovaks understood their fight was for their freedom but now Masaryk was saying they were shedding their blood for the right of the Czechs to rule the Slovaks. In one official declaration Masaryk had erased the rights of the Slovaks to their national freedom, the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation, the right to a federal union of states ( Slovakia and Bohemia in Czecho-Slovakia, a united state), the right to a Slovak law-making body in the Slovak capital, the right to Slovak schools and courts, the right to a Slovak political administration. ~tefanik was understandably displeased with the proclamation to which Masaryk appended his name by proxy. In his book, "My Role in the Czecho-Slovak Fiiht for Freedom," General Janin, who was in Russia with ~tefanik at the time, writes: Stefanik was greatly disturbed, he was indignant that the proclamation had been made under his name when he was not even informed of its contents. He showed me a long telegram addressed to Masaryk and Benes concerning the proclamation of October 18, 1918. Meanwhile, T . G. Masaryk after agreement with Benes and Kramat ( who was in Switzerland) became provisional president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. As such, he signed the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement on November 18, 1918, which Albert Mamatej presented to him for his signature before Masaryk returned to Paris. In his farewell message, Masaryk said: "America will have a place of honor in the history of the liberation movement in behalf of Czecho-Slovakia." Unfortunately, we have already seen above what 'place of honor' Masaryk reserved for the American Slovaks who did so much meritorious work in the struggle, but received little credit for it. Masaryk left the U.S. as provisional president of the �SLOVAKIA proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic.. Soon afterwards reports from Slovakia came to America. American Slovaks were very much disturbed by the reports coming from post-war Slovakia. Slovak Catholic priests were especially aroused by news of Czech indignities against religion in Slovakia. They grasped now in what spirit the international policy of the Czecho-Slovak National Council had been inspired and they sensed what grave consequences it had brought in the Slovaks' homeland. Rev. Jan Liscinsky characterized the entire situation: "The Slovaks freed themselves from Magyar oppression only to be enslaved under a Czech banner." Father Dianiska, after studying the post-war situation carefully, wrote that srobar selected only as associates and delegates who had been educated and trained in Praha, hence the entire personnel was Czechophile and uncertain in matters of religion. Dr. Dianiska concluded rightfully that 'a period of misfortune was in store for the Slovak nation, both politically and religiously.' First-hand information was necessary. Accordingly, the Slovak League hastened to send a number of observers to Slovakia. A five-man delegation was designated, namely, Jozef Rusek, Dr. M. Francisci, Edo Kovach, M. Getting and J. Matloch. They left America on March 7, 1919, and Rev. Pavol Siska, a representative of the Jednota (First Catholic Slovak Union) accompanied them. Later Ignac Gessay joined the delegation. The mission was to investigate conditions and report to their Slovak League colleagues and the American Slovaks who had subscribed to the Pittsburgh Agreement, a photostatic copy of which they carried to 'liberated Slovakia.' Immediately upon their arrival in Slovakia in the spring of 1919, they sensed that the Slovak nation was in the thick of a struggle for its rights. But there was much confusion and they, too, were confused by the swift rush of events. The longer they stayed, however, the clearer insight they got into the real situation. Nevertheless, even Jozef Rusek was baffled for a time so that he leaned towards the corps of slick-talking Czechoslovak politicians who assured him they were doing the right thing for Slovakia! �SLOVAKIA 49 At the Scranton (Pa.) Congress of the Slovak League on May 29, 1919, Husek reported: The government people in Bratislava oppose autonomy, they favor instead a central parliament, a central government and they hold that the Czechs and Slovaks constitute one nation, the Slovak language being only a Czech dialect! Autonomy would prevent a lingiustic union with the Czechs. That is why we were not well received in Bratislava, nor was our Pittsburgh Agreement agreeable to them. We were received with joy in Ruzomberok, Hlinka's kingdom. So was our Pittsburgh document. Some of Hlinka's views I do not like, particularly his vociferous agitation against Dr. Srobar, a minister. And it is a fact that Magyar renegades are filtering into Hlinka's party. The Magyars praise Hlinka as a fine man because he demands autonomy for Slovakia, and because he is in opposition to the Czechs. Some of Husek's observations were true to the facts. It is true that Hlinka stood firmly behind the demand for autonomy for an independent Slovak nation while srobar advocated Czechoslovakism, amalgamation with the Czechs. srobar was against the Pittsburgh Agreement, Hlinka was for it. Husek was wrong, however, in claiming that Magyar elements joined Hlinka's party exclusively. As a matter of record, the 1920 parliamentary elections proved that the majority of Magyars were in parties led by Ivan Derer and srobar. This was acclaimed as a virtue if the 'mad'ar6ni' (Magyar sympathizers) belonged to their political parties, but a vice if they returned as prodigal sons to Hlinka's party. What policy did Husek advocate as a policy for the Slovak League of America? The less we speak of autonomy, the better for Slovakia and the new republic at this time. There is no need to be fearful. Autonomy will not vanish in thin air. To declare opposition now would be aiding the Magyar cause. When Slovakia becomes of age, it will take what rightfully belongs to it. And autonomy belongs by natural right to Siovakia. A reasonable statement of policy. Self-government or autonomy would not disappear. Slovakia would get it sometime in the future ... and it did, but only after a bitter struggle that lasted a full score years (1919-1938) ! Why, then, was it necessary to get the Slovaks to agree on a 50-50 proposition with the Czechs in the first place? What good were the Memorandum, the Cleveland Agreement and the Pittsburgh Pact? For what purpose did so many American Slovaks pour out their lifeblood on the �50 SLOVAKIA battlefield of France? Why was it necessary for the Slovak nation to carry on a 20-yr. struggle for the incorporation of the principles of the Pittsburgh Pact into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia when the American Slovaks could have readily put it into the Constitution, and even into the peace treaty as did the American Ruthenians ( Carpathian Rusins) under the leadership of zatkovic? And the Ruthenians were far from being as politically mature or developed as the Slovaks. From the very beginning the Slovak struggle abroad might well have been successfully completed if the American Slovaks had been allowed to incorporate their principles in the Constitution so that the Slovak nation would have had a constitutional right to self-rule in its own autonomous state, and their needless fight for autonomy would have been avoided. Moreover, there would have been an international basis and guarantee for their just rights, and the Slovak people would have had self-rule in their historic homeland. If American Slovaks had intervened in Washington and later had presented their case to the American delegation at the peace conference in Paris, it is certain that the right of the Slovaks to autonomy in Slovakia would have been seriously considered and debated as an international problem, and the outcome would surely have been the same as that of the Rusins whose demand for autonomy was officially registered in the Peace Treaty of St. Germaine, on September 10, 1919. But foes of Slovak freedom and Hlinka's party saw to it that every possible means was used to divide the Slovak League and Andrej Hlinka. Gradually the Slovak League began leaning to the view that Hlinka's fight in behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact was a cover-up for his personal feud with Srobar. It was becoming more and more apparent that strong pressure of Czechoslovak groups both in Slovakia and America was being applied to the Slovak League. Matters involved in this struggle became even more confusing when Milan Getting, a Slovak League delegate in Bratislava, persuaded the organization to finance a propaganda or press bureau in Bratislava to the tune of �SLOVAKIA 51 $68,000. srobar managed to buy a printing establishment in the Slovak capital for these funds and happily set up a propaganda center to fight Hlinka and oppose all autonomists in the country. Assuredly, this development did not bring Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak League of America to any mutual understanding or a friendly relationship. Andrej Hlinka's Delegates in America In memoirs, Z<ipisky z Mirova, Bratislava, 1941, Andrej Hlinka is quoted on page 31: I know the Slovak people, for I am one of their sons. All my life I have kept my finger on the Slovak nation's pulse. I have heard every beat of the Slovak heart. I aroused the Slovak people to action and I gave them hope. I sowed an idea in their minds. The people accepted all of my ideas but they did not relish the Czechoslovak idea of brotherhood. I did not sleep or rest. The idea troubled me. But for the sake of preserving the Slovak nation, I argued, I must give the people this bitter pill, yet in a sugar-coated form . It is better to live with somebody, I assured my troubled conscience, than to die alone. The people found it hard to swallow the bitter pill. Their natural instincts rebelled against it. It seems these were much wiser and stronger than my way of thinking. And so I find myself regretting a blunder committed against the primitive natural instincts of my own people. All I can pray and hope for is the chance to correct this grave error and redeem myself. If I fail in this, I feel certain the people will forgive me and will not hold it against me. A year ago I sinned because I was not sufficiently cautious or zealous enough in the struggle for the Slovak nation's right to liberty. I failed the people in a historical moment in the midst of my struggle ti) which I have devoted almost a lifetime of energy and sacrifice. First, I faltered because I went to Martin on October 30, 1918. Had I not gone there that day, I would not be conscience-stricken today. (This Hlinka wrote while held in prison by the Czechs in Mirov, October 16, 1919). Mistakes are made, even in politics. What is important is to realize one's erring ways and correct them in time. Andrej Hlinka, therefore, went to repair the damage by setting out for the peace conference in Paris during the month of August, 1919. His intention was to incorporate a guarantee of the Slovak nation's right to autonomy in the peace treaty. Hlinka's journey to Paris was in vain. The Slovak leader's venture would have been successful, perhaps, had the Slovak delegation joined him and �52 SLOVAKIA through the American representatives in Paris presented Hlinka's request at the peace conference. Paris was the logical place for the fusion of Hlinka's domestic program with the Slovak League's proposals and the official presentation of the united program at the Peace Conference. Instead, Andrej Hlinka, armed only with the Memorandum, and alone, sought entry to the Peace parley in Paris. This was not a vain gesture of an obscure adventurer seeking cheap publicity. There was history behind him. He was a prominent Slovak political leader at 55, his was a distinguished record as a patriotic leader with three years of prison because of his defense of the Slovak nation. The cernova affair that had taken the lives of 15 of his fellow countrymen was known all over the world. Thousands of articles in Slovak periodicals at home and in America alone made him famous. As founder of many societies and organizations he was a popular figure at home . . . and in the background he had the good will of eminent Polish leaders who were sympathetic to the Slovak cause. In Slovak history it remains a sad and regrettable fact that Hlinka and the Slovak League delegation did not join forces in Paris. They lacked mutual understanding of each other personally. This was the cockle that had been sown by Derer and srobar. The Slovak League confined its activity to writing memoranda for the Prague government. Here on October 24, 1919, its representatives did, however, express the desire for the gradual introduction of autonomy in Slovakia "according to the circumstances and possibilities," and they requested further "a guarantee for the incorporation of self-government into the basic state laws, namely, in the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, and along the lines drawn up in the Agreement between Masaryk and ourselves." In reality it was merely a paper request. Moreover, it was presented as a plea with the added proviso, "self-government need not be established or introduced immediately, there is no urgency for such action, however." Neither srobar nor his Czechoslovak associates paid any attention to so woefully weak a request. To achieve results at the time it was absolutely neces- �SLOVAKIA 53 sary for the personal appearance of Andrej Hlinka at the Paris Conference, but with the full backing of the moral and material resources of the Slovaks at home and abroad on the solid platform of Slovak autonomy. The time for mere Memoranda had passed. The time for dynamic action had arrived. Unfortunately, Andrej Hlinka found himself alone in Paris. He knew he had no official support, but somehow he kept faith and hoped for a miracle in the impending crisis. No miracle occured to save the situation. Hlinka, disappointed and defeated, returned home where he was immediately arrested and taken to prison by the Czechs because he had dared to go to Paris to re• present the Slovak nation personally. But he had not for. gotten the American Slovaks. While still in Paris, he dis• patched two emissaries to America, namely, Dr. Jozef Rudinsky and Jozef Kubala. Passports and visas for these two men were given by the Poles who had previously furnished Hlinka with a Polish passport to go to Paris. Precisely on October 13, 1919, when Hlinka was seized and taken to the Mirov prison by his Czech captors, the emissaries (Father Rudinsky and Kubala) arrived in America. On October 24, 1919, they addressed an extraordinary meeting of the executive council of the Slovak League in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Jozef Rudinsky visualized clearly the aim of Slovak policy as the gradual realization of the Slovak nation's natural rights as guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Pact. The minutes of this special session reveal what Rudinsky said of Hlinka's party, namely, that 'the party wanted a gradual introduction of self-rule but demanded that this autonomy, ie., the agreement, be registered immediately in Paris.' After a long discussion at this executive meeting, nothing definite was decided upon. The Slovak League was still overshadowed by the Rusek report, ie., too much emphasis on autonomy at the time would only profit the Magyar side . This was contrary to the mission of Hlinka's emissaries who had been sent to America for the primary purpose of winning the American Slovaks to Andrej Hlinka and his party's policy of concentrating all their efforts on �54 SLOVAKIA winning autonomy as soon as possible, or at least have the guarantee approved and registered at the Peace Conference in Paris. Outcome of the meetings and subsequent conferences was the 'Statement and Public Testimony of the Slovak League' in which the League's spokesmen explained their negative stand in regards to the delegates sent to them by Andrej Hlinka. Three reasons were given for their attitude: 1) The delegates had sounded a discordant note in the existing harmony betw~en the Czechs and Slovaks abroad, as well as at home, by their publicized views. 2) They lacked a Czecho-Slovak passport; they had passports furnished by the Polish government in Paris. 3) Andrej Hlinka, the head of the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska 13udova Strana) had gone to Paris with a Polish passport and visa, not one from Czecho-Slovakia. Misunderstanding only widened the gulf between the real fighters for the Pittsburgh Pact: Hlinka's party in Slovakia and the Slovak League in America. This served only one purpose, ie., the prolonging of the struggle by 20 years until the common goal of Slovak freedom and selfrule was reached in 1938. Intervention i n behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact in vain Despite the manifest refusal to Andrej Hlinka's invitation to join him and the Slovak People's Party in the struggle for autonomy ( the Slovak League's brain-child) the Slovak League could not renounce the Pittsburgh Pact. Though publicly disavowing collaboration with Andrej Hlinka, the League on its own initiative began taking steps to put the Pittsburgh Agreement into actual practice in Slovakia. This gesture, though somewhat shaky and lacking the early confidence that had been solidly based on conviction, was made in the right direction, however. As late as 1919 a branch of the Czecho-Slovak National Council was still operating in America. On November 7, 1919, it announced that "the approved representatives of the American Slovaks requested that the Pittsburgh Agreement be considered for incorporation by the National �SLOVAKIA 55 Assembly in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic." Armed with this request and with a resolution of the Slovak League in his pocket, Albert Mamatej, the president of the Slovak League, went to Czecho-Slovakia. He presented the Pittsburgh Agreement to srobar and Hodza, both of whom declared it was both bad and unnecessary. Milan Hodza openly stated: "Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Magyar politicians. Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Polish politicias. And that for us is a significant warning." That autonomy for Slovakia was the fulfillment of Slovak aspirations in America, as well as a good motto, and that the same program inspired Hlinka's policy in Slovakia designed for the Slovak nation's destiny as a selfgoverning state, did not occur either to Mamatej or his Slovak associates. srobar and Hodza simply refused to take cognizance of this reality. Mamatej returned to America with the resolution of srobar and Hodza, rejecting autonomy for Slovakia. He also brought the declaration of the Slovak representatives (Srobar's) at the Revolutionary National Assembly in Prague. They declared on February 6, 1920: "Autonomy would place an enormous financial burden on the Slovak nation but everything that is essentially in the Pittsburgh Agreement has been incorporated into the Constitution except a separate parliament, which under present circumstances, would be detrimental to Slovakia." Albert Mamatej was taken in. He believed all this and acted accordingly. Hence, he recommended what he was told in Praha, ie., the best future for the Slovak nation was to accept the status of 'Czechoslovakism' as part of a train pulled on the Czech main track and run by a Czech engineer . . . of course, the fireman was naturally a Slovak .. . and this, explained Mamatej naively, was in full accord with the Pittsburgh Pact! On the otherhand, it seemed that Mamatej feared that the Pittsburgh Pact would be exploited by the Magyars or Poles, nor did he have trust in the Czechoslovak group of �56 SLOVAKIA the Slovak ongm in Prague. Therefore, he felt that the Agreement was to be entrusted to Andrej Hlinka although the Slovak leader was still in prison at Mirov in Moravia. Ultimately, the Pittsburgh Agreement was to be incorporated in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Such was the assurance given Mamatej by the Prague politicians. Yet, when the Constitution was approved by the national assembly on February 29, 1920, there was no reference to Slovak autonomy or self-government in Slovakia, and there was .no distinction made on the question of the 'Individuality of the Slovak nation'! To offset the success of the mission of Dr. Rudinsky and Kubala in America, the Prague government hastily sent its agents to this country. Rev. Ladislav Moys and Jan Pocisk, a Social Democratic leader, arrived in America on March 2, 1920. Father Liscinsky declared frankly that Father Moys, an old Slovak but totally unqualified in the game of political legerdemain, was 'a disgrace to the Slovak Catholics.' Moys' first report to his masters in Prague was that aside from a small faction, American Slovaks were "anti-autonomistic." . This statement was labelled publicly by the · Slovak Catholic Federation as a fabrication and a fable. The executive committee of the federation on October 12, 1920, made this declaration: We resent Rev. Moys' insinuation with abhorrence, and we reassure our brethren beneath the Tatras in Slovakia that American Slovaks now more than ever before adhere to the Pittsburgh Agreement because during the visit of Rev. Moys and Mr. Pocisk they had ample opportunity to become convinced that the foes of this documentary agreement consider every reasonable basis for mutual understanding presented by the Slovaks as useless. Unfortunately, Albert Mamatej, having been named a consul of Czecho-Slovakia in Pittsburgh, joined the Czechoslovak camp. In his letters, addressed to his chief, Benes in Prague, who was minister of foreign affairs, Mamatej attacked autonomism and its adherents and turned against the ideals he had represented so ably and so well during the war. He died suddenly, disillusioned and alone. His widow and three children received a monthly pension of $15.00 . Thus did Prague value a man who had �SLOVAKIA 57 carried out its wishes and had performed services contrary to his personal convictions and his fine wartime record in behalf of the Slovak cause of freedom. Mamatej, president of the Slovak League, was dead. But the ideal which had been the essence of Slovak political policy at home and in America was very much alive. Alongside the Slovak Catholic Federation the idea of an autonomous Slovakia took hold once again in the Slovak League of America, which after Mamatej's demise was directed by prominent American Slovaks who gave it the leadership it deserved. Wh~ the presidents were unable to devote full time to the Slovak League, it was that gallant secretary, Jan Kocur, who performed all necessary tasks with devotion and ability and kept the embers glowing in the old glorious tradition of self-government or autonomy for Slovakia. Andrej Blinka in America Slovak life in America slowly began losing its onetime vitality and ardor. It always happens that way ... in the lives of individuals and in the history of organizations. There is a time of development and progress followed by eclipse and eventual decline. Circumstances were unfavorable and decline was inevitable. Slovak daily newspapers in America suffered a sudden recession while many periodicals simply vanished. Old workers grew old or died, and aid from the old country was cut off as the energy of the Slovaks was directed to the defense of the Slovak nation's right to national survival. American Slovaks were in need of moral support at this time, for the new generation, though often possessing the Slovak spirit of its forebears, discovered it was far easier and more advantageous to speak English rather than the Slovak language of their parents. Nonetheless, even under increasing unfavorable circumstances, there were frequent instances of an unusual vital interest in the Slovak League and in the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom in its historic homeland. �58 SLOVAKIA By far, the majority of American Slovaks remained staunchly loyal to their ancient heritage and their ideals as expressed in the Pittsburgh Agreement to which they manifestly showed a deep attachment. A Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom sprang up to keep alive the spirit of dedication to the Slovak cause. Contributions, moral, financial and cultural, of existing organizations throughout America did not cease completely. Undoubtedly the great event of this era in the midtwenties was the visit of Andrej Hlinka to America. The occasion was the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. The heroic warrior came accompanied by Dr. Jozef Buday on June 5, 1926, and his visit lasted until October 13, ... a four months' stay among his fellow countrymen in America. Hlinka came to America in answer to the invitation of the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom, headed by .Jozef Husek, and the Slovak League, whose president was Ivan Bielek. Anticipated with great joy throughout America where Slovaks lived, Hlinka's visit was heralded by Jozef Husek's letter of April 25, 1926, assuring the Slovak leader of a warm welcome: You will not run into any trouble here, as there is only a handful of Czechoslovaks here and they are incapable of organizing any serious protest meeting. I personally guarantee your visit will be a great success. The people idolize you and your visit will fulfill their great desire to see you personally and welcome you. Ivan Bielek, president of the Slovak League, wrote in the American press that Hlinka was invited everywhere for a Sunday appearance. "Consider," reported Bielek, "that to date we have a total of 136 requests for a Sunday date. This means if we want to satisfy everyone, our distinguished guest, Andrej Hlinka, will have to remain here with us for more than two years ." Overflow crowds welcomed Andrej Hlinka and listened avidly to his addresses from the Atlantic to the midwest throughout the summer on weekends. In his final farewell to his fellow Slovak countrymen �SLOVAKIA 59 in America on October 11, 1926, Hlinka made this public statement: You received me as a national hero. I do not deserve this great honor. But if I have not as yet attained that eminent status, your affection and generosity have insipired me to aspire to rise to such noble stature. I am leaving you. I bid you farewell but not in tears or sorrow. Your success and happiness here fill me with national pride. I take with me your message in the words of the immortal Furdek: "O, thou blue Tatra . .. We, your children, have wandered far from thee. Weep not! Your clan even beyond the great ocean remains loyal to thee." God bless you, God keep you, God strengthen you. Do not forget that your cradle stood beneaith the Tatras, your beloved Motherland, our sorely-tried and suffering Slovakia. Goodbye my Slovak nation . . . Goodbye my fellow Slovak countrymen in America. The Slovak League Delegation in Slovakia Autonomy Achieved There had been a number of smaller or larger delegations sent from America to Slovakia and vice versa_ Among these were those sent by the Spolok sv. Vojtecha from Trnava and the Matica Slovenska from Turciansky Sv. Martin. Neither was the occasion for a mutual cultural exchange. The American Slovaks were on the receiving end on both occasions, they were passive recipients. They received a large number of Slovak works in literature, in return they were able to offer some two or three of their own books. Consequently, Slovak books from Slovakia found a ready market in America. But there were political delegations from America. One of these came to Trencin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Ag-reement. It joined Hlinka for the celebration. Perhaps the most important visit to America in 1937 was that of the Spolok sv. Vojtecha (among the delegates was Msgr. Jozef Tiso) that followed the earlier visit of a Matica Slovenska delegation. Of supreme importance politically was the visit of the Slovak League delegation to Slovakia in May, 1938. Members comprising the group were Dr. Peter P. Hletko, president, Josef Husek, one of the original signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, Dominik Sloboda, Michal Sincak and Rev. Jozef Rolik. The delegation brought with it the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the celebration which �60 SLOVAKIA was held on June 4, 1938, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the historic document in Pittsburgh, Pa. (May 30, 1918). As a symbolic act the first official visit of the Slovak League delegation in Czecho-Slovakia was to Andrej Hlinka ... symbolic in the sense of the mutual unity of ideals and purpose between the American Slovaks and their fellow countrymen in Slovakia. The Slovak League delegation, therefore, did not present itself with the Pittsburgh Agreement to its Slovak and Czech opponents in Bratislava or Prague, but went directly first to its great friend, champion and foremost associate, Andrej Hlinka, in Ruzomberok. This deliberate act manifestly emphasized the unity of thought and purpose of the Slovaks at home and in America. Thus, as the First Slovak League delegation which had brought the Pittsburgh Agreement to Czecho-Slovakia at the birth of that republic, so now, it was the last Slovak League delegation that had come with the self-same historic document at the eleventh hour to persuade the leaders of the Czecho-Slovak Republic to accept and put into practical operation the principles enunciated in the Pittsburgh Agreement. In vain had been the attempt of the first Slovak League delegation, and even more of a failure was the coming of the Slovak League delegation from America as far as the centralists in Prague or Bratislava were concerned. Though the Republic was threatened by foreign powers on every side, these stubbornly refused to accept the Pittsburgh Agreement as the basis for a mutual understanding between the Slovaks and the Czechs. At least this situation set the stage for the fulfillment of Husek's prophecy uttered at a meeting of the Slovak League in America upon his return from Slovakia in May, 1919: No need to be afraid. Autonomy will not run away. When Slovakia will grow up to maturity, it will take what rightfully belongs to the Slovak nation ... and autonomy belongs to it! As a matter of fact, autonomy did not run away in those 20 years. How could it? Andrej Hlinka had held it �SLOVAKIA 61 firmly in his noble and strong hands. It was his blood and his whole life. Hlinka, whom Martin Razus, a Protestant poet, patriot and clergyman, joined, made Slovakia his country. Hlinka and Razus in mind and heart by their work, industry and devotion nourished the spirit of Slovakia so that it grew out of its infancy, became strong and reached maturity. Prematurely, Martin Razus died in 1937; and Andrej Hlinka followed , though at the age of 74, in 1938, less than t wo months before Slovakia in October really took unto herself what had always been hers by natural right, and guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Agreement in 1918. The glorious day of self-government, or autonomy, for the Slovak nation dawned in the early fall of 1938 but neither was present to celebrate this long-awaited victory and hardwon triumph inside the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Hlinka died on August 15, 1938; and a member of the Slovak League delegation, Dominik Slaboda, bade farewell to the reverend warrior at his grave . Slaboda took up a handful of Slovak earth from Hlinka's graveside and carried it to America as a memento of the great Slovak leader and fighter for the sacred principles of the Pittsburgh Pact. Slovakia seised autonomy because in the year, 1938, it had grown out of childhood into adulthood, and autonomy rightfully belonged to her as a natural right. No one can deny that it was truly a crime to be attributed to the Czech, the Slovak, and Czechoslovak opponents of the Pittsburgh Pact that they blocked the incorporation of the articles of self-government for Slovakia in the Constitution of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia until Martin Razus and Andrej Hlinka passed on into eternity. Upon opening page 1,161 of the 1938 annual "Sbirky zakonu a natizeni statu Cesko-Slovenskeh o" ( Collection of the laws and regulations of the Czecho-Slovak State) I read: Constitutional L aw of November 22, 1938 on the Autonomy for Slovakia The National Assembly on the premise that the Czecho-Slovak Republic was form ed on the basis of the agreement of the sovereign �62 SLOVAKIA will of two equal nations, that in the Pittsburgh Agreement the Slovak nation was promised complete autonomy, and motivated by the desire to bring the Slovak and Czech nations into a friendly relationship in the spirit of the 2ilina Agreement, approves the following law: (Then follow several paragraphs of this Constitutional Law) Paragraph after paragraph follow, the same as weeks and months and days, and years, that were spent in a prolonged, self-sacrificing struggle for the recognition of the Pittsburgh Pact so that finally, the words, "Pittsburghska dohoda," might be inserted in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic! And the word, 'Autonomy,' became an actual fact: The word became flesh! Appreciation is due to the Slovak League of America for creating the Pittsburgh Pact and thanks to its staunch defender, Andrej Hlinka, who together with the Slovak League saw eye to eye in the matter so that eventually the Slovak nation was granted what was a natural right from the very beginning of time. As a final happy conclusion to a mutual understanding and a united effort in the struggle for the Slovak nation's freedom and self-government, the outcome was a triumph that marked a new phase in the history of the Slovak people in central Europe. The Slovak nation emerged victoriously as a self-governing, united people whose national destiny in the heart of Europe was assured because the Slovaks in their homeland and abroad had been willing to make sacrifices for their ideals, had cooperated with their leaders and had persevered in the struggle until final victory. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States. � SLOVAKIA 29 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE SLOVAK NATION'S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY By Karoi Sidor I have selected the quarter of a century of history of the Slovak League of America (1914-1939 ) as my topic for r eview and analysis in order to show its influence on the future destiny of the Slovak nation in its historic homeland. My work " Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji" (The Slovaks ±n the Struggle Abroad ), 264 pp., which was published in 1928 in Bratislava, serves me well in the present instance. My book, as I noted in the preface, proves that liberation of the Slovak nation from Magyar rule was not the work of the Czechs, nor was it a gift from them, but the main work in Slovakia's liberation in the first World War ( 19141918 ) was accomplished by the Slovaks under the auspices of the Slovak League of America. "It is impossible to evaluate the participation of the Slovaks in the fight for freedom in Czecho-Slovakia", I wrote in the preface, " without delving into the history of the Slovak League of America. During the war the Slovak League influenced the great majority of our emigrant Slovaks in America through membership, and its influence extended to other parts of the world wherever Slovaks had settled. For that reason I chose this title for my book to include all emigrant Slovaks instead of limiting it to t he Slovaks in America and their role in our fight for freedom. Nonetheless, it was the American Slovaks who were actually our liberators - without their assistance the claim that others gave the Slovak nation freedom on a silver platter would have been well founded on reality." The Slovaks in America were the real liberators of their fellow countrymen from Magyar oppression in their homeland beneath the Tatras. They formulated the modern political program for their fellow Slovaks in Cleveland (1915 ) and later in Pittsburgh (1918 ) . For two decades after World War I the Slovaks struggled for recognition of this program drawn up in America and they ultimately won their struggle with the moral and financial help of �30 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks in 1938. Slovakia finally had its own parliament, its own government, courts, and schools. This phase of Slovak political activity is a bright chapter in the Slovak nation's history, and all those who were engaged in the movement, either directly or indirectly, are fortunate indeed to have been a part of the nationwide struggle for liberty. Memorandum of 1914-1915 No Slovak can remain unmoved as he reads the 'Slovak League Memorandum in behalf of the Slovaks of Hungary 1914-1915' in the name of the American Slovaks. It is truly an amazing political document which shows the vision, foresight and profound thinking of its authors. It placed the Slovak cause in the forefront of world politics and progress. Essentially, this historic memorandum demands "complete self-government and free self-determination in the political field , as well as in the cultural and economic spheres, with the Slovak nation as a legal and equal partner among all nations of the world." These identical ideas were adopted somewhat later in the official documents and statements of world statesmen who determined the destiny of the countries of the world. It is thrilling for us Slovaks to realize that fully three years elapsed before the ideas of self-determination, equality of nations, the right to self-government (as enunciated originally in this Slovak Memorandum) were at last accepted and repeated by world diplomats and statesmen until they became integral parts of a new political world order after World War I. Note the timing of the Slovak Memorandum. World War I had just begun and the roar of guns on the western and eastern fronts signalled initial German and AustroHungarian victories. There was not as yet an organized liberating force among the American Slovaks. America was flooded with favorable German propaganda, and it even penetrated into official circles. But the 'word' was already out at the outset of World War I. The Slovak statement "the right of self-determination for nations" was destined to play an important role in �SLOVAKIA 31 the development of the idea and its official expression in America. In full support of this 'word' (self-determination) the organized strength of the American Slovaks was arrayed behind the unified leadership of the Slovak League of America. All the Slovak organizations, both Catholic and nonCatholic, followed the lead of the Slovak League. All periodicals, weeklies and monthlies, were at its service and willingly propagated the 'word' and greatly influenced public opinion throughout the country. Rev. Anton Filkorn, a Catholic priest, was the president and Ivan Daxner, a prominent Lutheran member of the Slovak dynasty of national leaders, was the secretary of the Slovak League at this time. Six Slovak dailies currently indicate how vigorous and dynamic was Slovak Life in America. In Slovakia there was not one daily in 1914 or 1915. (In Budapest, however, the Hungarian government subsidized the Slovenske Noviny for its own propaganda purposes). In New York City the Slovdlc v Amerike daily was directed by an impressive editorial staff of Orbach, stiasny, Baran and Molitoris, in Chicago the Ndrodny Slovensky Dennik was in the capable hands of Editor Marsal-Petrovsky, Krizan, Laucik and Bzduch, in Pittsburgh the Ndrodny Dennik was edited by P . Kompis, Ignac Gessay and Jan culen were the editors of the Newyorksky Slovensky Dennik, Jan Kadlecik edited the Slovensky Dennik, while J. E. Chudatsik and Grigl'ak were at the helm of the Eudovy Dennik, the sixth Slovak Daily in America. These half-dozen Slovak dailies and a host of weeklies, particularly, the Jednota, the Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Bratstvo, Slovenskd Obrana and many monthly publications kept the Slovaks in America well informed about political developments and helped to unite them around the central idea of the right to self-determination of the Slovak nation Jiving beneath the Tatras - in actual fact these were the spokesmen for the Slovak people who were silenced in their own native land. Only two Slovaks represented their nation in the Hungarian parliament at Budapest: Dr. Ferko Skycak, who had �32 SLOVAKIA been elected in his native Bobrov (Orava district), surrendered his mandate on the eve of World War I to Baron Ghillany, a Magyar. Dr. Ferdis Juriga and Dr. Pavol Blaha, however, courageously kept their seats in the Magyar diet in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. It was perfectly clear that the Slovaks inside Hungary could not decide their future political destiny. Under such circumstances, it is evident that American Slovaks, well organized and having reached high political status in world opinion, must of necessity assume the responsibility of making their ideas of political liberty a reality. Albert Mamatej succeeded Father Filkorn as president of the Slovak League at the end of 1914. There were no changes, however, in the political ideology of the Slovak League . In December, 1914, Mamatej wrote to the Czechs in Paris : We seek self-government for Slovakia not as an individual state, but as a political administrati \'e unit without regards to what greater state is created provided it is assigned to it as a co-partner at the council table of diplomats and statesmen. Emphasis is unquestionably on the status of self-government for Slovakia as 'a special and integral part of an administrative whole' leaving to future developments ostensibly the unsolved questions of both what type and to what state-creation Slovakia would be attached in the immediate future. The Cleveland Agreement Later it became increasingly imperative that Mamatej's "zvlastny administrativno-politicky celok" (a special administrative-political whole ) be spelled out in detail. This was fully and clearly set forth in the Cleveland Agreement. This mutual agreement was made between the Czech National Alliance in America which represented the American Czechs and the Slovak League of America as the representative of the American Slovaks in political affairs. According to the testimony of Emanuel Vos, one of the Czech representatives said at the memorable meeting: "The text of this agreement is known to Professor Masaryk, president of the national council, and he agrees with it." �SLOVAKIA 33 Masaryk at that very moment represented the entire Czech emigration in Europe, even though the Allied powers did not recognize him as such. What was, in substance, the agreement between the American Slovaks and Czechs and the Czechs in Europe headed by T. G. Masaryk? On two points the two groups agreed as registered in the Cleveland Agreement of October 25, 1915: 1) Self-government of Czech lands and Slovakia. 2) Union of Czech and Slovak nations in a federation of states with full national autonomy for Slovakia, i.e., the country was to have its own parliament, its own state administrative system, complete cultural freedom with the exclusive use of the Slovak language offically in the Slovak schools, courts, etc., a separate financial and political administration with Slovak as the official language of the country. Again we are confronted with the question of what was meant by the term, "in a federative union of states." There are only two interpretations possible: 1) A federation of Slovak, Czech, Polish, perhaps Austrian, Magyar and Croatian states. 2) A federation of the Slovak and Czech states. It soon becomes clear that in both cases the creators and signers of the Cleveland Agreement had in mind the type of unity we have in the federal union of the American states, i.e., the U.S. For a union of states, therefore; there could not be the union of one state! It requires two or more to create a union. There remains no doubt whatsoever that they did not in any manner or form intend to create the state of Czecho-Slovakia to be centralized in one parliament in Prague and operate as a monopoly from the Czech capital. A parliament of its own, a state administration, complete cultural freedom , its own finances and its own official Slovak language - all these articles as incorporated in the Cleveland Agreement leave no alternative! It meant one thing and one thing only, namely, a self-governing Slovak state. This had been the goal of all Slovak fighters for freedom and it still remained an objective to be attained on �34 SLOVAKIA the basis of the agreement above. The means to the goal was the cooperation of the Slovaks and Czechs in America, and with the Czech emigrants in Europe led by T. G. Masaryk. Cooperation, not subjugation; equality of partnership, equality of rights, even as expressed so aptly in the financial field, a '50-50 proposition!' Exclusively with the Czechs The scintillating fact that the Slovaks in America drew up this agreement with the Czechs alone indicates rather ostensibly that they voluntarily renounced advantages that other nations, and nationality forces, fighting for the liberation of their fellow countrymen in Europe might have offered the Slovaks. I refer to the Poles, Croatians, Slovenians, Serbs, Ukrainians and Sub-Carpathian Rusenes, or Ruthenians. If the Slovaks in America at that moment had united their efforts with those of other Slavic nationality groups, the Slovak cause would certainly have increased its potentialities for a more complete development of its future destiny; in a word, it would not have become so enmeshed in the Czechoslovak maze. On the part of the other Slav groups, there was a real desire for cooperation with the Slovaks, especially on the part of the Poles. The "Polonia w Ameryce" newspaper favored a union of Poles and Slovaks: "The spirit of both nations is the same, the languages not much different. That would, indeed, be the most natural union we can imagine." And the influential "Tygodnik Polski" declared: "Polak Wenger two brothers? 0, what irony! Away from this so-called mad brother, Magyar! Brother Slovak is much closer to us than that so-called brother!" Aside from the religious motif, there existed, too, the mistaken notion of the Slavic ideal, which eventually nullified cooperation between the Slovaks and Poles. It was the attitude toward Czarist Russia. Czarism, orthodoxy and imperialism - those were the underlying causes of so many Polish sufferings and obstacles to Polish freedom . Among the Slovaks there was a feeling of affection for �SLOVAKlA 35 the 'bat'uska car' (a genial uncle), the father of all Slavdom and holy Russia. These would bring freedom to the Slovak nation. The Russian nation would be the liberator. Albert Mamatej, president of the Slovak League of America, under the obvious influence of this complex, made an indignant attack on the Poles at an All Slav conference jn Cleveland. That incident closed the doors to probably close friendship with the Poles and forever destroyed the possibility of an advantageous understanding between the Slovaks and Poles. Mamatej's statement was triggered by uncomplimentary remarks about the Russians, the Czar, etc. by a number of Polish leaders at the conference. It was this refusal to work with the Poles that narrowed the path that led straight into the Czech camp. This pathway was a dangerous one, for it gave the Czechs the upperhand and they took full advantage of it by assuming sole leadership, by the isolation of Slovak spokesmen, by intentionally and maliciously misrepresenting the Slovak political concept as set forth in the text of the Cleveland Agreement. Kosik and Osusky in Europe Two delegates with a precise program were authorized to go to Europe by the Congress of the Slovak League of America. The Congress selected Gustav Kosik, editor of the Katolicky Sokol weekly, and Dr. Stefan Osusky, a lawyer and Lutheran Minister. The purpose of the mission was expressed in the program thus: "To inform the civilized world about the demands of the Slovak nation and to secure positive aid for the realization of these demands." First, their journey led to London and then on to Paris in June, 1916. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Eduard Benes, both Czech emigrants, were in Paris. "Their work" - as Dr. Lev Borsky, an emigrant, too, writes in his book, "Znovudobyti samostatnosti" (Winning Independence Again): "consisted of drawing up memoranda, writing articles and local news. As yet, they had not made any impact on the world nor had they penetrated the influential circles to present the Czech cause." Dr. Borsky writes further: �36 SLOVAKIA It was only when Milan Rastislav Stefanik ente.red the picture that their action took the first semblance of political leadership. It was through Stefanik's influence that members of the National Council got into prominent political circles. Stefanik's ability and influence 5 ot them both a hearing in high government circles and helped them a<:quire necessary experience in the delicate game of international r;olitics and diplomacy. stefanik's coming to the scene among Czech emigrants gave Masaryk's and Benes's memoranda, articles and news a certain importance. Out of ordinary propaganda efforts in which Masaryk and Benes had been engaged a serious form of political action now began taking shape. This was the logical development because the Slovak scientist was not a political emigrant but a French citizen, known in various diplomatic and international circles where diplomats, politicians, scientists and the elite met quite frequently. Stefanik had entre to the highest French circles. He moved in high society. He was well acquainted, highly respected and admired for his scientific achievements in astronomy. The cause which he represented gained tremendous prestige precisely because of his name. It is baffling to the human mind why Kosik and Osusky - later is still living in America and could tell us sincerely why they as delegates of the American Slovaks did not establish a closer relationship with M. R. Stefanik, a fellow Slovak countryman. At first they wanted to work jndependen\ly. T. G. Masaryk in a letter to the Czech National Alliance in America complained that neither Kosik nor Osusky would take orders from him: "They refused to work for me in London." He had been told by the American Czechs that the American Slovaks were sending him r Slovak secretary! Mamatej made a public statement that appeared in the newspapers during the month of August, 1916: This seemed rather strange to me. At the Congress of the Slovak League in Chicago , we American Slovaks at a united conference on April 12, 19il6, resolved to send two of our American Slovaks to Europe not as secretaries to Professor Masaryk but as our representatives who were assigned to go to England, France and especially to Russia to work for our cause in the spirit of our Cleveland Agreement and, therefore, in behalf of our common goal. How Professor Masaryk got the impression that we were forwarding him a Slovak secretary, I simply do not know. At the end, Gustav Kosik, who, together with Stef~nik went to Russia in August, 1916, accepted and signed the Kiev Agreement for �SLOVAKIA the Slovak League of America by which the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris (and dent) as the sole responsible and competent tion that was to cooperate with the official P owers and their associates. 37 League recognized the T. G. Masaryk as presirepresentative organizaagencies of the Allied Thus a delegate of the Slovak League of America formally confirmed the leading position to T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Benes and empowered the Czechs to meet directly "with the official agencies of the Allied Powers." In effect the American Slovaks in deference to the Czecho-Slovak National Council surrendered their right to meet directly with the rest of the nations and their spokesmen. From the contents of the Kiev Agreement (Kijevsky zapis-Kiev document) of August 16-19, 1916, the Czechoslovak nation is mentioned: The Czechs and Slovaks . . . wish to establish a united political and indivisible free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a four-power pact. Almost immediately Gustav Kosik became the prime target of the American Slovak press for having made this unilateral agreement. Cleveland's Denny Hlas asked: We would like to know who ordered our delegate to sign such a manifesto when we already have a complete and concise agreement that we are in no way working for a Czechoslovak nation but for the Czech and Slovak nations. We call attention to the fact that nowhere in the manifesto are the Slovaks mentioned. There is only the union with the Czechs. How is that? The Ndrodne Noviny observed: In the Cleveland Agreement there was talk of two nations, not of a united nation, an indivisible nation. We do not want to be hoodwinked by anyone. Our delegates in Europe were not admitted to the source of the right information by the 'b rother Czechs who are having conferences with high authorities and speak in our name while completely ignoring the cardinal points of our mutual Cleveland Agreement. We are aware of this, too, in our meetings with them. Our delegates remain outside of closed doors while inside unauthorized persons speak in our name. After a year in Europe, G. Kosik returned to America on May 13, 1917. Upon being asked whether he signed the Kiev Agreement, he answered that both he and Stefanik had signed it. Then he proceeded to explain his action as follows: �38 SLOVAKIA We have long observed in your newspapers the attacks on the point in the Kiev document, namely, that "The Czechs and Slovaks wish to develop into a united political, indivisible and free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a fourspower pact." Now, to this very day some of our radicals are disgruntled because Kosik signed that agreement. What if he did? By signing it did Stefanik and Kosik abandon anything from the Slovak program? It is necessary only to change the one word, "narod-nation," to "§tat-state" and everything will quiet down. From now on after the public announcement of the Agreement this may be re-written. Then, it was not expedient because we could not anticipate the development of present circumstances and that particular word, may I add, required hard work of both our diplomats and the Czechoslovak military forces. Kosik's explanation satisfied the majority of the American Slovaks, perhaps chiefly because it was Kosik who said it and reassured them, Kosik's reputation and personal integrity, as well as his Slovak patriotism were unquestioned. Essentially, however, there still remained the suspicion that while the Slovaks actually thought the word, "narod", was merely to be interpreted in the sense of "stat" ie., state, the Czechs really and secretly adhered to the literal meaning, ie., in fact it was to be a Czechoslovak nation, and not merely a Czechoslovak state! Dr. Stefan Osusky, the other delegate of the Slovak League, at first known to hold the line precisely to the Slovak national idea, did not return to America nor did he send any further reports to the American Slovaks who had paid his trip to Europe. In a formal sense Osusky was right. The head of the entire movement for the liberation of the Slovaks from the rule of Hungary became the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris with the agreement of the delegates of the Slovak League. Osusky made his reports to the Council and from now on followed its orders. He was no longer in the service of the Slovak League but of the Council in Paris. Milan R. Stefanik in America Freedom for the Slovaks and liberation was not possible without the destruction of Austro-Hungary. This monarchy had many influential friends not only in France, England and America but also at the imperial Czar's court in Russia. Economic conditions, as well as centuries-old diplo- �SLOVAKIA 39 matic, political, personal and family connections were on the side of retaining the empire, and it appeared that there were sufficient guarantees for its future existence after the war came to an end. Memorandas, articles and news bulletins of Czech and Slovak emigrants in opposition to this monarchial state would have remained worthless scraps of paper had not the war ended in victory over Austro-Hungary. This was the prelude to a radical turn-over of events. Only war could change an institution that had been created and buttressed by a series of wars. At the opening of the year, 1917, Russia dropped out of the war against Germany and Austro-Hungary. An internal revolution rocked the country and weakened the military resources of Russia, thereby, conveniently removing a formidable foe of Germany and the Central Powers. Accordingly, the Russians made a separate treaty with Germany. The Slovaks lost an ally upon whom they had counted on so heavily. Imperial Russia, the Czar and the army vanished as if in thin air. The Slovaks who had pinned all their hopes on this great power were suddenly disillusioned. They had never thought liberation and freedom could be won without the aid of Russia. For the moment they were stunned and did not know where to turn for much needed help in their struggle. America declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917, and began sending supplies and soldiers to the western front. This coincided with the withdrawal of Russia from the war. The balance of power was more than restored. It was now only a matter of time until one or the other side would triumph. Entry of the United States into the conflict was enthusiastically hailed by the Slovak League of America. President Wilson now replaced the fallen Czar as the Slovak nation's hope for the winning of freedom. M. R. Stefanik came to America in June, 1917, just as the U.S. began sending its military forces in strength to Europe. He came primarily to seek permission to enroll Slovak and Czech volunteers (legionaires) to fight along- �4-0 SLOVAKIA side the allies on the western front. At a meeting in New York City on September 17, 1917, he said: "Our struggle against Austria-Hungary will end only when both of our brother nations, the Czechs and Slovaks, united in an independent state will be rid of MagyarGerman rule." Stefanik succeeded in achieving his purpose of uniting the Slovaks in the final surge to victory. A group of Slovak Catholic priests who met with Stefanik at the Hotel Plaza in New York City on September 20, 1917, accepted a resolution in which they promised to work for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and that "they would cooperate with the Slovak League, and the program of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, our supreme political institution." The Slovak League of America ceased to be "the supreme political institution for the Slovak nation", instead the national council of Masaryk, Stefanik and Benes was now the supreme political institution in Paris. And what was disastrous was the fact that its program did not include the concept of a free and individual Slovak nation but a Czechoslovak nation in a Czechoslovak state! Military Assistance and Support Incredible as it may seem, this is precisely the way the Slovak League of America came under the political control of the Czech and Slovak emigrants in Paris. Its executive power was usurped and it was exploited for conscription of volunteers and enlistments of Slovak legionaires for the Czechoslovak armed forces . Moreover, the Slovak League was used for raising funds for carrying on the international work of the council in Paris. To fight and pay the bills - that was the ultimate role of the Slovak League of America. It had been pushed aside from political leadership. American Slovaks answered the call to arms in great numbers. They willingly wanted to fight for the freedom of the Slovak nation. Milan Getting who had little faith in the resources of the Slovaks said on this occasion: Taking everything into consider ation, American Slovaks are surprising everybody by their r esponse. Our nation grasps the great im- �SLOVAKIA 41 portance of a corps of fighting men and has shown greater faith in the future destiny of the Slovaks than its leaders. So far, we have more than matched the number of Czech recruits. Each enlistment has brought in at least a half or more than half of Slovak young men ready to fight. Among these volunteers are many of our most respected and beloved young men in various Slovak communities. These are on their way to fight on the battlefields of France. In France, however, the officers' corps was limited to a very small Slovak minority. Father Slavo Moravek volunteered for military duty to serve with his fellow Slovak legionaires. Dr. Eduard Benes, the secretary of the CzechoSlovak National Council, replied from Paris : "I guess our army has no need for a priest." Slovak women in America, either in their own organizations or as members of the 'Vcielky' or 'Priadky' groups carried on a nation-wide campaign for supplies. Jano Jancek, Slovak emigrant soldier who was released from a Russian military camp, came to America and was elected Secretary of the Slovak League. He credited these women with a total amount of goods valued at more than a half-million dollars that was distributed to the armed forces overseas . Both the military and material ai_d by the Slovaks exceeded all expectations. The Million Dollar Campaign War funds were established in every Slovak organization which taxed males 10 cents and females 5 cents each month. A special committee of nine members: 3 Catholic priests, 3 Protestant ministers and 3 civilian leaders were named in the fall of 1917 to raise a million dollars for the financial support of political action in international affairs . Enthusiasm ran high: Two Catholic clergymen, Father Joseph Murgas and Father John Martvon, launched the campaign by each contributing $2,000 and Michael Bosak added his pledge of $5,000. This initial good example followed until approximately $1,000,000 was collected from Slovaks from all walks of life throughout America. This money was allocated by the Slovak League as follows (as Peter P. Jurcak, president of the Slovak League in 1946 records it in his, "The Slovaks", pp. 190-191): �SLOVAKIA 42 Year 1916 1917 1917 1918 1918 1918 1918 1919 1919 1919 1919 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1921 1921 Name Amount Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Paris . $ 5,000.00 20,000 .00 ditto in Russia .......... . ....... .. 10,000.00 . ....... .......... ditto in America 120,000.00 .. Council Nat. T. G. Masaryk, Pres. C.S. 36,000.00 Czecho-Slo vak Council in America .... . 3,184.00 Slav Press Bureau .......... ......... . 19,631.00 Expenses of delegation to Slovakia .... . 55,000.00 Dr. Eduard Benes .......... . . ....... . 5,194.00 For Magyar Counter-Pr opaganda in U.S . . 44,500.00 Czecho-Slo vak Nat. Council in America .. Dr. Vavro srobar for propagand a publi10,000.00 cations ... . . . . . . . .... . ...... . ........ . vak Czecho-Slo for Hurban Col. Vladimir 25,000.00 Legionaire s returning from Russia .. .. . Czechothe of T. G. Masaryk, President Slovak Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000.00 Dr. Alice Masaryk, for Czecho-Slo vak Red 25,000.00 Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relief sent to Czecho-Slo vakia . . . . . . . . . . 126,000.00 For print. presses, etc., for Slovak Ministry 68,000.00 5,000.00 Bratislava University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For counteract ing Magyar propagand a and helping secure loan for Czecho-Slo 9,500.00 vak Republic . .... . .......... ... . . . . . . .00 4,572 Aid to disabled Czecho-Slo vak Veterans . 4,000.00 For High School in Petrovec . ........ . Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Amer5,000.00 ica .......... .......... .......... .... . Total ....... ... .......... . .... . ....... . $800,911.00 It is significant to note that not one dollar was given to M. R. Stefanik! Everything went to T . G. Masaryk, to his daughter or followers, Benes and srobar. The expenses of G. Kosik's and st. Osusky's trip to Europe are not listed. Nothing is recorded as aid to Slovak prisoners of war in Russia. This and other expenses for publicity in America, the pay of employees , press, etc., must have added up to an additional tidy sum. As the war came to an end there is a marked drop-off �SLOVAKIA 43 in donations, as also seen in the above report. This was quite in evidence in the political field, too. The Pittsburgh Pact Note that the United States, which declared war on Germany in April, 1917, did not declare hostilities upon Austria-Hungary. But the Slovaks in America from 1914 on openly declared themselves hostile to a monarchy that deprived the Slovaks of their freedom in their European homeland. The moment of decision for the Slovaks was based on their convictions, not on a calculated risk, as was the case of many American Czechs who could not be persuaded to accept the possibility of the destruction of the ancient Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even after the outbreak of war between America and Germany the position of Austria-Hungary in America was not hopeless. Defenders of the old Empire had high hopes of saving it. But these hopes were somewhat dimmed by President Wilson's recommendation to Congress on December 4, 1917, to declare war on Austria-Hungary. Yet, this act did not doom the Hapsburg Empire, for there was not any plan at the time to break up the ancient imperial state. Wilson, himself, on December 4, 1917, and on January 8, 1918, in his 14 points did not recommend the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, he said: "We do not wish to weaken or reorganize the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Reaction of the allied powers to Wilson's speech in January, 1918, was of a general nature. Liberation on the Slovaks and Czechs from foreign rule did not necessarily mean the disintegration of the old empire and much less the creation of a new state of Czecho-Slovakia. Declaration of war on Austria-Hungary by the U.S. changed the situation quite radically, however. Demands for the break-up of the Hapsburg empire became more insistent. Foremost among the new states proposed was Czecho-Slovakia. As the movement for liberation became more certain, the more vociferously did the adherents of Czechoslovak- �44 SLOVAKIA ism push the Slovak League into Czech clutches. Accordingly, on February 9, 1918, in Chicago representatives of the Slovaks and Czechs organized a branch of the CzechoSlovak National Council in which eight Slovaks from the Slovak League and eight Czechs from the Bohemian National Alliance were enrolled. This eventually resulted in unity of action and organization, and in effect was a virtual recognition by the Slovak League that the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris was now the supreme agency for the struggle for freedom. T. G. Masaryk had waited for this development. He immediately announced that he would come to America. In six weeks he was here to lead the Czechs and Slovaks to victory . . . a triumph of his Czechoslovak ideology of a 'Czechoslovak nation' in a united Czechoslovak state! At first Masaryk was welcomed with great enthusiasm but this was short-lived. Jednota (May 22, 1918) had these comments: This activity, as Masaryk understands it, is only for the benefit of the Czechs, with the Slovaks helping, of course. If we are fighting and working for a Greater Bohemia, we are not fighting or working for our own interests but only for the Czechs. The struggle for a Greater Czechia is not worth one Slovak cent, nor one drop of Slovak blood. We want pure wine. We want to know whether we are fighting for a Greater Czechia or for a free, self-governing Slovakia and for a free, self-governing Czechia. T . G. Masaryk was informed of this challenge. In his subsequent remarks - as a wily tactician - he directed a few inane statements for the benefit of the Slovaks. These, oddly enough, inspired the Slovak League's press bureau to hail him as 'the greatest living Slovak' and as 'our great father and leader'! Moreover, all the Slovak newspapers got into the spirit of the moment and out did each other in an outburst of superlatives, expressing their affection, loyalty and trust in the hero of the moment, Masaryk himself. Nevertheless, the bulk of the American Slovaks was not taken in by this synthetic expression of admiration for Masaryk. What he said so nicely and smoothly they wanted down on paper, black on white, so to speak. Finally, on May 30, 1918, T. G. Masaryk picked up a copy of the Cleveland Agreement, read it, took a sheet �SLOVAKIA 45 of paper and wrote down in pencil a personal draft to be proposed as an "Agreement or Contract." Masaryk's original copy, announced the press bureau of the Slovak League of America, "firmly establishes the relationship between the two branches." (Not nations, as it stood properly in the Cleveland Agreement-my comment) . "One copy of this agreement," reported the bureau, "will be forwarded to Albert Mamatej , president of the Slovak League, who will officially make it public shortly. Professor Masaryk thus has completed his mission among the Slovaks with whom he met in a conference in Pittsburgh." Thomas Masaryk's agreement written and signed by him is called the Pittsburgh Pact, therefore as of May 30, 1918. Its main articles are these : Slovakia will have its own administration, its own parliament, its own courts. Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in the administration and in public life. Did Masaryk intend to abide by the agreement when he drew it up and personally signed it? This question was intriguing until he clarified it in his book, "World Revolution-Svetova revolucia," 1925, p. 262: "I signed the agreement," writes the author, "which was an agreement between American Slovaks and American Czechs. This was done to satisfy a small Slovak faction which dreamed of God knows what kind of independent Slovakia . . . the agreement was a local one . . . among the Czechs and Slovaks of America." According to Masaryk's testimony, therefore, the agreement was not between the Slovak and Czech nations, not even between a group of Slovak and Czech representatives of their respective societies in this country, but an ordinary local expedient agreement "to satisfy a small Slovak faction." Obviously, it was never meant to be considered in the planning of the foundation of the Czecho-Slovak state either by Masaryk or the Czechs themselves. Masaryk brushed aside the Slovaks rudely by this action, broke his word of honor and proclaimed his signature genuine but worthless, and in the same work (World Revolution-Svetova revolucia, 1925, page 105) he discounted the financial aid of the Slovaks as insignificant: �46 SLOVAKIA While I was in Russia. Dr. Benes received money in Paris. I estimate the amount at about $300,000. The cost of our activity did not reach the sum of a million Dollars. The money came from Czech sources. During the war Slovak contributions were very small. As president, after the war I received $200,000 but in this was included money from my personal American friends. What these 'very small' contributions actually were we have noted above in Jurcak's official report, as contained in his book, "The Slovaks". The fact is they were not 'very small' and the payment each time in sums of several hundred thousands dollars during and after the war to Masaryk directly or indirectly ( to the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris) were ear-marked from the Slovaks in America, and not from the Czechs. Masaryk's career as a statesman and his enduring fame would have been crowned by an aura of glory instead of being clouded by suspicion and disillusionment had he, as a man of honor, kept his word and publicly recognized the genuine contributions of the American Slovaks to the building of the Czecho-Slovak state. Delegates of the Slovak League in Slovakia Czecho-Slovakia as a free and independent republic was not proclaimed by the National Council in Paris but in the United States, and that by its branch, the CzechoSlovak National Council in America. It was on October 18, 1918, in Washington, D.C. in the form of a proclamation by Thomas G. Masaryk, provisional president, and for Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, minister of national defense, and Dr. Eduard Benes, minister of internal and foreign affairs. Neither Stefanik nor Benes were present but Masaryk signed for them by proxy. Thomas G. Masaryk compiled the proclamation but, as he writes later, he first submitted it to the scrutiny of American legal advisers. Then he presented a handwritten document to the State Department and the White House. "I presented the proclamation to the Secretary of State, Lansing, so that I would be assured of the approval of the American government," Masaryk explained in his memoirs. Official reference to the Slovaks in this historical document was unfortunate. indeed. He wrote: "The rights �SLOVAKIA 47 of the Czechs may be united with their Slovak brethren in Slovakia, once a part of our (Czech) state .. ." In effect, this meant that Slovakia was being re-united with the Czech state to which it had at one time been united as r. part of a whole. Not historically true at all. An agreement between the Czechs and Slovaks had been made as a 50-50 proposition but Masaryk ignored it completely. The new state was to be organized on his own terms. The Slovaks understood their fight was for their freedom but now Masaryk was saying they were shedding their blood for the right of the Czechs to rule the Slovaks. In one official declaration Masaryk had erased the rights of the Slovaks to their national freedom, the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation, the right to a federal union of states ( Slovakia and Bohemia in Czecho-Slovakia, a united state), the right to a Slovak law-making body in the Slovak capital, the right to Slovak schools and courts, the right to a Slovak political administration. ~tefanik was understandably displeased with the proclamation to which Masaryk appended his name by proxy. In his book, "My Role in the Czecho-Slovak Fiiht for Freedom," General Janin, who was in Russia with ~tefanik at the time, writes: Stefanik was greatly disturbed, he was indignant that the proclamation had been made under his name when he was not even informed of its contents. He showed me a long telegram addressed to Masaryk and Benes concerning the proclamation of October 18, 1918. Meanwhile, T . G. Masaryk after agreement with Benes and Kramat ( who was in Switzerland) became provisional president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. As such, he signed the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement on November 18, 1918, which Albert Mamatej presented to him for his signature before Masaryk returned to Paris. In his farewell message, Masaryk said: "America will have a place of honor in the history of the liberation movement in behalf of Czecho-Slovakia." Unfortunately, we have already seen above what 'place of honor' Masaryk reserved for the American Slovaks who did so much meritorious work in the struggle, but received little credit for it. Masaryk left the U.S. as provisional president of the �SLOVAKIA proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic.. Soon afterwards reports from Slovakia came to America. American Slovaks were very much disturbed by the reports coming from post-war Slovakia. Slovak Catholic priests were especially aroused by news of Czech indignities against religion in Slovakia. They grasped now in what spirit the international policy of the Czecho-Slovak National Council had been inspired and they sensed what grave consequences it had brought in the Slovaks' homeland. Rev. Jan Liscinsky characterized the entire situation: "The Slovaks freed themselves from Magyar oppression only to be enslaved under a Czech banner." Father Dianiska, after studying the post-war situation carefully, wrote that srobar selected only as associates and delegates who had been educated and trained in Praha, hence the entire personnel was Czechophile and uncertain in matters of religion. Dr. Dianiska concluded rightfully that 'a period of misfortune was in store for the Slovak nation, both politically and religiously.' First-hand information was necessary. Accordingly, the Slovak League hastened to send a number of observers to Slovakia. A five-man delegation was designated, namely, Jozef Rusek, Dr. M. Francisci, Edo Kovach, M. Getting and J. Matloch. They left America on March 7, 1919, and Rev. Pavol Siska, a representative of the Jednota (First Catholic Slovak Union) accompanied them. Later Ignac Gessay joined the delegation. The mission was to investigate conditions and report to their Slovak League colleagues and the American Slovaks who had subscribed to the Pittsburgh Agreement, a photostatic copy of which they carried to 'liberated Slovakia.' Immediately upon their arrival in Slovakia in the spring of 1919, they sensed that the Slovak nation was in the thick of a struggle for its rights. But there was much confusion and they, too, were confused by the swift rush of events. The longer they stayed, however, the clearer insight they got into the real situation. Nevertheless, even Jozef Rusek was baffled for a time so that he leaned towards the corps of slick-talking Czechoslovak politicians who assured him they were doing the right thing for Slovakia! �SLOVAKIA 49 At the Scranton (Pa.) Congress of the Slovak League on May 29, 1919, Husek reported: The government people in Bratislava oppose autonomy, they favor instead a central parliament, a central government and they hold that the Czechs and Slovaks constitute one nation, the Slovak language being only a Czech dialect! Autonomy would prevent a lingiustic union with the Czechs. That is why we were not well received in Bratislava, nor was our Pittsburgh Agreement agreeable to them. We were received with joy in Ruzomberok, Hlinka's kingdom. So was our Pittsburgh document. Some of Hlinka's views I do not like, particularly his vociferous agitation against Dr. Srobar, a minister. And it is a fact that Magyar renegades are filtering into Hlinka's party. The Magyars praise Hlinka as a fine man because he demands autonomy for Slovakia, and because he is in opposition to the Czechs. Some of Husek's observations were true to the facts. It is true that Hlinka stood firmly behind the demand for autonomy for an independent Slovak nation while srobar advocated Czechoslovakism, amalgamation with the Czechs. srobar was against the Pittsburgh Agreement, Hlinka was for it. Husek was wrong, however, in claiming that Magyar elements joined Hlinka's party exclusively. As a matter of record, the 1920 parliamentary elections proved that the majority of Magyars were in parties led by Ivan Derer and srobar. This was acclaimed as a virtue if the 'mad'ar6ni' (Magyar sympathizers) belonged to their political parties, but a vice if they returned as prodigal sons to Hlinka's party. What policy did Husek advocate as a policy for the Slovak League of America? The less we speak of autonomy, the better for Slovakia and the new republic at this time. There is no need to be fearful. Autonomy will not vanish in thin air. To declare opposition now would be aiding the Magyar cause. When Slovakia becomes of age, it will take what rightfully belongs to it. And autonomy belongs by natural right to Siovakia. A reasonable statement of policy. Self-government or autonomy would not disappear. Slovakia would get it sometime in the future ... and it did, but only after a bitter struggle that lasted a full score years (1919-1938) ! Why, then, was it necessary to get the Slovaks to agree on a 50-50 proposition with the Czechs in the first place? What good were the Memorandum, the Cleveland Agreement and the Pittsburgh Pact? For what purpose did so many American Slovaks pour out their lifeblood on the �50 SLOVAKIA battlefield of France? Why was it necessary for the Slovak nation to carry on a 20-yr. struggle for the incorporation of the principles of the Pittsburgh Pact into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia when the American Slovaks could have readily put it into the Constitution, and even into the peace treaty as did the American Ruthenians ( Carpathian Rusins) under the leadership of zatkovic? And the Ruthenians were far from being as politically mature or developed as the Slovaks. From the very beginning the Slovak struggle abroad might well have been successfully completed if the American Slovaks had been allowed to incorporate their principles in the Constitution so that the Slovak nation would have had a constitutional right to self-rule in its own autonomous state, and their needless fight for autonomy would have been avoided. Moreover, there would have been an international basis and guarantee for their just rights, and the Slovak people would have had self-rule in their historic homeland. If American Slovaks had intervened in Washington and later had presented their case to the American delegation at the peace conference in Paris, it is certain that the right of the Slovaks to autonomy in Slovakia would have been seriously considered and debated as an international problem, and the outcome would surely have been the same as that of the Rusins whose demand for autonomy was officially registered in the Peace Treaty of St. Germaine, on September 10, 1919. But foes of Slovak freedom and Hlinka's party saw to it that every possible means was used to divide the Slovak League and Andrej Hlinka. Gradually the Slovak League began leaning to the view that Hlinka's fight in behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact was a cover-up for his personal feud with Srobar. It was becoming more and more apparent that strong pressure of Czechoslovak groups both in Slovakia and America was being applied to the Slovak League. Matters involved in this struggle became even more confusing when Milan Getting, a Slovak League delegate in Bratislava, persuaded the organization to finance a propaganda or press bureau in Bratislava to the tune of �SLOVAKIA 51 $68,000. srobar managed to buy a printing establishment in the Slovak capital for these funds and happily set up a propaganda center to fight Hlinka and oppose all autonomists in the country. Assuredly, this development did not bring Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak League of America to any mutual understanding or a friendly relationship. Andrej Hlinka's Delegates in America In memoirs, Z<ipisky z Mirova, Bratislava, 1941, Andrej Hlinka is quoted on page 31: I know the Slovak people, for I am one of their sons. All my life I have kept my finger on the Slovak nation's pulse. I have heard every beat of the Slovak heart. I aroused the Slovak people to action and I gave them hope. I sowed an idea in their minds. The people accepted all of my ideas but they did not relish the Czechoslovak idea of brotherhood. I did not sleep or rest. The idea troubled me. But for the sake of preserving the Slovak nation, I argued, I must give the people this bitter pill, yet in a sugar-coated form . It is better to live with somebody, I assured my troubled conscience, than to die alone. The people found it hard to swallow the bitter pill. Their natural instincts rebelled against it. It seems these were much wiser and stronger than my way of thinking. And so I find myself regretting a blunder committed against the primitive natural instincts of my own people. All I can pray and hope for is the chance to correct this grave error and redeem myself. If I fail in this, I feel certain the people will forgive me and will not hold it against me. A year ago I sinned because I was not sufficiently cautious or zealous enough in the struggle for the Slovak nation's right to liberty. I failed the people in a historical moment in the midst of my struggle ti) which I have devoted almost a lifetime of energy and sacrifice. First, I faltered because I went to Martin on October 30, 1918. Had I not gone there that day, I would not be conscience-stricken today. (This Hlinka wrote while held in prison by the Czechs in Mirov, October 16, 1919). Mistakes are made, even in politics. What is important is to realize one's erring ways and correct them in time. Andrej Hlinka, therefore, went to repair the damage by setting out for the peace conference in Paris during the month of August, 1919. His intention was to incorporate a guarantee of the Slovak nation's right to autonomy in the peace treaty. Hlinka's journey to Paris was in vain. The Slovak leader's venture would have been successful, perhaps, had the Slovak delegation joined him and �52 SLOVAKIA through the American representatives in Paris presented Hlinka's request at the peace conference. Paris was the logical place for the fusion of Hlinka's domestic program with the Slovak League's proposals and the official presentation of the united program at the Peace Conference. Instead, Andrej Hlinka, armed only with the Memorandum, and alone, sought entry to the Peace parley in Paris. This was not a vain gesture of an obscure adventurer seeking cheap publicity. There was history behind him. He was a prominent Slovak political leader at 55, his was a distinguished record as a patriotic leader with three years of prison because of his defense of the Slovak nation. The cernova affair that had taken the lives of 15 of his fellow countrymen was known all over the world. Thousands of articles in Slovak periodicals at home and in America alone made him famous. As founder of many societies and organizations he was a popular figure at home . . . and in the background he had the good will of eminent Polish leaders who were sympathetic to the Slovak cause. In Slovak history it remains a sad and regrettable fact that Hlinka and the Slovak League delegation did not join forces in Paris. They lacked mutual understanding of each other personally. This was the cockle that had been sown by Derer and srobar. The Slovak League confined its activity to writing memoranda for the Prague government. Here on October 24, 1919, its representatives did, however, express the desire for the gradual introduction of autonomy in Slovakia "according to the circumstances and possibilities," and they requested further "a guarantee for the incorporation of self-government into the basic state laws, namely, in the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, and along the lines drawn up in the Agreement between Masaryk and ourselves." In reality it was merely a paper request. Moreover, it was presented as a plea with the added proviso, "self-government need not be established or introduced immediately, there is no urgency for such action, however." Neither srobar nor his Czechoslovak associates paid any attention to so woefully weak a request. To achieve results at the time it was absolutely neces- �SLOVAKIA 53 sary for the personal appearance of Andrej Hlinka at the Paris Conference, but with the full backing of the moral and material resources of the Slovaks at home and abroad on the solid platform of Slovak autonomy. The time for mere Memoranda had passed. The time for dynamic action had arrived. Unfortunately, Andrej Hlinka found himself alone in Paris. He knew he had no official support, but somehow he kept faith and hoped for a miracle in the impending crisis. No miracle occured to save the situation. Hlinka, disappointed and defeated, returned home where he was immediately arrested and taken to prison by the Czechs because he had dared to go to Paris to re• present the Slovak nation personally. But he had not for. gotten the American Slovaks. While still in Paris, he dis• patched two emissaries to America, namely, Dr. Jozef Rudinsky and Jozef Kubala. Passports and visas for these two men were given by the Poles who had previously furnished Hlinka with a Polish passport to go to Paris. Precisely on October 13, 1919, when Hlinka was seized and taken to the Mirov prison by his Czech captors, the emissaries (Father Rudinsky and Kubala) arrived in America. On October 24, 1919, they addressed an extraordinary meeting of the executive council of the Slovak League in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Jozef Rudinsky visualized clearly the aim of Slovak policy as the gradual realization of the Slovak nation's natural rights as guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Pact. The minutes of this special session reveal what Rudinsky said of Hlinka's party, namely, that 'the party wanted a gradual introduction of self-rule but demanded that this autonomy, ie., the agreement, be registered immediately in Paris.' After a long discussion at this executive meeting, nothing definite was decided upon. The Slovak League was still overshadowed by the Rusek report, ie., too much emphasis on autonomy at the time would only profit the Magyar side . This was contrary to the mission of Hlinka's emissaries who had been sent to America for the primary purpose of winning the American Slovaks to Andrej Hlinka and his party's policy of concentrating all their efforts on �54 SLOVAKIA winning autonomy as soon as possible, or at least have the guarantee approved and registered at the Peace Conference in Paris. Outcome of the meetings and subsequent conferences was the 'Statement and Public Testimony of the Slovak League' in which the League's spokesmen explained their negative stand in regards to the delegates sent to them by Andrej Hlinka. Three reasons were given for their attitude: 1) The delegates had sounded a discordant note in the existing harmony betw~en the Czechs and Slovaks abroad, as well as at home, by their publicized views. 2) They lacked a Czecho-Slovak passport; they had passports furnished by the Polish government in Paris. 3) Andrej Hlinka, the head of the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska 13udova Strana) had gone to Paris with a Polish passport and visa, not one from Czecho-Slovakia. Misunderstanding only widened the gulf between the real fighters for the Pittsburgh Pact: Hlinka's party in Slovakia and the Slovak League in America. This served only one purpose, ie., the prolonging of the struggle by 20 years until the common goal of Slovak freedom and selfrule was reached in 1938. Intervention i n behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact in vain Despite the manifest refusal to Andrej Hlinka's invitation to join him and the Slovak People's Party in the struggle for autonomy ( the Slovak League's brain-child) the Slovak League could not renounce the Pittsburgh Pact. Though publicly disavowing collaboration with Andrej Hlinka, the League on its own initiative began taking steps to put the Pittsburgh Agreement into actual practice in Slovakia. This gesture, though somewhat shaky and lacking the early confidence that had been solidly based on conviction, was made in the right direction, however. As late as 1919 a branch of the Czecho-Slovak National Council was still operating in America. On November 7, 1919, it announced that "the approved representatives of the American Slovaks requested that the Pittsburgh Agreement be considered for incorporation by the National �SLOVAKIA 55 Assembly in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic." Armed with this request and with a resolution of the Slovak League in his pocket, Albert Mamatej, the president of the Slovak League, went to Czecho-Slovakia. He presented the Pittsburgh Agreement to srobar and Hodza, both of whom declared it was both bad and unnecessary. Milan Hodza openly stated: "Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Magyar politicians. Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Polish politicias. And that for us is a significant warning." That autonomy for Slovakia was the fulfillment of Slovak aspirations in America, as well as a good motto, and that the same program inspired Hlinka's policy in Slovakia designed for the Slovak nation's destiny as a selfgoverning state, did not occur either to Mamatej or his Slovak associates. srobar and Hodza simply refused to take cognizance of this reality. Mamatej returned to America with the resolution of srobar and Hodza, rejecting autonomy for Slovakia. He also brought the declaration of the Slovak representatives (Srobar's) at the Revolutionary National Assembly in Prague. They declared on February 6, 1920: "Autonomy would place an enormous financial burden on the Slovak nation but everything that is essentially in the Pittsburgh Agreement has been incorporated into the Constitution except a separate parliament, which under present circumstances, would be detrimental to Slovakia." Albert Mamatej was taken in. He believed all this and acted accordingly. Hence, he recommended what he was told in Praha, ie., the best future for the Slovak nation was to accept the status of 'Czechoslovakism' as part of a train pulled on the Czech main track and run by a Czech engineer . . . of course, the fireman was naturally a Slovak .. . and this, explained Mamatej naively, was in full accord with the Pittsburgh Pact! On the otherhand, it seemed that Mamatej feared that the Pittsburgh Pact would be exploited by the Magyars or Poles, nor did he have trust in the Czechoslovak group of �56 SLOVAKIA the Slovak ongm in Prague. Therefore, he felt that the Agreement was to be entrusted to Andrej Hlinka although the Slovak leader was still in prison at Mirov in Moravia. Ultimately, the Pittsburgh Agreement was to be incorporated in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Such was the assurance given Mamatej by the Prague politicians. Yet, when the Constitution was approved by the national assembly on February 29, 1920, there was no reference to Slovak autonomy or self-government in Slovakia, and there was .no distinction made on the question of the 'Individuality of the Slovak nation'! To offset the success of the mission of Dr. Rudinsky and Kubala in America, the Prague government hastily sent its agents to this country. Rev. Ladislav Moys and Jan Pocisk, a Social Democratic leader, arrived in America on March 2, 1920. Father Liscinsky declared frankly that Father Moys, an old Slovak but totally unqualified in the game of political legerdemain, was 'a disgrace to the Slovak Catholics.' Moys' first report to his masters in Prague was that aside from a small faction, American Slovaks were "anti-autonomistic." . This statement was labelled publicly by the · Slovak Catholic Federation as a fabrication and a fable. The executive committee of the federation on October 12, 1920, made this declaration: We resent Rev. Moys' insinuation with abhorrence, and we reassure our brethren beneath the Tatras in Slovakia that American Slovaks now more than ever before adhere to the Pittsburgh Agreement because during the visit of Rev. Moys and Mr. Pocisk they had ample opportunity to become convinced that the foes of this documentary agreement consider every reasonable basis for mutual understanding presented by the Slovaks as useless. Unfortunately, Albert Mamatej, having been named a consul of Czecho-Slovakia in Pittsburgh, joined the Czechoslovak camp. In his letters, addressed to his chief, Benes in Prague, who was minister of foreign affairs, Mamatej attacked autonomism and its adherents and turned against the ideals he had represented so ably and so well during the war. He died suddenly, disillusioned and alone. His widow and three children received a monthly pension of $15.00 . Thus did Prague value a man who had �SLOVAKIA 57 carried out its wishes and had performed services contrary to his personal convictions and his fine wartime record in behalf of the Slovak cause of freedom. Mamatej, president of the Slovak League, was dead. But the ideal which had been the essence of Slovak political policy at home and in America was very much alive. Alongside the Slovak Catholic Federation the idea of an autonomous Slovakia took hold once again in the Slovak League of America, which after Mamatej's demise was directed by prominent American Slovaks who gave it the leadership it deserved. Wh~ the presidents were unable to devote full time to the Slovak League, it was that gallant secretary, Jan Kocur, who performed all necessary tasks with devotion and ability and kept the embers glowing in the old glorious tradition of self-government or autonomy for Slovakia. Andrej Blinka in America Slovak life in America slowly began losing its onetime vitality and ardor. It always happens that way ... in the lives of individuals and in the history of organizations. There is a time of development and progress followed by eclipse and eventual decline. Circumstances were unfavorable and decline was inevitable. Slovak daily newspapers in America suffered a sudden recession while many periodicals simply vanished. Old workers grew old or died, and aid from the old country was cut off as the energy of the Slovaks was directed to the defense of the Slovak nation's right to national survival. American Slovaks were in need of moral support at this time, for the new generation, though often possessing the Slovak spirit of its forebears, discovered it was far easier and more advantageous to speak English rather than the Slovak language of their parents. Nonetheless, even under increasing unfavorable circumstances, there were frequent instances of an unusual vital interest in the Slovak League and in the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom in its historic homeland. �58 SLOVAKIA By far, the majority of American Slovaks remained staunchly loyal to their ancient heritage and their ideals as expressed in the Pittsburgh Agreement to which they manifestly showed a deep attachment. A Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom sprang up to keep alive the spirit of dedication to the Slovak cause. Contributions, moral, financial and cultural, of existing organizations throughout America did not cease completely. Undoubtedly the great event of this era in the midtwenties was the visit of Andrej Hlinka to America. The occasion was the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. The heroic warrior came accompanied by Dr. Jozef Buday on June 5, 1926, and his visit lasted until October 13, ... a four months' stay among his fellow countrymen in America. Hlinka came to America in answer to the invitation of the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom, headed by .Jozef Husek, and the Slovak League, whose president was Ivan Bielek. Anticipated with great joy throughout America where Slovaks lived, Hlinka's visit was heralded by Jozef Husek's letter of April 25, 1926, assuring the Slovak leader of a warm welcome: You will not run into any trouble here, as there is only a handful of Czechoslovaks here and they are incapable of organizing any serious protest meeting. I personally guarantee your visit will be a great success. The people idolize you and your visit will fulfill their great desire to see you personally and welcome you. Ivan Bielek, president of the Slovak League, wrote in the American press that Hlinka was invited everywhere for a Sunday appearance. "Consider," reported Bielek, "that to date we have a total of 136 requests for a Sunday date. This means if we want to satisfy everyone, our distinguished guest, Andrej Hlinka, will have to remain here with us for more than two years ." Overflow crowds welcomed Andrej Hlinka and listened avidly to his addresses from the Atlantic to the midwest throughout the summer on weekends. In his final farewell to his fellow Slovak countrymen �SLOVAKIA 59 in America on October 11, 1926, Hlinka made this public statement: You received me as a national hero. I do not deserve this great honor. But if I have not as yet attained that eminent status, your affection and generosity have insipired me to aspire to rise to such noble stature. I am leaving you. I bid you farewell but not in tears or sorrow. Your success and happiness here fill me with national pride. I take with me your message in the words of the immortal Furdek: "O, thou blue Tatra . .. We, your children, have wandered far from thee. Weep not! Your clan even beyond the great ocean remains loyal to thee." God bless you, God keep you, God strengthen you. Do not forget that your cradle stood beneaith the Tatras, your beloved Motherland, our sorely-tried and suffering Slovakia. Goodbye my Slovak nation . . . Goodbye my fellow Slovak countrymen in America. The Slovak League Delegation in Slovakia Autonomy Achieved There had been a number of smaller or larger delegations sent from America to Slovakia and vice versa_ Among these were those sent by the Spolok sv. Vojtecha from Trnava and the Matica Slovenska from Turciansky Sv. Martin. Neither was the occasion for a mutual cultural exchange. The American Slovaks were on the receiving end on both occasions, they were passive recipients. They received a large number of Slovak works in literature, in return they were able to offer some two or three of their own books. Consequently, Slovak books from Slovakia found a ready market in America. But there were political delegations from America. One of these came to Trencin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Ag-reement. It joined Hlinka for the celebration. Perhaps the most important visit to America in 1937 was that of the Spolok sv. Vojtecha (among the delegates was Msgr. Jozef Tiso) that followed the earlier visit of a Matica Slovenska delegation. Of supreme importance politically was the visit of the Slovak League delegation to Slovakia in May, 1938. Members comprising the group were Dr. Peter P. Hletko, president, Josef Husek, one of the original signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, Dominik Sloboda, Michal Sincak and Rev. Jozef Rolik. The delegation brought with it the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the celebration which �60 SLOVAKIA was held on June 4, 1938, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the historic document in Pittsburgh, Pa. (May 30, 1918). As a symbolic act the first official visit of the Slovak League delegation in Czecho-Slovakia was to Andrej Hlinka ... symbolic in the sense of the mutual unity of ideals and purpose between the American Slovaks and their fellow countrymen in Slovakia. The Slovak League delegation, therefore, did not present itself with the Pittsburgh Agreement to its Slovak and Czech opponents in Bratislava or Prague, but went directly first to its great friend, champion and foremost associate, Andrej Hlinka, in Ruzomberok. This deliberate act manifestly emphasized the unity of thought and purpose of the Slovaks at home and in America. Thus, as the First Slovak League delegation which had brought the Pittsburgh Agreement to Czecho-Slovakia at the birth of that republic, so now, it was the last Slovak League delegation that had come with the self-same historic document at the eleventh hour to persuade the leaders of the Czecho-Slovak Republic to accept and put into practical operation the principles enunciated in the Pittsburgh Agreement. In vain had been the attempt of the first Slovak League delegation, and even more of a failure was the coming of the Slovak League delegation from America as far as the centralists in Prague or Bratislava were concerned. Though the Republic was threatened by foreign powers on every side, these stubbornly refused to accept the Pittsburgh Agreement as the basis for a mutual understanding between the Slovaks and the Czechs. At least this situation set the stage for the fulfillment of Husek's prophecy uttered at a meeting of the Slovak League in America upon his return from Slovakia in May, 1919: No need to be afraid. Autonomy will not run away. When Slovakia will grow up to maturity, it will take what rightfully belongs to the Slovak nation ... and autonomy belongs to it! As a matter of fact, autonomy did not run away in those 20 years. How could it? Andrej Hlinka had held it �SLOVAKIA 61 firmly in his noble and strong hands. It was his blood and his whole life. Hlinka, whom Martin Razus, a Protestant poet, patriot and clergyman, joined, made Slovakia his country. Hlinka and Razus in mind and heart by their work, industry and devotion nourished the spirit of Slovakia so that it grew out of its infancy, became strong and reached maturity. Prematurely, Martin Razus died in 1937; and Andrej Hlinka followed , though at the age of 74, in 1938, less than t wo months before Slovakia in October really took unto herself what had always been hers by natural right, and guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Agreement in 1918. The glorious day of self-government, or autonomy, for the Slovak nation dawned in the early fall of 1938 but neither was present to celebrate this long-awaited victory and hardwon triumph inside the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Hlinka died on August 15, 1938; and a member of the Slovak League delegation, Dominik Slaboda, bade farewell to the reverend warrior at his grave . Slaboda took up a handful of Slovak earth from Hlinka's graveside and carried it to America as a memento of the great Slovak leader and fighter for the sacred principles of the Pittsburgh Pact. Slovakia seised autonomy because in the year, 1938, it had grown out of childhood into adulthood, and autonomy rightfully belonged to her as a natural right. No one can deny that it was truly a crime to be attributed to the Czech, the Slovak, and Czechoslovak opponents of the Pittsburgh Pact that they blocked the incorporation of the articles of self-government for Slovakia in the Constitution of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia until Martin Razus and Andrej Hlinka passed on into eternity. Upon opening page 1,161 of the 1938 annual "Sbirky zakonu a natizeni statu Cesko-Slovenskeh o" ( Collection of the laws and regulations of the Czecho-Slovak State) I read: Constitutional L aw of November 22, 1938 on the Autonomy for Slovakia The National Assembly on the premise that the Czecho-Slovak Republic was form ed on the basis of the agreement of the sovereign �62 SLOVAKIA will of two equal nations, that in the Pittsburgh Agreement the Slovak nation was promised complete autonomy, and motivated by the desire to bring the Slovak and Czech nations into a friendly relationship in the spirit of the 2ilina Agreement, approves the following law: (Then follow several paragraphs of this Constitutional Law) Paragraph after paragraph follow, the same as weeks and months and days, and years, that were spent in a prolonged, self-sacrificing struggle for the recognition of the Pittsburgh Pact so that finally, the words, "Pittsburghska dohoda," might be inserted in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic! And the word, 'Autonomy,' became an actual fact: The word became flesh! Appreciation is due to the Slovak League of America for creating the Pittsburgh Pact and thanks to its staunch defender, Andrej Hlinka, who together with the Slovak League saw eye to eye in the matter so that eventually the Slovak nation was granted what was a natural right from the very beginning of time. As a final happy conclusion to a mutual understanding and a united effort in the struggle for the Slovak nation's freedom and self-government, the outcome was a triumph that marked a new phase in the history of the Slovak people in central Europe. The Slovak nation emerged victoriously as a self-governing, united people whose national destiny in the heart of Europe was assured because the Slovaks in their homeland and abroad had been willing to make sacrifices for their ideals, had cooperated with their leaders and had persevered in the struggle until final victory. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States. � 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 1967, Vol. 17 Description An account of the resource Special Issue: Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967. 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 1967 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 29 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE SLOVAK NATION'S STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY By Karoi Sidor I have selected the quarter of a century of history of the Slovak League of America (1914-1939 ) as my topic for r eview and analysis in order to show its influence on the future destiny of the Slovak nation in its historic homeland. My work " Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji" (The Slovaks ±n the Struggle Abroad ), 264 pp., which was published in 1928 in Bratislava, serves me well in the present instance. My book, as I noted in the preface, proves that liberation of the Slovak nation from Magyar rule was not the work of the Czechs, nor was it a gift from them, but the main work in Slovakia's liberation in the first World War ( 19141918 ) was accomplished by the Slovaks under the auspices of the Slovak League of America. "It is impossible to evaluate the participation of the Slovaks in the fight for freedom in Czecho-Slovakia", I wrote in the preface, " without delving into the history of the Slovak League of America. During the war the Slovak League influenced the great majority of our emigrant Slovaks in America through membership, and its influence extended to other parts of the world wherever Slovaks had settled. For that reason I chose this title for my book to include all emigrant Slovaks instead of limiting it to t he Slovaks in America and their role in our fight for freedom. Nonetheless, it was the American Slovaks who were actually our liberators - without their assistance the claim that others gave the Slovak nation freedom on a silver platter would have been well founded on reality." The Slovaks in America were the real liberators of their fellow countrymen from Magyar oppression in their homeland beneath the Tatras. They formulated the modern political program for their fellow Slovaks in Cleveland (1915 ) and later in Pittsburgh (1918 ) . For two decades after World War I the Slovaks struggled for recognition of this program drawn up in America and they ultimately won their struggle with the moral and financial help of 30 SLOVAKIA the American Slovaks in 1938. Slovakia finally had its own parliament, its own government, courts, and schools. This phase of Slovak political activity is a bright chapter in the Slovak nation's history, and all those who were engaged in the movement, either directly or indirectly, are fortunate indeed to have been a part of the nationwide struggle for liberty. Memorandum of 1914-1915 No Slovak can remain unmoved as he reads the 'Slovak League Memorandum in behalf of the Slovaks of Hungary 1914-1915' in the name of the American Slovaks. It is truly an amazing political document which shows the vision, foresight and profound thinking of its authors. It placed the Slovak cause in the forefront of world politics and progress. Essentially, this historic memorandum demands "complete self-government and free self-determination in the political field , as well as in the cultural and economic spheres, with the Slovak nation as a legal and equal partner among all nations of the world." These identical ideas were adopted somewhat later in the official documents and statements of world statesmen who determined the destiny of the countries of the world. It is thrilling for us Slovaks to realize that fully three years elapsed before the ideas of self-determination, equality of nations, the right to self-government (as enunciated originally in this Slovak Memorandum) were at last accepted and repeated by world diplomats and statesmen until they became integral parts of a new political world order after World War I. Note the timing of the Slovak Memorandum. World War I had just begun and the roar of guns on the western and eastern fronts signalled initial German and AustroHungarian victories. There was not as yet an organized liberating force among the American Slovaks. America was flooded with favorable German propaganda, and it even penetrated into official circles. But the 'word' was already out at the outset of World War I. The Slovak statement "the right of self-determination for nations" was destined to play an important role in SLOVAKIA 31 the development of the idea and its official expression in America. In full support of this 'word' (self-determination) the organized strength of the American Slovaks was arrayed behind the unified leadership of the Slovak League of America. All the Slovak organizations, both Catholic and nonCatholic, followed the lead of the Slovak League. All periodicals, weeklies and monthlies, were at its service and willingly propagated the 'word' and greatly influenced public opinion throughout the country. Rev. Anton Filkorn, a Catholic priest, was the president and Ivan Daxner, a prominent Lutheran member of the Slovak dynasty of national leaders, was the secretary of the Slovak League at this time. Six Slovak dailies currently indicate how vigorous and dynamic was Slovak Life in America. In Slovakia there was not one daily in 1914 or 1915. (In Budapest, however, the Hungarian government subsidized the Slovenske Noviny for its own propaganda purposes). In New York City the Slovdlc v Amerike daily was directed by an impressive editorial staff of Orbach, stiasny, Baran and Molitoris, in Chicago the Ndrodny Slovensky Dennik was in the capable hands of Editor Marsal-Petrovsky, Krizan, Laucik and Bzduch, in Pittsburgh the Ndrodny Dennik was edited by P . Kompis, Ignac Gessay and Jan culen were the editors of the Newyorksky Slovensky Dennik, Jan Kadlecik edited the Slovensky Dennik, while J. E. Chudatsik and Grigl'ak were at the helm of the Eudovy Dennik, the sixth Slovak Daily in America. These half-dozen Slovak dailies and a host of weeklies, particularly, the Jednota, the Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Bratstvo, Slovenskd Obrana and many monthly publications kept the Slovaks in America well informed about political developments and helped to unite them around the central idea of the right to self-determination of the Slovak nation Jiving beneath the Tatras - in actual fact these were the spokesmen for the Slovak people who were silenced in their own native land. Only two Slovaks represented their nation in the Hungarian parliament at Budapest: Dr. Ferko Skycak, who had 32 SLOVAKIA been elected in his native Bobrov (Orava district), surrendered his mandate on the eve of World War I to Baron Ghillany, a Magyar. Dr. Ferdis Juriga and Dr. Pavol Blaha, however, courageously kept their seats in the Magyar diet in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest. It was perfectly clear that the Slovaks inside Hungary could not decide their future political destiny. Under such circumstances, it is evident that American Slovaks, well organized and having reached high political status in world opinion, must of necessity assume the responsibility of making their ideas of political liberty a reality. Albert Mamatej succeeded Father Filkorn as president of the Slovak League at the end of 1914. There were no changes, however, in the political ideology of the Slovak League . In December, 1914, Mamatej wrote to the Czechs in Paris : We seek self-government for Slovakia not as an individual state, but as a political administrati \'e unit without regards to what greater state is created provided it is assigned to it as a co-partner at the council table of diplomats and statesmen. Emphasis is unquestionably on the status of self-government for Slovakia as 'a special and integral part of an administrative whole' leaving to future developments ostensibly the unsolved questions of both what type and to what state-creation Slovakia would be attached in the immediate future. The Cleveland Agreement Later it became increasingly imperative that Mamatej's "zvlastny administrativno-politicky celok" (a special administrative-political whole ) be spelled out in detail. This was fully and clearly set forth in the Cleveland Agreement. This mutual agreement was made between the Czech National Alliance in America which represented the American Czechs and the Slovak League of America as the representative of the American Slovaks in political affairs. According to the testimony of Emanuel Vos, one of the Czech representatives said at the memorable meeting: "The text of this agreement is known to Professor Masaryk, president of the national council, and he agrees with it." SLOVAKIA 33 Masaryk at that very moment represented the entire Czech emigration in Europe, even though the Allied powers did not recognize him as such. What was, in substance, the agreement between the American Slovaks and Czechs and the Czechs in Europe headed by T. G. Masaryk? On two points the two groups agreed as registered in the Cleveland Agreement of October 25, 1915: 1) Self-government of Czech lands and Slovakia. 2) Union of Czech and Slovak nations in a federation of states with full national autonomy for Slovakia, i.e., the country was to have its own parliament, its own state administrative system, complete cultural freedom with the exclusive use of the Slovak language offically in the Slovak schools, courts, etc., a separate financial and political administration with Slovak as the official language of the country. Again we are confronted with the question of what was meant by the term, "in a federative union of states." There are only two interpretations possible: 1) A federation of Slovak, Czech, Polish, perhaps Austrian, Magyar and Croatian states. 2) A federation of the Slovak and Czech states. It soon becomes clear that in both cases the creators and signers of the Cleveland Agreement had in mind the type of unity we have in the federal union of the American states, i.e., the U.S. For a union of states, therefore; there could not be the union of one state! It requires two or more to create a union. There remains no doubt whatsoever that they did not in any manner or form intend to create the state of Czecho-Slovakia to be centralized in one parliament in Prague and operate as a monopoly from the Czech capital. A parliament of its own, a state administration, complete cultural freedom , its own finances and its own official Slovak language - all these articles as incorporated in the Cleveland Agreement leave no alternative! It meant one thing and one thing only, namely, a self-governing Slovak state. This had been the goal of all Slovak fighters for freedom and it still remained an objective to be attained on 34 SLOVAKIA the basis of the agreement above. The means to the goal was the cooperation of the Slovaks and Czechs in America, and with the Czech emigrants in Europe led by T. G. Masaryk. Cooperation, not subjugation; equality of partnership, equality of rights, even as expressed so aptly in the financial field, a '50-50 proposition!' Exclusively with the Czechs The scintillating fact that the Slovaks in America drew up this agreement with the Czechs alone indicates rather ostensibly that they voluntarily renounced advantages that other nations, and nationality forces, fighting for the liberation of their fellow countrymen in Europe might have offered the Slovaks. I refer to the Poles, Croatians, Slovenians, Serbs, Ukrainians and Sub-Carpathian Rusenes, or Ruthenians. If the Slovaks in America at that moment had united their efforts with those of other Slavic nationality groups, the Slovak cause would certainly have increased its potentialities for a more complete development of its future destiny; in a word, it would not have become so enmeshed in the Czechoslovak maze. On the part of the other Slav groups, there was a real desire for cooperation with the Slovaks, especially on the part of the Poles. The "Polonia w Ameryce" newspaper favored a union of Poles and Slovaks: "The spirit of both nations is the same, the languages not much different. That would, indeed, be the most natural union we can imagine." And the influential "Tygodnik Polski" declared: "Polak Wenger two brothers? 0, what irony! Away from this so-called mad brother, Magyar! Brother Slovak is much closer to us than that so-called brother!" Aside from the religious motif, there existed, too, the mistaken notion of the Slavic ideal, which eventually nullified cooperation between the Slovaks and Poles. It was the attitude toward Czarist Russia. Czarism, orthodoxy and imperialism - those were the underlying causes of so many Polish sufferings and obstacles to Polish freedom . Among the Slovaks there was a feeling of affection for SLOVAKlA 35 the 'bat'uska car' (a genial uncle), the father of all Slavdom and holy Russia. These would bring freedom to the Slovak nation. The Russian nation would be the liberator. Albert Mamatej, president of the Slovak League of America, under the obvious influence of this complex, made an indignant attack on the Poles at an All Slav conference jn Cleveland. That incident closed the doors to probably close friendship with the Poles and forever destroyed the possibility of an advantageous understanding between the Slovaks and Poles. Mamatej's statement was triggered by uncomplimentary remarks about the Russians, the Czar, etc. by a number of Polish leaders at the conference. It was this refusal to work with the Poles that narrowed the path that led straight into the Czech camp. This pathway was a dangerous one, for it gave the Czechs the upperhand and they took full advantage of it by assuming sole leadership, by the isolation of Slovak spokesmen, by intentionally and maliciously misrepresenting the Slovak political concept as set forth in the text of the Cleveland Agreement. Kosik and Osusky in Europe Two delegates with a precise program were authorized to go to Europe by the Congress of the Slovak League of America. The Congress selected Gustav Kosik, editor of the Katolicky Sokol weekly, and Dr. Stefan Osusky, a lawyer and Lutheran Minister. The purpose of the mission was expressed in the program thus: "To inform the civilized world about the demands of the Slovak nation and to secure positive aid for the realization of these demands." First, their journey led to London and then on to Paris in June, 1916. T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Eduard Benes, both Czech emigrants, were in Paris. "Their work" - as Dr. Lev Borsky, an emigrant, too, writes in his book, "Znovudobyti samostatnosti" (Winning Independence Again): "consisted of drawing up memoranda, writing articles and local news. As yet, they had not made any impact on the world nor had they penetrated the influential circles to present the Czech cause." Dr. Borsky writes further: 36 SLOVAKIA It was only when Milan Rastislav Stefanik ente.red the picture that their action took the first semblance of political leadership. It was through Stefanik's influence that members of the National Council got into prominent political circles. Stefanik's ability and influence 5 ot them both a hearing in high government circles and helped them a<:quire necessary experience in the delicate game of international r;olitics and diplomacy. stefanik's coming to the scene among Czech emigrants gave Masaryk's and Benes's memoranda, articles and news a certain importance. Out of ordinary propaganda efforts in which Masaryk and Benes had been engaged a serious form of political action now began taking shape. This was the logical development because the Slovak scientist was not a political emigrant but a French citizen, known in various diplomatic and international circles where diplomats, politicians, scientists and the elite met quite frequently. Stefanik had entre to the highest French circles. He moved in high society. He was well acquainted, highly respected and admired for his scientific achievements in astronomy. The cause which he represented gained tremendous prestige precisely because of his name. It is baffling to the human mind why Kosik and Osusky - later is still living in America and could tell us sincerely why they as delegates of the American Slovaks did not establish a closer relationship with M. R. Stefanik, a fellow Slovak countryman. At first they wanted to work jndependen\ly. T. G. Masaryk in a letter to the Czech National Alliance in America complained that neither Kosik nor Osusky would take orders from him: "They refused to work for me in London." He had been told by the American Czechs that the American Slovaks were sending him r Slovak secretary! Mamatej made a public statement that appeared in the newspapers during the month of August, 1916: This seemed rather strange to me. At the Congress of the Slovak League in Chicago , we American Slovaks at a united conference on April 12, 19il6, resolved to send two of our American Slovaks to Europe not as secretaries to Professor Masaryk but as our representatives who were assigned to go to England, France and especially to Russia to work for our cause in the spirit of our Cleveland Agreement and, therefore, in behalf of our common goal. How Professor Masaryk got the impression that we were forwarding him a Slovak secretary, I simply do not know. At the end, Gustav Kosik, who, together with Stef~nik went to Russia in August, 1916, accepted and signed the Kiev Agreement for SLOVAKIA the Slovak League of America by which the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris (and dent) as the sole responsible and competent tion that was to cooperate with the official P owers and their associates. 37 League recognized the T. G. Masaryk as presirepresentative organizaagencies of the Allied Thus a delegate of the Slovak League of America formally confirmed the leading position to T. G. Masaryk and Dr. Benes and empowered the Czechs to meet directly "with the official agencies of the Allied Powers." In effect the American Slovaks in deference to the Czecho-Slovak National Council surrendered their right to meet directly with the rest of the nations and their spokesmen. From the contents of the Kiev Agreement (Kijevsky zapis-Kiev document) of August 16-19, 1916, the Czechoslovak nation is mentioned: The Czechs and Slovaks . . . wish to establish a united political and indivisible free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a four-power pact. Almost immediately Gustav Kosik became the prime target of the American Slovak press for having made this unilateral agreement. Cleveland's Denny Hlas asked: We would like to know who ordered our delegate to sign such a manifesto when we already have a complete and concise agreement that we are in no way working for a Czechoslovak nation but for the Czech and Slovak nations. We call attention to the fact that nowhere in the manifesto are the Slovaks mentioned. There is only the union with the Czechs. How is that? The Ndrodne Noviny observed: In the Cleveland Agreement there was talk of two nations, not of a united nation, an indivisible nation. We do not want to be hoodwinked by anyone. Our delegates in Europe were not admitted to the source of the right information by the 'b rother Czechs who are having conferences with high authorities and speak in our name while completely ignoring the cardinal points of our mutual Cleveland Agreement. We are aware of this, too, in our meetings with them. Our delegates remain outside of closed doors while inside unauthorized persons speak in our name. After a year in Europe, G. Kosik returned to America on May 13, 1917. Upon being asked whether he signed the Kiev Agreement, he answered that both he and Stefanik had signed it. Then he proceeded to explain his action as follows: 38 SLOVAKIA We have long observed in your newspapers the attacks on the point in the Kiev document, namely, that "The Czechs and Slovaks wish to develop into a united political, indivisible and free Czechoslovak nation under the standard and protection of a fourspower pact." Now, to this very day some of our radicals are disgruntled because Kosik signed that agreement. What if he did? By signing it did Stefanik and Kosik abandon anything from the Slovak program? It is necessary only to change the one word, "narod-nation," to "§tat-state" and everything will quiet down. From now on after the public announcement of the Agreement this may be re-written. Then, it was not expedient because we could not anticipate the development of present circumstances and that particular word, may I add, required hard work of both our diplomats and the Czechoslovak military forces. Kosik's explanation satisfied the majority of the American Slovaks, perhaps chiefly because it was Kosik who said it and reassured them, Kosik's reputation and personal integrity, as well as his Slovak patriotism were unquestioned. Essentially, however, there still remained the suspicion that while the Slovaks actually thought the word, "narod", was merely to be interpreted in the sense of "stat" ie., state, the Czechs really and secretly adhered to the literal meaning, ie., in fact it was to be a Czechoslovak nation, and not merely a Czechoslovak state! Dr. Stefan Osusky, the other delegate of the Slovak League, at first known to hold the line precisely to the Slovak national idea, did not return to America nor did he send any further reports to the American Slovaks who had paid his trip to Europe. In a formal sense Osusky was right. The head of the entire movement for the liberation of the Slovaks from the rule of Hungary became the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris with the agreement of the delegates of the Slovak League. Osusky made his reports to the Council and from now on followed its orders. He was no longer in the service of the Slovak League but of the Council in Paris. Milan R. Stefanik in America Freedom for the Slovaks and liberation was not possible without the destruction of Austro-Hungary. This monarchy had many influential friends not only in France, England and America but also at the imperial Czar's court in Russia. Economic conditions, as well as centuries-old diplo- SLOVAKIA 39 matic, political, personal and family connections were on the side of retaining the empire, and it appeared that there were sufficient guarantees for its future existence after the war came to an end. Memorandas, articles and news bulletins of Czech and Slovak emigrants in opposition to this monarchial state would have remained worthless scraps of paper had not the war ended in victory over Austro-Hungary. This was the prelude to a radical turn-over of events. Only war could change an institution that had been created and buttressed by a series of wars. At the opening of the year, 1917, Russia dropped out of the war against Germany and Austro-Hungary. An internal revolution rocked the country and weakened the military resources of Russia, thereby, conveniently removing a formidable foe of Germany and the Central Powers. Accordingly, the Russians made a separate treaty with Germany. The Slovaks lost an ally upon whom they had counted on so heavily. Imperial Russia, the Czar and the army vanished as if in thin air. The Slovaks who had pinned all their hopes on this great power were suddenly disillusioned. They had never thought liberation and freedom could be won without the aid of Russia. For the moment they were stunned and did not know where to turn for much needed help in their struggle. America declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917, and began sending supplies and soldiers to the western front. This coincided with the withdrawal of Russia from the war. The balance of power was more than restored. It was now only a matter of time until one or the other side would triumph. Entry of the United States into the conflict was enthusiastically hailed by the Slovak League of America. President Wilson now replaced the fallen Czar as the Slovak nation's hope for the winning of freedom. M. R. Stefanik came to America in June, 1917, just as the U.S. began sending its military forces in strength to Europe. He came primarily to seek permission to enroll Slovak and Czech volunteers (legionaires) to fight along- 4-0 SLOVAKIA side the allies on the western front. At a meeting in New York City on September 17, 1917, he said: "Our struggle against Austria-Hungary will end only when both of our brother nations, the Czechs and Slovaks, united in an independent state will be rid of MagyarGerman rule." Stefanik succeeded in achieving his purpose of uniting the Slovaks in the final surge to victory. A group of Slovak Catholic priests who met with Stefanik at the Hotel Plaza in New York City on September 20, 1917, accepted a resolution in which they promised to work for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and that "they would cooperate with the Slovak League, and the program of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, our supreme political institution." The Slovak League of America ceased to be "the supreme political institution for the Slovak nation", instead the national council of Masaryk, Stefanik and Benes was now the supreme political institution in Paris. And what was disastrous was the fact that its program did not include the concept of a free and individual Slovak nation but a Czechoslovak nation in a Czechoslovak state! Military Assistance and Support Incredible as it may seem, this is precisely the way the Slovak League of America came under the political control of the Czech and Slovak emigrants in Paris. Its executive power was usurped and it was exploited for conscription of volunteers and enlistments of Slovak legionaires for the Czechoslovak armed forces . Moreover, the Slovak League was used for raising funds for carrying on the international work of the council in Paris. To fight and pay the bills - that was the ultimate role of the Slovak League of America. It had been pushed aside from political leadership. American Slovaks answered the call to arms in great numbers. They willingly wanted to fight for the freedom of the Slovak nation. Milan Getting who had little faith in the resources of the Slovaks said on this occasion: Taking everything into consider ation, American Slovaks are surprising everybody by their r esponse. Our nation grasps the great im- SLOVAKIA 41 portance of a corps of fighting men and has shown greater faith in the future destiny of the Slovaks than its leaders. So far, we have more than matched the number of Czech recruits. Each enlistment has brought in at least a half or more than half of Slovak young men ready to fight. Among these volunteers are many of our most respected and beloved young men in various Slovak communities. These are on their way to fight on the battlefields of France. In France, however, the officers' corps was limited to a very small Slovak minority. Father Slavo Moravek volunteered for military duty to serve with his fellow Slovak legionaires. Dr. Eduard Benes, the secretary of the CzechoSlovak National Council, replied from Paris : "I guess our army has no need for a priest." Slovak women in America, either in their own organizations or as members of the 'Vcielky' or 'Priadky' groups carried on a nation-wide campaign for supplies. Jano Jancek, Slovak emigrant soldier who was released from a Russian military camp, came to America and was elected Secretary of the Slovak League. He credited these women with a total amount of goods valued at more than a half-million dollars that was distributed to the armed forces overseas . Both the military and material ai_d by the Slovaks exceeded all expectations. The Million Dollar Campaign War funds were established in every Slovak organization which taxed males 10 cents and females 5 cents each month. A special committee of nine members: 3 Catholic priests, 3 Protestant ministers and 3 civilian leaders were named in the fall of 1917 to raise a million dollars for the financial support of political action in international affairs . Enthusiasm ran high: Two Catholic clergymen, Father Joseph Murgas and Father John Martvon, launched the campaign by each contributing $2,000 and Michael Bosak added his pledge of $5,000. This initial good example followed until approximately $1,000,000 was collected from Slovaks from all walks of life throughout America. This money was allocated by the Slovak League as follows (as Peter P. Jurcak, president of the Slovak League in 1946 records it in his, "The Slovaks", pp. 190-191): SLOVAKIA 42 Year 1916 1917 1917 1918 1918 1918 1918 1919 1919 1919 1919 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1920 1921 1921 Name Amount Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Paris . $ 5,000.00 20,000 .00 ditto in Russia .......... . ....... .. 10,000.00 . ....... .......... ditto in America 120,000.00 .. Council Nat. T. G. Masaryk, Pres. C.S. 36,000.00 Czecho-Slo vak Council in America .... . 3,184.00 Slav Press Bureau .......... ......... . 19,631.00 Expenses of delegation to Slovakia .... . 55,000.00 Dr. Eduard Benes .......... . . ....... . 5,194.00 For Magyar Counter-Pr opaganda in U.S . . 44,500.00 Czecho-Slo vak Nat. Council in America .. Dr. Vavro srobar for propagand a publi10,000.00 cations ... . . . . . . . .... . ...... . ........ . vak Czecho-Slo for Hurban Col. Vladimir 25,000.00 Legionaire s returning from Russia .. .. . Czechothe of T. G. Masaryk, President Slovak Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000.00 Dr. Alice Masaryk, for Czecho-Slo vak Red 25,000.00 Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relief sent to Czecho-Slo vakia . . . . . . . . . . 126,000.00 For print. presses, etc., for Slovak Ministry 68,000.00 5,000.00 Bratislava University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For counteract ing Magyar propagand a and helping secure loan for Czecho-Slo 9,500.00 vak Republic . .... . .......... ... . . . . . . .00 4,572 Aid to disabled Czecho-Slo vak Veterans . 4,000.00 For High School in Petrovec . ........ . Czecho-Slo vak National Council in Amer5,000.00 ica .......... .......... .......... .... . Total ....... ... .......... . .... . ....... . $800,911.00 It is significant to note that not one dollar was given to M. R. Stefanik! Everything went to T . G. Masaryk, to his daughter or followers, Benes and srobar. The expenses of G. Kosik's and st. Osusky's trip to Europe are not listed. Nothing is recorded as aid to Slovak prisoners of war in Russia. This and other expenses for publicity in America, the pay of employees , press, etc., must have added up to an additional tidy sum. As the war came to an end there is a marked drop-off SLOVAKIA 43 in donations, as also seen in the above report. This was quite in evidence in the political field, too. The Pittsburgh Pact Note that the United States, which declared war on Germany in April, 1917, did not declare hostilities upon Austria-Hungary. But the Slovaks in America from 1914 on openly declared themselves hostile to a monarchy that deprived the Slovaks of their freedom in their European homeland. The moment of decision for the Slovaks was based on their convictions, not on a calculated risk, as was the case of many American Czechs who could not be persuaded to accept the possibility of the destruction of the ancient Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even after the outbreak of war between America and Germany the position of Austria-Hungary in America was not hopeless. Defenders of the old Empire had high hopes of saving it. But these hopes were somewhat dimmed by President Wilson's recommendation to Congress on December 4, 1917, to declare war on Austria-Hungary. Yet, this act did not doom the Hapsburg Empire, for there was not any plan at the time to break up the ancient imperial state. Wilson, himself, on December 4, 1917, and on January 8, 1918, in his 14 points did not recommend the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, he said: "We do not wish to weaken or reorganize the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Reaction of the allied powers to Wilson's speech in January, 1918, was of a general nature. Liberation on the Slovaks and Czechs from foreign rule did not necessarily mean the disintegration of the old empire and much less the creation of a new state of Czecho-Slovakia. Declaration of war on Austria-Hungary by the U.S. changed the situation quite radically, however. Demands for the break-up of the Hapsburg empire became more insistent. Foremost among the new states proposed was Czecho-Slovakia. As the movement for liberation became more certain, the more vociferously did the adherents of Czechoslovak- 44 SLOVAKIA ism push the Slovak League into Czech clutches. Accordingly, on February 9, 1918, in Chicago representatives of the Slovaks and Czechs organized a branch of the CzechoSlovak National Council in which eight Slovaks from the Slovak League and eight Czechs from the Bohemian National Alliance were enrolled. This eventually resulted in unity of action and organization, and in effect was a virtual recognition by the Slovak League that the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris was now the supreme agency for the struggle for freedom. T. G. Masaryk had waited for this development. He immediately announced that he would come to America. In six weeks he was here to lead the Czechs and Slovaks to victory . . . a triumph of his Czechoslovak ideology of a 'Czechoslovak nation' in a united Czechoslovak state! At first Masaryk was welcomed with great enthusiasm but this was short-lived. Jednota (May 22, 1918) had these comments: This activity, as Masaryk understands it, is only for the benefit of the Czechs, with the Slovaks helping, of course. If we are fighting and working for a Greater Bohemia, we are not fighting or working for our own interests but only for the Czechs. The struggle for a Greater Czechia is not worth one Slovak cent, nor one drop of Slovak blood. We want pure wine. We want to know whether we are fighting for a Greater Czechia or for a free, self-governing Slovakia and for a free, self-governing Czechia. T . G. Masaryk was informed of this challenge. In his subsequent remarks - as a wily tactician - he directed a few inane statements for the benefit of the Slovaks. These, oddly enough, inspired the Slovak League's press bureau to hail him as 'the greatest living Slovak' and as 'our great father and leader'! Moreover, all the Slovak newspapers got into the spirit of the moment and out did each other in an outburst of superlatives, expressing their affection, loyalty and trust in the hero of the moment, Masaryk himself. Nevertheless, the bulk of the American Slovaks was not taken in by this synthetic expression of admiration for Masaryk. What he said so nicely and smoothly they wanted down on paper, black on white, so to speak. Finally, on May 30, 1918, T. G. Masaryk picked up a copy of the Cleveland Agreement, read it, took a sheet SLOVAKIA 45 of paper and wrote down in pencil a personal draft to be proposed as an "Agreement or Contract." Masaryk's original copy, announced the press bureau of the Slovak League of America, "firmly establishes the relationship between the two branches." (Not nations, as it stood properly in the Cleveland Agreement-my comment) . "One copy of this agreement," reported the bureau, "will be forwarded to Albert Mamatej , president of the Slovak League, who will officially make it public shortly. Professor Masaryk thus has completed his mission among the Slovaks with whom he met in a conference in Pittsburgh." Thomas Masaryk's agreement written and signed by him is called the Pittsburgh Pact, therefore as of May 30, 1918. Its main articles are these : Slovakia will have its own administration, its own parliament, its own courts. Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in the administration and in public life. Did Masaryk intend to abide by the agreement when he drew it up and personally signed it? This question was intriguing until he clarified it in his book, "World Revolution-Svetova revolucia," 1925, p. 262: "I signed the agreement," writes the author, "which was an agreement between American Slovaks and American Czechs. This was done to satisfy a small Slovak faction which dreamed of God knows what kind of independent Slovakia . . . the agreement was a local one . . . among the Czechs and Slovaks of America." According to Masaryk's testimony, therefore, the agreement was not between the Slovak and Czech nations, not even between a group of Slovak and Czech representatives of their respective societies in this country, but an ordinary local expedient agreement "to satisfy a small Slovak faction." Obviously, it was never meant to be considered in the planning of the foundation of the Czecho-Slovak state either by Masaryk or the Czechs themselves. Masaryk brushed aside the Slovaks rudely by this action, broke his word of honor and proclaimed his signature genuine but worthless, and in the same work (World Revolution-Svetova revolucia, 1925, page 105) he discounted the financial aid of the Slovaks as insignificant: 46 SLOVAKIA While I was in Russia. Dr. Benes received money in Paris. I estimate the amount at about $300,000. The cost of our activity did not reach the sum of a million Dollars. The money came from Czech sources. During the war Slovak contributions were very small. As president, after the war I received $200,000 but in this was included money from my personal American friends. What these 'very small' contributions actually were we have noted above in Jurcak's official report, as contained in his book, "The Slovaks". The fact is they were not 'very small' and the payment each time in sums of several hundred thousands dollars during and after the war to Masaryk directly or indirectly ( to the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris) were ear-marked from the Slovaks in America, and not from the Czechs. Masaryk's career as a statesman and his enduring fame would have been crowned by an aura of glory instead of being clouded by suspicion and disillusionment had he, as a man of honor, kept his word and publicly recognized the genuine contributions of the American Slovaks to the building of the Czecho-Slovak state. Delegates of the Slovak League in Slovakia Czecho-Slovakia as a free and independent republic was not proclaimed by the National Council in Paris but in the United States, and that by its branch, the CzechoSlovak National Council in America. It was on October 18, 1918, in Washington, D.C. in the form of a proclamation by Thomas G. Masaryk, provisional president, and for Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, minister of national defense, and Dr. Eduard Benes, minister of internal and foreign affairs. Neither Stefanik nor Benes were present but Masaryk signed for them by proxy. Thomas G. Masaryk compiled the proclamation but, as he writes later, he first submitted it to the scrutiny of American legal advisers. Then he presented a handwritten document to the State Department and the White House. "I presented the proclamation to the Secretary of State, Lansing, so that I would be assured of the approval of the American government," Masaryk explained in his memoirs. Official reference to the Slovaks in this historical document was unfortunate. indeed. He wrote: "The rights SLOVAKIA 47 of the Czechs may be united with their Slovak brethren in Slovakia, once a part of our (Czech) state .. ." In effect, this meant that Slovakia was being re-united with the Czech state to which it had at one time been united as r. part of a whole. Not historically true at all. An agreement between the Czechs and Slovaks had been made as a 50-50 proposition but Masaryk ignored it completely. The new state was to be organized on his own terms. The Slovaks understood their fight was for their freedom but now Masaryk was saying they were shedding their blood for the right of the Czechs to rule the Slovaks. In one official declaration Masaryk had erased the rights of the Slovaks to their national freedom, the right of selfdetermination of the Slovak nation, the right to a federal union of states ( Slovakia and Bohemia in Czecho-Slovakia, a united state), the right to a Slovak law-making body in the Slovak capital, the right to Slovak schools and courts, the right to a Slovak political administration. ~tefanik was understandably displeased with the proclamation to which Masaryk appended his name by proxy. In his book, "My Role in the Czecho-Slovak Fiiht for Freedom," General Janin, who was in Russia with ~tefanik at the time, writes: Stefanik was greatly disturbed, he was indignant that the proclamation had been made under his name when he was not even informed of its contents. He showed me a long telegram addressed to Masaryk and Benes concerning the proclamation of October 18, 1918. Meanwhile, T . G. Masaryk after agreement with Benes and Kramat ( who was in Switzerland) became provisional president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. As such, he signed the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement on November 18, 1918, which Albert Mamatej presented to him for his signature before Masaryk returned to Paris. In his farewell message, Masaryk said: "America will have a place of honor in the history of the liberation movement in behalf of Czecho-Slovakia." Unfortunately, we have already seen above what 'place of honor' Masaryk reserved for the American Slovaks who did so much meritorious work in the struggle, but received little credit for it. Masaryk left the U.S. as provisional president of the SLOVAKIA proposed Czecho-Slovak Republic.. Soon afterwards reports from Slovakia came to America. American Slovaks were very much disturbed by the reports coming from post-war Slovakia. Slovak Catholic priests were especially aroused by news of Czech indignities against religion in Slovakia. They grasped now in what spirit the international policy of the Czecho-Slovak National Council had been inspired and they sensed what grave consequences it had brought in the Slovaks' homeland. Rev. Jan Liscinsky characterized the entire situation: "The Slovaks freed themselves from Magyar oppression only to be enslaved under a Czech banner." Father Dianiska, after studying the post-war situation carefully, wrote that srobar selected only as associates and delegates who had been educated and trained in Praha, hence the entire personnel was Czechophile and uncertain in matters of religion. Dr. Dianiska concluded rightfully that 'a period of misfortune was in store for the Slovak nation, both politically and religiously.' First-hand information was necessary. Accordingly, the Slovak League hastened to send a number of observers to Slovakia. A five-man delegation was designated, namely, Jozef Rusek, Dr. M. Francisci, Edo Kovach, M. Getting and J. Matloch. They left America on March 7, 1919, and Rev. Pavol Siska, a representative of the Jednota (First Catholic Slovak Union) accompanied them. Later Ignac Gessay joined the delegation. The mission was to investigate conditions and report to their Slovak League colleagues and the American Slovaks who had subscribed to the Pittsburgh Agreement, a photostatic copy of which they carried to 'liberated Slovakia.' Immediately upon their arrival in Slovakia in the spring of 1919, they sensed that the Slovak nation was in the thick of a struggle for its rights. But there was much confusion and they, too, were confused by the swift rush of events. The longer they stayed, however, the clearer insight they got into the real situation. Nevertheless, even Jozef Rusek was baffled for a time so that he leaned towards the corps of slick-talking Czechoslovak politicians who assured him they were doing the right thing for Slovakia! SLOVAKIA 49 At the Scranton (Pa.) Congress of the Slovak League on May 29, 1919, Husek reported: The government people in Bratislava oppose autonomy, they favor instead a central parliament, a central government and they hold that the Czechs and Slovaks constitute one nation, the Slovak language being only a Czech dialect! Autonomy would prevent a lingiustic union with the Czechs. That is why we were not well received in Bratislava, nor was our Pittsburgh Agreement agreeable to them. We were received with joy in Ruzomberok, Hlinka's kingdom. So was our Pittsburgh document. Some of Hlinka's views I do not like, particularly his vociferous agitation against Dr. Srobar, a minister. And it is a fact that Magyar renegades are filtering into Hlinka's party. The Magyars praise Hlinka as a fine man because he demands autonomy for Slovakia, and because he is in opposition to the Czechs. Some of Husek's observations were true to the facts. It is true that Hlinka stood firmly behind the demand for autonomy for an independent Slovak nation while srobar advocated Czechoslovakism, amalgamation with the Czechs. srobar was against the Pittsburgh Agreement, Hlinka was for it. Husek was wrong, however, in claiming that Magyar elements joined Hlinka's party exclusively. As a matter of record, the 1920 parliamentary elections proved that the majority of Magyars were in parties led by Ivan Derer and srobar. This was acclaimed as a virtue if the 'mad'ar6ni' (Magyar sympathizers) belonged to their political parties, but a vice if they returned as prodigal sons to Hlinka's party. What policy did Husek advocate as a policy for the Slovak League of America? The less we speak of autonomy, the better for Slovakia and the new republic at this time. There is no need to be fearful. Autonomy will not vanish in thin air. To declare opposition now would be aiding the Magyar cause. When Slovakia becomes of age, it will take what rightfully belongs to it. And autonomy belongs by natural right to Siovakia. A reasonable statement of policy. Self-government or autonomy would not disappear. Slovakia would get it sometime in the future ... and it did, but only after a bitter struggle that lasted a full score years (1919-1938) ! Why, then, was it necessary to get the Slovaks to agree on a 50-50 proposition with the Czechs in the first place? What good were the Memorandum, the Cleveland Agreement and the Pittsburgh Pact? For what purpose did so many American Slovaks pour out their lifeblood on the 50 SLOVAKIA battlefield of France? Why was it necessary for the Slovak nation to carry on a 20-yr. struggle for the incorporation of the principles of the Pittsburgh Pact into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia when the American Slovaks could have readily put it into the Constitution, and even into the peace treaty as did the American Ruthenians ( Carpathian Rusins) under the leadership of zatkovic? And the Ruthenians were far from being as politically mature or developed as the Slovaks. From the very beginning the Slovak struggle abroad might well have been successfully completed if the American Slovaks had been allowed to incorporate their principles in the Constitution so that the Slovak nation would have had a constitutional right to self-rule in its own autonomous state, and their needless fight for autonomy would have been avoided. Moreover, there would have been an international basis and guarantee for their just rights, and the Slovak people would have had self-rule in their historic homeland. If American Slovaks had intervened in Washington and later had presented their case to the American delegation at the peace conference in Paris, it is certain that the right of the Slovaks to autonomy in Slovakia would have been seriously considered and debated as an international problem, and the outcome would surely have been the same as that of the Rusins whose demand for autonomy was officially registered in the Peace Treaty of St. Germaine, on September 10, 1919. But foes of Slovak freedom and Hlinka's party saw to it that every possible means was used to divide the Slovak League and Andrej Hlinka. Gradually the Slovak League began leaning to the view that Hlinka's fight in behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact was a cover-up for his personal feud with Srobar. It was becoming more and more apparent that strong pressure of Czechoslovak groups both in Slovakia and America was being applied to the Slovak League. Matters involved in this struggle became even more confusing when Milan Getting, a Slovak League delegate in Bratislava, persuaded the organization to finance a propaganda or press bureau in Bratislava to the tune of SLOVAKIA 51 $68,000. srobar managed to buy a printing establishment in the Slovak capital for these funds and happily set up a propaganda center to fight Hlinka and oppose all autonomists in the country. Assuredly, this development did not bring Andrej Hlinka and the Slovak League of America to any mutual understanding or a friendly relationship. Andrej Hlinka's Delegates in America In memoirs, Z<ipisky z Mirova, Bratislava, 1941, Andrej Hlinka is quoted on page 31: I know the Slovak people, for I am one of their sons. All my life I have kept my finger on the Slovak nation's pulse. I have heard every beat of the Slovak heart. I aroused the Slovak people to action and I gave them hope. I sowed an idea in their minds. The people accepted all of my ideas but they did not relish the Czechoslovak idea of brotherhood. I did not sleep or rest. The idea troubled me. But for the sake of preserving the Slovak nation, I argued, I must give the people this bitter pill, yet in a sugar-coated form . It is better to live with somebody, I assured my troubled conscience, than to die alone. The people found it hard to swallow the bitter pill. Their natural instincts rebelled against it. It seems these were much wiser and stronger than my way of thinking. And so I find myself regretting a blunder committed against the primitive natural instincts of my own people. All I can pray and hope for is the chance to correct this grave error and redeem myself. If I fail in this, I feel certain the people will forgive me and will not hold it against me. A year ago I sinned because I was not sufficiently cautious or zealous enough in the struggle for the Slovak nation's right to liberty. I failed the people in a historical moment in the midst of my struggle ti) which I have devoted almost a lifetime of energy and sacrifice. First, I faltered because I went to Martin on October 30, 1918. Had I not gone there that day, I would not be conscience-stricken today. (This Hlinka wrote while held in prison by the Czechs in Mirov, October 16, 1919). Mistakes are made, even in politics. What is important is to realize one's erring ways and correct them in time. Andrej Hlinka, therefore, went to repair the damage by setting out for the peace conference in Paris during the month of August, 1919. His intention was to incorporate a guarantee of the Slovak nation's right to autonomy in the peace treaty. Hlinka's journey to Paris was in vain. The Slovak leader's venture would have been successful, perhaps, had the Slovak delegation joined him and 52 SLOVAKIA through the American representatives in Paris presented Hlinka's request at the peace conference. Paris was the logical place for the fusion of Hlinka's domestic program with the Slovak League's proposals and the official presentation of the united program at the Peace Conference. Instead, Andrej Hlinka, armed only with the Memorandum, and alone, sought entry to the Peace parley in Paris. This was not a vain gesture of an obscure adventurer seeking cheap publicity. There was history behind him. He was a prominent Slovak political leader at 55, his was a distinguished record as a patriotic leader with three years of prison because of his defense of the Slovak nation. The cernova affair that had taken the lives of 15 of his fellow countrymen was known all over the world. Thousands of articles in Slovak periodicals at home and in America alone made him famous. As founder of many societies and organizations he was a popular figure at home . . . and in the background he had the good will of eminent Polish leaders who were sympathetic to the Slovak cause. In Slovak history it remains a sad and regrettable fact that Hlinka and the Slovak League delegation did not join forces in Paris. They lacked mutual understanding of each other personally. This was the cockle that had been sown by Derer and srobar. The Slovak League confined its activity to writing memoranda for the Prague government. Here on October 24, 1919, its representatives did, however, express the desire for the gradual introduction of autonomy in Slovakia "according to the circumstances and possibilities," and they requested further "a guarantee for the incorporation of self-government into the basic state laws, namely, in the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, and along the lines drawn up in the Agreement between Masaryk and ourselves." In reality it was merely a paper request. Moreover, it was presented as a plea with the added proviso, "self-government need not be established or introduced immediately, there is no urgency for such action, however." Neither srobar nor his Czechoslovak associates paid any attention to so woefully weak a request. To achieve results at the time it was absolutely neces- SLOVAKIA 53 sary for the personal appearance of Andrej Hlinka at the Paris Conference, but with the full backing of the moral and material resources of the Slovaks at home and abroad on the solid platform of Slovak autonomy. The time for mere Memoranda had passed. The time for dynamic action had arrived. Unfortunately, Andrej Hlinka found himself alone in Paris. He knew he had no official support, but somehow he kept faith and hoped for a miracle in the impending crisis. No miracle occured to save the situation. Hlinka, disappointed and defeated, returned home where he was immediately arrested and taken to prison by the Czechs because he had dared to go to Paris to re• present the Slovak nation personally. But he had not for. gotten the American Slovaks. While still in Paris, he dis• patched two emissaries to America, namely, Dr. Jozef Rudinsky and Jozef Kubala. Passports and visas for these two men were given by the Poles who had previously furnished Hlinka with a Polish passport to go to Paris. Precisely on October 13, 1919, when Hlinka was seized and taken to the Mirov prison by his Czech captors, the emissaries (Father Rudinsky and Kubala) arrived in America. On October 24, 1919, they addressed an extraordinary meeting of the executive council of the Slovak League in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Jozef Rudinsky visualized clearly the aim of Slovak policy as the gradual realization of the Slovak nation's natural rights as guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Pact. The minutes of this special session reveal what Rudinsky said of Hlinka's party, namely, that 'the party wanted a gradual introduction of self-rule but demanded that this autonomy, ie., the agreement, be registered immediately in Paris.' After a long discussion at this executive meeting, nothing definite was decided upon. The Slovak League was still overshadowed by the Rusek report, ie., too much emphasis on autonomy at the time would only profit the Magyar side . This was contrary to the mission of Hlinka's emissaries who had been sent to America for the primary purpose of winning the American Slovaks to Andrej Hlinka and his party's policy of concentrating all their efforts on 54 SLOVAKIA winning autonomy as soon as possible, or at least have the guarantee approved and registered at the Peace Conference in Paris. Outcome of the meetings and subsequent conferences was the 'Statement and Public Testimony of the Slovak League' in which the League's spokesmen explained their negative stand in regards to the delegates sent to them by Andrej Hlinka. Three reasons were given for their attitude: 1) The delegates had sounded a discordant note in the existing harmony betw~en the Czechs and Slovaks abroad, as well as at home, by their publicized views. 2) They lacked a Czecho-Slovak passport; they had passports furnished by the Polish government in Paris. 3) Andrej Hlinka, the head of the Slovak People's Party (Slovenska 13udova Strana) had gone to Paris with a Polish passport and visa, not one from Czecho-Slovakia. Misunderstanding only widened the gulf between the real fighters for the Pittsburgh Pact: Hlinka's party in Slovakia and the Slovak League in America. This served only one purpose, ie., the prolonging of the struggle by 20 years until the common goal of Slovak freedom and selfrule was reached in 1938. Intervention i n behalf of the Pittsburgh Pact in vain Despite the manifest refusal to Andrej Hlinka's invitation to join him and the Slovak People's Party in the struggle for autonomy ( the Slovak League's brain-child) the Slovak League could not renounce the Pittsburgh Pact. Though publicly disavowing collaboration with Andrej Hlinka, the League on its own initiative began taking steps to put the Pittsburgh Agreement into actual practice in Slovakia. This gesture, though somewhat shaky and lacking the early confidence that had been solidly based on conviction, was made in the right direction, however. As late as 1919 a branch of the Czecho-Slovak National Council was still operating in America. On November 7, 1919, it announced that "the approved representatives of the American Slovaks requested that the Pittsburgh Agreement be considered for incorporation by the National SLOVAKIA 55 Assembly in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic." Armed with this request and with a resolution of the Slovak League in his pocket, Albert Mamatej, the president of the Slovak League, went to Czecho-Slovakia. He presented the Pittsburgh Agreement to srobar and Hodza, both of whom declared it was both bad and unnecessary. Milan Hodza openly stated: "Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Magyar politicians. Slovak autonomy - that is the motto of Polish politicias. And that for us is a significant warning." That autonomy for Slovakia was the fulfillment of Slovak aspirations in America, as well as a good motto, and that the same program inspired Hlinka's policy in Slovakia designed for the Slovak nation's destiny as a selfgoverning state, did not occur either to Mamatej or his Slovak associates. srobar and Hodza simply refused to take cognizance of this reality. Mamatej returned to America with the resolution of srobar and Hodza, rejecting autonomy for Slovakia. He also brought the declaration of the Slovak representatives (Srobar's) at the Revolutionary National Assembly in Prague. They declared on February 6, 1920: "Autonomy would place an enormous financial burden on the Slovak nation but everything that is essentially in the Pittsburgh Agreement has been incorporated into the Constitution except a separate parliament, which under present circumstances, would be detrimental to Slovakia." Albert Mamatej was taken in. He believed all this and acted accordingly. Hence, he recommended what he was told in Praha, ie., the best future for the Slovak nation was to accept the status of 'Czechoslovakism' as part of a train pulled on the Czech main track and run by a Czech engineer . . . of course, the fireman was naturally a Slovak .. . and this, explained Mamatej naively, was in full accord with the Pittsburgh Pact! On the otherhand, it seemed that Mamatej feared that the Pittsburgh Pact would be exploited by the Magyars or Poles, nor did he have trust in the Czechoslovak group of 56 SLOVAKIA the Slovak ongm in Prague. Therefore, he felt that the Agreement was to be entrusted to Andrej Hlinka although the Slovak leader was still in prison at Mirov in Moravia. Ultimately, the Pittsburgh Agreement was to be incorporated in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Such was the assurance given Mamatej by the Prague politicians. Yet, when the Constitution was approved by the national assembly on February 29, 1920, there was no reference to Slovak autonomy or self-government in Slovakia, and there was .no distinction made on the question of the 'Individuality of the Slovak nation'! To offset the success of the mission of Dr. Rudinsky and Kubala in America, the Prague government hastily sent its agents to this country. Rev. Ladislav Moys and Jan Pocisk, a Social Democratic leader, arrived in America on March 2, 1920. Father Liscinsky declared frankly that Father Moys, an old Slovak but totally unqualified in the game of political legerdemain, was 'a disgrace to the Slovak Catholics.' Moys' first report to his masters in Prague was that aside from a small faction, American Slovaks were "anti-autonomistic." . This statement was labelled publicly by the · Slovak Catholic Federation as a fabrication and a fable. The executive committee of the federation on October 12, 1920, made this declaration: We resent Rev. Moys' insinuation with abhorrence, and we reassure our brethren beneath the Tatras in Slovakia that American Slovaks now more than ever before adhere to the Pittsburgh Agreement because during the visit of Rev. Moys and Mr. Pocisk they had ample opportunity to become convinced that the foes of this documentary agreement consider every reasonable basis for mutual understanding presented by the Slovaks as useless. Unfortunately, Albert Mamatej, having been named a consul of Czecho-Slovakia in Pittsburgh, joined the Czechoslovak camp. In his letters, addressed to his chief, Benes in Prague, who was minister of foreign affairs, Mamatej attacked autonomism and its adherents and turned against the ideals he had represented so ably and so well during the war. He died suddenly, disillusioned and alone. His widow and three children received a monthly pension of $15.00 . Thus did Prague value a man who had SLOVAKIA 57 carried out its wishes and had performed services contrary to his personal convictions and his fine wartime record in behalf of the Slovak cause of freedom. Mamatej, president of the Slovak League, was dead. But the ideal which had been the essence of Slovak political policy at home and in America was very much alive. Alongside the Slovak Catholic Federation the idea of an autonomous Slovakia took hold once again in the Slovak League of America, which after Mamatej's demise was directed by prominent American Slovaks who gave it the leadership it deserved. Wh~ the presidents were unable to devote full time to the Slovak League, it was that gallant secretary, Jan Kocur, who performed all necessary tasks with devotion and ability and kept the embers glowing in the old glorious tradition of self-government or autonomy for Slovakia. Andrej Blinka in America Slovak life in America slowly began losing its onetime vitality and ardor. It always happens that way ... in the lives of individuals and in the history of organizations. There is a time of development and progress followed by eclipse and eventual decline. Circumstances were unfavorable and decline was inevitable. Slovak daily newspapers in America suffered a sudden recession while many periodicals simply vanished. Old workers grew old or died, and aid from the old country was cut off as the energy of the Slovaks was directed to the defense of the Slovak nation's right to national survival. American Slovaks were in need of moral support at this time, for the new generation, though often possessing the Slovak spirit of its forebears, discovered it was far easier and more advantageous to speak English rather than the Slovak language of their parents. Nonetheless, even under increasing unfavorable circumstances, there were frequent instances of an unusual vital interest in the Slovak League and in the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom in its historic homeland. 58 SLOVAKIA By far, the majority of American Slovaks remained staunchly loyal to their ancient heritage and their ideals as expressed in the Pittsburgh Agreement to which they manifestly showed a deep attachment. A Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom sprang up to keep alive the spirit of dedication to the Slovak cause. Contributions, moral, financial and cultural, of existing organizations throughout America did not cease completely. Undoubtedly the great event of this era in the midtwenties was the visit of Andrej Hlinka to America. The occasion was the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. The heroic warrior came accompanied by Dr. Jozef Buday on June 5, 1926, and his visit lasted until October 13, ... a four months' stay among his fellow countrymen in America. Hlinka came to America in answer to the invitation of the Committee of Friends of Slovak Freedom, headed by .Jozef Husek, and the Slovak League, whose president was Ivan Bielek. Anticipated with great joy throughout America where Slovaks lived, Hlinka's visit was heralded by Jozef Husek's letter of April 25, 1926, assuring the Slovak leader of a warm welcome: You will not run into any trouble here, as there is only a handful of Czechoslovaks here and they are incapable of organizing any serious protest meeting. I personally guarantee your visit will be a great success. The people idolize you and your visit will fulfill their great desire to see you personally and welcome you. Ivan Bielek, president of the Slovak League, wrote in the American press that Hlinka was invited everywhere for a Sunday appearance. "Consider," reported Bielek, "that to date we have a total of 136 requests for a Sunday date. This means if we want to satisfy everyone, our distinguished guest, Andrej Hlinka, will have to remain here with us for more than two years ." Overflow crowds welcomed Andrej Hlinka and listened avidly to his addresses from the Atlantic to the midwest throughout the summer on weekends. In his final farewell to his fellow Slovak countrymen SLOVAKIA 59 in America on October 11, 1926, Hlinka made this public statement: You received me as a national hero. I do not deserve this great honor. But if I have not as yet attained that eminent status, your affection and generosity have insipired me to aspire to rise to such noble stature. I am leaving you. I bid you farewell but not in tears or sorrow. Your success and happiness here fill me with national pride. I take with me your message in the words of the immortal Furdek: "O, thou blue Tatra . .. We, your children, have wandered far from thee. Weep not! Your clan even beyond the great ocean remains loyal to thee." God bless you, God keep you, God strengthen you. Do not forget that your cradle stood beneaith the Tatras, your beloved Motherland, our sorely-tried and suffering Slovakia. Goodbye my Slovak nation . . . Goodbye my fellow Slovak countrymen in America. The Slovak League Delegation in Slovakia Autonomy Achieved There had been a number of smaller or larger delegations sent from America to Slovakia and vice versa_ Among these were those sent by the Spolok sv. Vojtecha from Trnava and the Matica Slovenska from Turciansky Sv. Martin. Neither was the occasion for a mutual cultural exchange. The American Slovaks were on the receiving end on both occasions, they were passive recipients. They received a large number of Slovak works in literature, in return they were able to offer some two or three of their own books. Consequently, Slovak books from Slovakia found a ready market in America. But there were political delegations from America. One of these came to Trencin to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Ag-reement. It joined Hlinka for the celebration. Perhaps the most important visit to America in 1937 was that of the Spolok sv. Vojtecha (among the delegates was Msgr. Jozef Tiso) that followed the earlier visit of a Matica Slovenska delegation. Of supreme importance politically was the visit of the Slovak League delegation to Slovakia in May, 1938. Members comprising the group were Dr. Peter P. Hletko, president, Josef Husek, one of the original signers of the Pittsburgh Pact, Dominik Sloboda, Michal Sincak and Rev. Jozef Rolik. The delegation brought with it the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement to the celebration which 60 SLOVAKIA was held on June 4, 1938, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the historic document in Pittsburgh, Pa. (May 30, 1918). As a symbolic act the first official visit of the Slovak League delegation in Czecho-Slovakia was to Andrej Hlinka ... symbolic in the sense of the mutual unity of ideals and purpose between the American Slovaks and their fellow countrymen in Slovakia. The Slovak League delegation, therefore, did not present itself with the Pittsburgh Agreement to its Slovak and Czech opponents in Bratislava or Prague, but went directly first to its great friend, champion and foremost associate, Andrej Hlinka, in Ruzomberok. This deliberate act manifestly emphasized the unity of thought and purpose of the Slovaks at home and in America. Thus, as the First Slovak League delegation which had brought the Pittsburgh Agreement to Czecho-Slovakia at the birth of that republic, so now, it was the last Slovak League delegation that had come with the self-same historic document at the eleventh hour to persuade the leaders of the Czecho-Slovak Republic to accept and put into practical operation the principles enunciated in the Pittsburgh Agreement. In vain had been the attempt of the first Slovak League delegation, and even more of a failure was the coming of the Slovak League delegation from America as far as the centralists in Prague or Bratislava were concerned. Though the Republic was threatened by foreign powers on every side, these stubbornly refused to accept the Pittsburgh Agreement as the basis for a mutual understanding between the Slovaks and the Czechs. At least this situation set the stage for the fulfillment of Husek's prophecy uttered at a meeting of the Slovak League in America upon his return from Slovakia in May, 1919: No need to be afraid. Autonomy will not run away. When Slovakia will grow up to maturity, it will take what rightfully belongs to the Slovak nation ... and autonomy belongs to it! As a matter of fact, autonomy did not run away in those 20 years. How could it? Andrej Hlinka had held it SLOVAKIA 61 firmly in his noble and strong hands. It was his blood and his whole life. Hlinka, whom Martin Razus, a Protestant poet, patriot and clergyman, joined, made Slovakia his country. Hlinka and Razus in mind and heart by their work, industry and devotion nourished the spirit of Slovakia so that it grew out of its infancy, became strong and reached maturity. Prematurely, Martin Razus died in 1937; and Andrej Hlinka followed , though at the age of 74, in 1938, less than t wo months before Slovakia in October really took unto herself what had always been hers by natural right, and guaranteed by the Pittsburgh Agreement in 1918. The glorious day of self-government, or autonomy, for the Slovak nation dawned in the early fall of 1938 but neither was present to celebrate this long-awaited victory and hardwon triumph inside the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Hlinka died on August 15, 1938; and a member of the Slovak League delegation, Dominik Slaboda, bade farewell to the reverend warrior at his grave . Slaboda took up a handful of Slovak earth from Hlinka's graveside and carried it to America as a memento of the great Slovak leader and fighter for the sacred principles of the Pittsburgh Pact. Slovakia seised autonomy because in the year, 1938, it had grown out of childhood into adulthood, and autonomy rightfully belonged to her as a natural right. No one can deny that it was truly a crime to be attributed to the Czech, the Slovak, and Czechoslovak opponents of the Pittsburgh Pact that they blocked the incorporation of the articles of self-government for Slovakia in the Constitution of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia until Martin Razus and Andrej Hlinka passed on into eternity. Upon opening page 1,161 of the 1938 annual "Sbirky zakonu a natizeni statu Cesko-Slovenskeh o" ( Collection of the laws and regulations of the Czecho-Slovak State) I read: Constitutional L aw of November 22, 1938 on the Autonomy for Slovakia The National Assembly on the premise that the Czecho-Slovak Republic was form ed on the basis of the agreement of the sovereign 62 SLOVAKIA will of two equal nations, that in the Pittsburgh Agreement the Slovak nation was promised complete autonomy, and motivated by the desire to bring the Slovak and Czech nations into a friendly relationship in the spirit of the 2ilina Agreement, approves the following law: (Then follow several paragraphs of this Constitutional Law) Paragraph after paragraph follow, the same as weeks and months and days, and years, that were spent in a prolonged, self-sacrificing struggle for the recognition of the Pittsburgh Pact so that finally, the words, "Pittsburghska dohoda," might be inserted in the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic! And the word, 'Autonomy,' became an actual fact: The word became flesh! Appreciation is due to the Slovak League of America for creating the Pittsburgh Pact and thanks to its staunch defender, Andrej Hlinka, who together with the Slovak League saw eye to eye in the matter so that eventually the Slovak nation was granted what was a natural right from the very beginning of time. As a final happy conclusion to a mutual understanding and a united effort in the struggle for the Slovak nation's freedom and self-government, the outcome was a triumph that marked a new phase in the history of the Slovak people in central Europe. The Slovak nation emerged victoriously as a self-governing, united people whose national destiny in the heart of Europe was assured because the Slovaks in their homeland and abroad had been willing to make sacrifices for their ideals, had cooperated with their leaders and had persevered in the struggle until final victory. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA represents an overwhelming majority of organized Americans of Slovak descent; actively affiliated with it are the largest Slovak fraternals, religious organizations, Slovak Clubs and Slovak civic organizations in the United States.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Slovak League of America and the Slovak Nation's Struggle for Autonomy Description An account of the resource Karol Sidor Slovakia, Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967 pp. 29-62 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sidor, Karol, 1901-1953 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 Relation A related resource This article is one of five from this special issue republished as a monograph: Paučo, Jozef, ed. 1967. <em>Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America.</em> Middletown Pennsylvania: Slovak League of America. <a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616" target="_blank" title="Link to WorldCat" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616</a> 60years LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/9b9b3c6eab5d3f9227a036adee4be991.pdf 8384edaaf1e310b34172cfe6933180ee PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' �44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. �SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded �46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . �SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 ) � SLOVAKIA Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' �44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. �SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded �46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . �SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 ) � 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 1972, Vol. 22 Description An account of the resource Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972. 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 1972 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 Paul KO 43 t Va : Who Killed Dr. Tiso? The sentence of death was pronounc ed on presiden t Dr. Joseph Tiso "in the name of the Republic and the Slovak nation." Logically then, the responsib ility for the execution of the sentence falls on the Czecho-S lovak republic and the Slovak nation. In this case who was the "Republi c?" Nobody else but Dr. Edward Benes. And in this case who was the "Slovak nation"? Nobody else but the Slovak National Council (SNC) in Bratislav a, which was, accordin g to the Prague Agreement of June 1, 1945, not only the authorize d represen tative of the self-exist ence of the Slovak nation, but also the bearer of state power (legislativ e, administ rative and executive ) in Slovak territory ." This, then, is quite clear: the "Republi c" was Dr. Edward Benes, and the "Slovak nation" was the Slovak National Council. GEORGE DID IT! But nobody wanted to take the responsib ility for the ignomini ous death of Dr. Joseph Tiso. In the central organ of the Democra tic Party, "CAS" (Time), dated April 23, 1947, there appeared the article entitled "What Actually Happene d?" wherein the blackgua rds, who did their black and filthy duty, are cleansing themselv es. They want to shake of all responsib ility and place the whole blame on Prague, as if the sentence of death was pronounc ed against Tiso only "in the name of the Republic ," and not also "in the name of the Slovak nation." Dr. Tiso had appealed for mercy with the express remark, that he was asking it "only on moral grounds. " The newspap er "Cas" says that the chief prosecut or recommend ed the appeal for mercy to the National Court. But the National Court, with Dr. Daxner presiding , decided : "not to recomme nd mercy for Tiso." "The fate of the condemn ed Tiso," says "Cas", "was thus sealed; the execution was to follow in 48 hours.'' 44 SLOVAKIA THE PARAGRAPHS On the basis of what paragraphs was the fate of Tiso sealed? "Cas" tells us that it was on the basis of paragraph 19 of decree number 33-1945 of the Slovak National Council, in the sense of decree No. 57-1946 of the Colection of Decrees of the Slovak National Council. Therefore the Slovak National Council was responsible for the fact that Dr. Tiso had to be executed within 48 hours, because it had written, accepted and proclaimed such decrees and such paragraphs as the valid law in Slovak territory. The guilty party, then, was and still is the Slovak National Council. The Slovak National Council must have realized this, even though rather late, and its brain suddenly began to function. The gentlemen, proud of their paragraphs, had a concrete case before them: the life or death of Dr. Tiso. And it was then that their own paragraphs began to displease them. "According to the valid law," says CAS, "there now was no ground whereby anyone except the president of the Republic, might deal with the question of mercy." In this case the paragraphs of the SNC decrees, mentioned above, were responsible for that situation. THE SNC PEOPLE But the gentlemen of the Slovak National Council disregarded this fact and acted as if they actually were very much concerned with the saving of the life of Dr. Tiso. Without any legal foundation the National Court presented this appeal to the Trustee (Commissar) of the Judiciary (Dr. Stefanik), who in turn without any legal basis sent it on to the presidency of the SNC. And so it happened that the executive committee of the SNC had a session the day after sentence was pronounced, on April 16, and began to deliberate. It was then ascertained that "the views of the representatives of the Democratic and Communist parties were completely divergent on the question of granting mercy." The Democrats were for granting mercy and the Communists against. So the matter was returned to the Justice of the Supreme Court, whowithout any legal basis-prepared the motion in which he recommended the granting of mercy. SLOVAKIA 45 In the meantime the 48 hours were almost expended. The presidency of the Slovak National Council quickly took the Trustee's motion and sent it on to the central Government in Prague without adding a single word of recommendation. Let Prague plague itself with the whole case! Annas too once sent Christ to Caiphas, and Caiphas in turn sent him to Pilate. Everybody wanted to shake off all responsibility. PRAGUE: NO MERCY! The central Government in Prague thus received the Slovak motion: the Trustee of the Judiciary recommends mercy for Tiso; the presidency of the Slovak National Council presents this motion, but adds no comment to it for the central Government. "Cas" now wants to suggest to its readers what it forgot to suggest to the central Government, namely, that "The Trustee's presentation of the official notice to the Government to grant mercy is in accord also with the recommendation of the presidency of the Slovak National Council." The Pharisees in Prague, that is the central Government, convened at 5 p. m. on April 16th and debated whether they should present the plea for mercy to president Benes or not. The issue was balloted. The Ministers of the Democratic Party and sramek's Party (the Czech Catholic People's Party) voted for mercy, but the Communists, Social-Democratic Ministers, as well as those of Benes's Party (the Czech Nazi Party), voted against it. Since the Democrats and the followers of Sramek cast only 6 votes, they remained in the minority, and the motion of the majority of the central Government come to Benes: not to grant mercy to Tiso. DR. LETTRICH: NO CONTACT It was at this time that the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Joseph Lettrich, began to act-but again without any legal basis. "Cas" writes that "there were also many serious, non-political factoiis, for example, both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church," that were for the granting of mercy. Our information, therefore, that not only the Catholic but even the Evangelical Bishops intervened to save Tiso's life, proved to be correct. On purely partisan-political grounds even Dr. Lettrich heeded 46 SLOVAKIA this pressure and personally began to intervene by calling directly to Benes's office. "Dr. Lettrich," writes CAS, "urgently called the president of the Republic, Benes, five times in the evening of April 16th so that he could explain to him just how the Democratic Party stow on the issue. The message was taken by the personal secretary of the President, Dr. skarvan." Thus, "the representative" of the Slovak nation, the president of the Slovak National Council, Dr. Lettrich, in an urgent matter, a matter in which both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church were intervening, called the representative of the Republic, Dr. Benes, five times by phone. But "CAS" conveniently forgets to report just how many of those times Dr. Lettrich got Benes personally to the phone. "CAS" modestly reports that the "representative" of the Slovak nation spoke with the personal secretary of "Mr. President," Dr. i:3karvan. Behold the heights attained by the "representative" of the Slovak nation! He could tell young skarvan "how the Democratic Party stood on the issue" but he could not tell it to Benes! That really was a miserable and pitiful situation to be in. It shows how Dr. Benes, the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, regards and values Dr. Lettrich, the representative of the Slovak nation. How different things were when Slovakia was represented by the Slovak autonomists! At that time president Dr. Emil Ha.cha set in Benes's place in the Prague Castle. Slovakia had two prime ministers, first Dr. Joseph Tiso, and then Karol Sidor. When Dr. Tiso or Sidor in Bratislava wanted to talk with president Ha.cha in Prague, they lifted the telephone receiver and forthwith had president Ha.cha on the other end of the telephone. There were no "personal secretaries" in between. The representatives of Slovakia spoke directly and without delay with the representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We read in the proceedings of the Tiso trial that Dr. Tiso, as late as March 13, 1939, called Dr. Ha.cha from Berlin and spoke to him over the telephone personally. And here Lettrich calls president Benes five times, who does not answer him once, but leaves that matter to his personal secretary, Dr. skarvan . . . SLOVAKIA 47 DECREES MADE TO KILL Who, then, is responsible for the death of president Dr. Tiso? Blame it on the paragraphs, the decrees of the Slovak National Council. And who wrote those paragraphs? Dr. Lettrich and all the members of the SNC, therefore both the Democrats and the Communists who voted for them. These paragraphs were compiled to kill and not to protect Slovak lives. How many Slovaks already paid with their lives and how many hundreds of years of imprisonment were meted out to Slovaks on the basis of these paragraphs!? That, all of that, is the merit of the present representatives of Slovakia who wrote, accepted and voted for these paragraphs. Added to all of this, they themselves surrendered the right to grant mercy to those who shall be condemned on the basis of these, their paragraphs. When it became clear that Dr. Tiso would be tried, a new Prague Agreement was quickly concluded on April 11,1946. Its first article, point b) says: "The President of the Republic (Dr. Benes ) grants mercy even in Slovakia and that even in matters pertaining to the people's courts and the National Court." Dr. Martin Kvetko, in his book "Agreements" (issued in 1947 in Bratislava ) says the following about that paragraph on page 57: "Up to the time of this agreement-i. e. up to April 11, 1946-appeals of the convicted were decided by the presidency of the Slovak National Council. By the agreement the authority is correctly ( ! ! ) transferred to the President, so that even in this case the validity of the Constitution be renewed as the basis of state unity." So the gentlemen of the SNC were renewing "the validity of the Constitution" of 1920 that was centralistic and anti-Slovak; they were making "the foundation of state unity," so they surrendered, in the interests of Benes, the right to grant mercy to convicted Slovaks, and so they themselves destroyed the legal balSis, on the strength of which, up to April 11 , 1946, they could save the life of Dr. Tiso and the lives of so many other Slovaks without Benes and without the central Government, nay even against the will of Benes and against the will of the central Government! (April, 1947 )  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 Who Killed Dr. Tiso? Description An account of the resource Karol Sidor, writing as Paul Kotva Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 43-47 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sidor, Karol, 1901-1953 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8a938c25521287a63fb2d57d02def0cf.pdf ddbc9823096ef318430046681968ce85 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 129 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et al., Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka. Bratislava: Veda, 1987. 587 pp. Jan Simko West Virginia University, Parkersburg, W.Va. I The purpose of this review essay is to assess some aspects of the vocabulary of present-day Slovak on the basis of the material included in this most recent dictionary. In order to present it in proper perspective, it is necessary to see the dictionary as part of the historical stream of Slovak dictionary making . The 'father' of Slovak lexicography was the Reverend Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Towards the end of the eighteenth century he made a valiant, though unsuccessful effort to elevate the western Slovak dialect into the first official Slovak literary standard. Bernolak compiled a noteworthy lexicographical work, the Slowar Slowenski Cesko-Lat'insko-Nemecko-Uherski seu Lexicon Slavicum Bohemico-Latino-Germanico-Ungaricum. It is considered a signal pioneer achievement for one person working singlehanriedly in those days. Bernolak had started his ambitious project as early as 1787 and completed it twenty-one years later. Printed in Budapest, the capital of Hungary of which Slovakia formed a part, the sixvolume dictionary appeared only posthumously between 1825 and 1827. Significantly, this was one year before the publication of Noah Webster's (1758-1843) classic, An American Dictionary of the English Language. It took about a hundred years for a more modern Slovak dictionary to appear. It was the Slovensky slovn{k z literatury aj nareci (1924-25) containing around 40,000 entries compiled by Karel Kalal (1886-1930) and Miroslav Kalal (1893-1962). A noteworthy dictionary of the thirties was the Slovensky frazeologicky slovnik (Praha - Presov: Ceskoslovenska graficka unia, first edition 1931, second ed. 1933, supplement 1937) produced by Peter Tvrdy (1850-1935). 1 It was under the auspices of the leading Slovak cultural institution, the �SLOVAKIA 130 Matica slovenska of Turciansky Svaty Martin, that Anton Janosik (1904-71) and Eugen Jona (b. 1909) had set out to work on a larger dictionary, the Slovn{k spisovneho jazyka slovenskeho (1946-49), which, however, remained uncompleted. The extensive Matica material of around half a million cards was taken over by the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, which has published the first comprehensive dictionary to date, the Slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (1959-68), with Stefan Peciar (1912-1988) as its editor. In the 79,784 entries of its five vo!umes, the SSJ treats 125,302 words covering a period of around 150 years. The material of the rather slim supplementary sixth volume has not been tabulated. Since 1931 urgent needs of Slovak users have been met by the orthographical-grammatical manual, the Pravidla slovenskeho pravopisu (eleventh edition 1971). It is a chronicle of the moving and often also turbulent history of Slovak in modern times. Not unlike a bus, railroad or airline schedule, this book regulates the current usage of Slovak and, with official sanction to back it up, it has enjoyed something of the authority and power of the law. Since, due to their long production periods, dictionaries tend to lag behind the fast pace of vocabulary development and language change, the need began to be felt to bring the SSJ up to date. The result, more accessible to the general public than the six-volume SSJ, is the recent one-volume KSSJ under discussion. On its 555 pages, it treats around 50,000 words including derivations, covering a period of about one-hundred years. II 1. The Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (KSSJ) is organized as follows: (a) Entries are printed in boldface type. Incorrect or unacceptable words are, as a rule, but not always, printed in regular type usually followed by a rising arrow ( + ) referring to the correct word form(s) appearing, most of the time, in boldface type, for instance: crawl kraul, and it is under this latter heading that the word is found treated. Let us survey the other possibilities: dopis (letter), sprav. ( =spravne; correctly) list (see point 3e below); + �SLOVAKIA 131 kartac (brush), sprav. kefa; pradlo (laundry), sprav. bielizen (see point 3e below); zavazadlo (luggage), sprav. batozina (see point 3e below); vyporiadat' sa (to settle), nespis . ( =nespisovne; non-standard) vyrovnat' sa. It is under the latter words printed in boldface that these cases are treated in KSSJ. In other instances, it is, nonetheless, under the main entry printed in boldface type, although not considered quite acceptable, that the words are treated: blby (stupid), subst. ( = substandardny) sprosty, hlupy; chovat' sa (to behave), vhodnejsie (more suitable) spravat' sa. The following, although synonyms, are handled differently: zavada (defect), vhodnejsie chyba 2; but: vada (defect) 1. sprav. chyba ... In this latter case, each word is, surprisingly, printed in boldface type but, unlike the similar cases above (dopis etc.), the treatment is nevertheless given under the 'incorrect' main entry! In some cases, the word considered 'incorrect' may appear 'correct' in another form. In the following case, the derived adjective is considered 'incorrect,' while the root word is considered 'correct': dielcf (partial), sprav. ciastkovy; but the root word is acceptable: diel (part), cast', ciastka. Similarly: tryskove lietadlo (jet aircraft), sprav. prudove lietadlo, although the word base tryska (jet) is correct or acceptable. Other similar cases: obtiaz (difficulty), sprav. t'azkost'; but the verb obt'azovat' (to trouble) is acceptable; odstavec (paragraph), sprav. odsek; but odstavit' (to set off, to separate) is acceptable; zahajit' (to start, to open), sprav. otvorit', zacat'; but hajit' (to defend) is acceptable: in this case, the word base (the 'correct' hajit') and the derived form (the 'incorrect' zahajit') do not share the same basic meaning. In another case, again, the 'correct' form appears only in one use but not in others: kl'ud (quiet), sprav. pokoj; the latter is no longer listed in the sense of 'room' = izba or its derivative *pokojska (chamber �132 SLOVAKIA maid) = chyzna, the two expunged forms current previously but considered of Czech provenance. Finally, some words - marked with an asterisk here(*) - , previously current but not listed any more in KSSJ, do appear in other forms: *brusle (a pair of skates; now korcule) but bnisit' (to sharpen); *savec (mammal; now cicavec) but sat' (to suck) does exist, although cicat' is considered 'more suitable' (vhodnejsie); *uprchlik (fugitive; now utecenec) but prchat' .. . 2. expr. ( = expresivne; to flee) is included. For more instances, see point 3e below. Some phraseology is also suggested for correction. Under doba, there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( = pracovny) cas . Each correct entry has an abbreviated small-type index attached to it characterizing it as to its respective part of speech. In addition to that, nouns are also marked as to gender and verbs as to whether they are perfective or imperfective, and both nouns and verbs have some basic inflectional forms given. Many nouns of foreign origin have no declension in Slovak, for instance : lady [lejd-] neskl. z (angl.) ( = nesklonne zenske anglicke; not declined, feminine, English). The typography used in KSSJ is not always consistent. In one case, the characteristic is properly in small type: bubenik (drummer) . .. 2. v min. ( =v minulosti; in the past) . In another case, the same characteristic is printed in normal type : notar (notary) .. . 2. v min. For other examples see 3b: policia, zandar. A very helpful item is the indication of the pronunciation of doubtful or difficult cases placed in square brackets following the main entry . Let us stop at the interesting word dekan (dean) . Being of Latin origin, it was first pronounced with the initial hard [d], which was later 'Slovakized' and softened or palatalized to [d'] but now returned to [d] again . In the case of a word having more individual meanings than one, they are numbered with boldface figures: 1. . . . 2 . . . . etc. �SLOVAKIA 133 and often illustrated with examples of usage printed in italics. Thus, for instance, under doba there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( =pracovny) cas. Sometimes the division of meanings raises questions, for instance: opera 1. dielo (work); budova (building) ... : why are these totally distinct and separate meanings grouped together, and not under their own numbers, 1., 2.? In the case of a word form belonging to more than one part of speech, each is marked, within the same entry, with boldface Roman numerals: dobre (well) I. rfsl. ( = prfslovka; adverb) . . . II. cast. ( = castica; particle). If the respective separate meanings of a word belong to /a/ totally different semantic areas or to lb / marked stylistic spheres, use is made of small-type characteristics, for instance: /a/ deklinacia ~ ( = zensky; feminine) 1. lingv. ( = lingvisticky) sklonovanie (declension) 2. ~- ( =fyzikalny) .. . /b/ dial' z poet. ( = poeticky) dial'ka (distance). For unknown reasons, there are inconsistencies in the handling of words with more meanings, if one is animate and the other inanimate. In one example, the two meanings are numbered individually under one headword: trampka 1. (woman hiker = animate) 2.(canvas shoes = inanimate). Another case parallel to this one is, however, handled differently, although also under one heading. The headword introduces the animate meaning, while the same word is printed later within the nest, introducing the inanimate meaning: tramp ziv. ( = zivotny; animate) ... tramp neziv. ( = nezivotny; inanimate) tramping; nepodarok ziv. (misfit) . .. nepodarok neziv . (lemon, faulty product; see point 36); starter (anim. = a person giving a sign to start) . .. starter (inanim. = a thing that starts)! Are there any basic differences as to the respective semantic structures of these words, except a difference of gender: trampka feminine, tramp etc . masculine and, with starter, of English origin? �SLOVAKIA 134 There are many similar cases in KSSJ, for instance: zehlic ziv. ( = zivotny; animate = he who irons) ... zehlic neziv . ( = nezivotny; inanimate = iron); but: zehlicka 1. (woman ironing) . . . 2. (iron). A small square □ used with verbs is followed by the habitual phraseological combinations . A full, large dot • is followed by idiomatic expressions. (b) Not every word appears as an indepedent entry: words derived from a basic root are, as a rule but not always, grouped in a nest under one main entry and mostly indicated by a suffix, both headword and suffix appearing in boldface type: hokej . . . ; --ovy. Less often, the derived word appears in a full word form : /a/ in the same nest: atletika ... atlet ... atleticky; /bl as an independent entry, irrespective of whether placed immediately after the root word: /i/ hokej ... hokejista . .. hokejka; or alphabetically separated from the root word by several entries: /ii/ skore ... (5 other entries) skorovat', etc . In another possible case, again, a derived word form, alphabetically separated from its headword, is yet treated under the latter. In this instance, an arrow rising to the right points to the main entry word under which to find the derived form treated, for instance: dubcek (little oak) dub. 3 Although in most cases the semantic structure of a derived word form is close to that of the word base, it is not always clear why a derived word immediately following its word base is listed not simply by means of the derivational suffix within one nest but as a separate entry, for instance: hladic (man ironing) hladicka 1. (woman ironing); 2. (iron), and not simply: hladic .. . ; --ka ... (See above for zehlic, zehlicka.) + �SLOVAKIA 135 In an exaggerated effort to justify KSSJ's titleKratky (short), the suffixes listed in a nest appear not infrequently too short, creating uncertainty or even confusion as to what they stand for, for instance: basketbal ... ; --ista ... ; --ka. Does this mean that the suffix --ka is simply attached to the headword so as to give *basketbalka? Not at all, for there is no such word in Slovak, at present at least. In reality, the suffix --ka is the feminine variant of the masculine ending in the suffix --ista, so that the actual word has the correct form: basketbalistka. If, instead of the bare --ka, KSSJ had printed at least --tka, the 'mystery' as to the correct derivational form would be easier to solve, indicating that it is the feminine variant of the preceding --ista. KSSJ is teeming with instances of this kind, confusing an uninitiated or foreign user made uncertain as to how the skeleton suffix should be correctly attached to the headword . No wonder or surprisingly, Klara Buzassyova, although an employee of the Linguistics Institute of the Slovak Academy that produced the dictionary, dared to voice her criticism that KSSJ "thus subjects its non-linguistic user to rather great demands. " 4 Let us consider a few striking cases: film, --ovy, --o: does this give, on the analogy of filmovy, also a *filmo? Again, not at all. Since the latter form does not exist, why not make it perfectly clear that the suffix is --ovo? Similarly: komfort, --ny, --e, --ost'. Should this sequence give: komfortny, *komforte, *komfortost'? Again: not at all! Since the forms marked with the asterisk (*) do not exist in present-day Slovak, why not help the user by a very tiny device indeed of adding a mere -n- that would not take up too much additional space at all but would mean quite a difference by indicating that --ne, --nost' stand for the correct forms: komfortne, komfortnost'. Again, so very little is needed to produce a great difference in the case of standardizacia, --acny: should the suffix contain only one more letter : --zacny, there would be no doubt whatsoever that the correct derivation is not a *standardacny or the like but standardizacny . �136 SLOVAKIA As to the independent entry standardny -- itself derived from the earlier entry standard -- : do the suffixes listed in the nest: --e, --ost', stand for: *standarde, *standardost'? Absolutely not at all: these forms do not exist. And once again, a very short extension by one more letter, a mere -n-, requiring very little additional space indeed, would make a substantial difference, benefiting correct usage: --ne, --nost' give the correct standardne, standardnost'. Our choice of these examples of English origin listed in KSSJ has been made with the purpose of facilitating proper understanding by our readers. In this connection, many more examples of this confusing kind could be quoted from the purely Slovak word stock. This brings us finally to the most nonsensical cases of them all: polo, --ovy; plexisklo, --ovy: does the attachment of the suffixes result in: *p6loovy? *plexiskloovy? Let us have a hearty laugh: where they really could have saved space, they did not; they needed more! 2. Abbreviated Verbal Endings. A complication or confusion similar to the one just discussed is created in the following cases. There are a number of pairs of verbs starting with the respective prefixes: za--,zo--, zm--, zn--, s--. A pair consists of one - transitive - verb ending in --it' and the other - intransitive - ending in --iet'. Since the application of the proper form of the ending vowel may cause difficulty, our concern here is with the abbreviated form of the ending as suggested in the text of the KSSJ, the handling of which is not always helpful but rather, as we have seen in several previous instances, confusing and not uniform at all. KSSJ is very helpful in indicating the past tense of some verbs: znecitliviet', znehybniet', znervozniet' (to become insensitive, immobile, nervous) as z--el each. Why then is the past tense not only of zmocniet', znarodniet', zovseobecniet'but also that of zostihlit' (to become stronger, popular, generally known; to make slim) indicated in KSSJ as just z--1, although in reality the past tense of the first three - intransitive - verbs ends in --el, while that of the fourth - transitive - verb ends in --ii? Similarly, the past tense of znevidiet' sa (to dislike) is indicated �SLOVAKIA 137 as z--lo; should this represent a form *znevidielo? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. Then why not make it easy for the user by indicating the past tense ending as --elo, that is: znevidelo? Why is it not made perfectly clear that the abbreviated past tense forms of zosilniet' (to get stronger) as indicated in KSSJ: z-1, z--la stand for z--el, z--ela, and not *zosilniel, --a, while zosilnit' (to make stronger), with the same skeleton past tense as above: z--1, stands for z--il? There does not seem to be any system or consistency of approach in the following cases. While, on the one hand, the past tense of zotmiet' sa, zotmit' sa (to get dark) is properly distinguished as, respectively, z--elo sa, z--ilo sa, and that of the synonymous stmiet' sa, stmit' sa as, respectively, s--elo sa, s--ilo sa, in the case of the parallel forms: zatmiet' sa, zatmit' sa (to get dark), on the other hand, the past tense is only indicated by the extreme shorthand form z--lo sa . Does this give a form *zatmielo sa? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. An uninitiated user is left 'dangling in the wind,' wondering and at a loss as to what form of the vowel, [i] or [e ], to insert in the skeleton past tense offered in KSSJ z--lo sa, which should be z--elo sa; z--ilo sa, impersonal. Why all these shortcuts, shortcomings, gaps, defects, you may ask? Let Hamlet answer your impatient question: Thrift, thrift, Horatio! (1.2) Or shall we rather tap Polonius' s perspicacity and worldly wisdom in adducing his famous aside: Though this be madness, yet there is method it't (11.2). Is there? 3. The Word Stock of Present-Day Slovak. (a) Vocabulary Growth . The vocabulary of a language is, in a sense, a living organism. During the existence of a language there is growth as well as decay in it going on all the time. This idea was emphasized by Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the 'father' of English lexicography, in his Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It came in answer to those people who asked him to 'fix' the English language once and for all. He was fully aware, however, that this was impossible to do because of the ever-changing nature of language. And vocabulary is its most dynamic area. �138 SLOVAKIA New lexical units are created from the existing material or are admitted from other languages. Other lexical units which are losing their effectiveness or usefulness are replaced or discarded. This is to satisfy the ever-changing needs of the speech community faced with the task of naming new phenomena arising in the course of developments in the socio-political and economic spheres affecting the progress of daily life. The word stock is exceptionally sensitive to all these events which it promptly records. Existing words may, again, extend their scope by adopting new meanings or may be limited in their range by discarding other meanings, and their stylistic status may be reevaluated . This latter phenomenon has been initiated or stimulated more recently as a result of the effort called the 'democratization of language.' In this process, some substandard non-literary 'four-letter' or vulgar or gross expressions, by being admitted into respectful dictionaries of the standard language, have been granted a certain degree of social acceptability, as will be discussed in point 8. The spectacular growth of English can be documented by figures adduced from the impressive expansion of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language . Compared to its first edition of 1966, the second edition published in 1987 (the same year as the first edition of KSSJ) contains in its 315,000 entries 50,000 new items and 75,000 new definitions. This increase in the vocabulary of English, which covers a rather short span of only twenty-one years, is roughly equivalent to the abbreviated word stock of Slovak contained in the KSSJ! And this latter is supposed to cover a period of about one hundred years. Needless to say, Slovak is not likely to see any such massive vocabulary growth within an equal length of time. KSSJ contains around 50,000 entries that include most of the derived word forms grouped in nests under one main heading, as discussed in point la above. In comparison, the five-volume academic Slovnik slovenskeho jazyka (SSJ, 1959-65) treats 125,302 words under 79,784 entries, with additions included in the supplementary sixth volume (1968). It must be considered quite an achievement for a one-volume dictionary, the KSSJ, to cram onto its 555 three-column pages around one third of the material that is treated in the two-column SSJ of six volumes. SSJ contains, of �SLOVAKIA 139 course, much more illustrative material gathered from a period of about 150 years, roughly since the establishment of the present literary standard in 1843, while the main concern of KSSJ is to cover the more recent usage of around 100 years. A careful perusal of KSSJ' s word list from A to Z has yielded a very instructive picture of the current state of the Slovak lexicon. Its evaluation offers an idea of the trends and tendencies that have brought it about. The following movements within the word stock of Slovak have been observed. (b) ' Rehabilitated' and Some Missing Words in KSSJ . Many words that around fifty years ago fell out of favor in the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' seem to have been reinstated or 'rehabilitated' - this term being deemed appropriate for the purpose of adequately characterizing certain events or processes taking place, from time to time, in the public life of that geographical area. The boldface type in which these words are printed in KSSJ indicates their present acceptability, although several of them are labeled archaic, bookish (knizne), obsolescent (zastaravajuce), obsolete (zastarane'), colloquial (hovorove'), and substandard. In the following list, the ' rehabilitated' word, printed first, is followed by one that was previously, and is even at present, often considered the more 'correct' of the two: draha = zeleznica (railroad; cf. CSD in 3d ii below) drzy, col. = bezocivy (impudent) hasic, col. = poziarnik (fireman) koktat', col. = zajakavat' sa (to stutter) konat' sa = byt', uskutocnit' sa (to take place) krabica, ~;ubst . = skatul' a (box) krysa = potkan (rat) kuzelnfk = carodejnfk (magician) l'advina = oblicka (kidney) nadrazie = stanica (railroad etc. station) nachadzat' sa = byt' (to be, to exist) neni, subst. = nie je (is not) obnos, subst. = suma (sum) ohl'adne/ohl'adom, obsol. = vo veci (concerning, re) pernik = medovnfk (gingerbread) pocas = cez, za (during) pozde, obsol. = neskoro (late) pravitko = linear, obsolesc. (ruler; cf. c1 below) �140 SLOVAKIA prianie = zelanie (wish) pruh = pas (stripe, strip) rys, book. = crta (feature) rysovat' sa = crtat' sa (to loom) skrz(e) , obsolesc. = pre (for) snad', book. = asi, azda (perhaps) sranda, subst. = fart (joke) st'aznost' = ponosa (complaint) st'azovat' sa = ponosovat' sa (to complain) skrtat' = preciarkovat' (to cross out) svanda, subst. = vtip (joke) tesnopis, obsol. = rychlopis ukol = uloha (task; quota) vafok = vrecko (pocket) vrchny = hlavny (superior) 5 zehlicka = hladicka (iron) ziaden = nijaky (none) zizen, arch. = tuzba (yearning). Out of the 36 words quoted here, 15, that is, well over one third (41.66%) of those printed first are considered out of the mainstream of normal, stylistically unmarked literary Slovak: 5 substandard (subst.), 3 colloquial (col.), 3 obsolete (obsol.), 2 bookish (book.), 1 archaic (arch.), 1 obsolescent (obsolesc.). These words seem to have been resurrected after an earlier eclipse and have been in effect given a new lease on life due to not being labeled as 'incorrect.' This or a similar label would have relegated them to being printed, as a rule but not always, merely in normal type, if they were included at all, as has been discussed in point la above. Some of these pairs are synonymous: prianie - zelanie. In other cases there is some semantic, stylistic or functional differentiation: potkan (zool. Rattus) - krysa (zool. Rathus . .. ; this latter should be Rattus . . . ) denoting also 'an insidious person.' Stanica (railroad station) denotes a broader concept than nadrazie . Many of the above first-printed words seem to be more at home in Czech than in Slovak but, due to the fact that the Slovaks and Czechs live side by side in one state, an importation of words from the numerically predominant Czech into Slovak - the ratio being 2:1 - is unavoidable. There are scores of words that were very popular not so many years ago, definitely in the twenties and thirties: *beza, *cetnik, *paprslek, *pomazanka, *stavka, *valka, *zem, *zmetok. �SLOVAKIA 141 In the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' after 1939, they were replaced with: orgovan, zandar, hie, natierka, strajk, vojna, krajina, nepodarok (for this cf. la) (lilac, gendarme, ray, bread spread, strike, war, country, 'lemon' - faulty product). The first-quoted words (beza etc.) are no longer listed in KSSJ, not even as incorrect ones! It is hard to believe that these words have completely disappeared from, let us say, colloquial Slovak at least, for most of then are still used in Czech and, thus, can still be heard in present-day Slovakia, too. This non-inclusion is especially striking in the case of cetn{k (gendarme). It was the official term used between 1918 and at least 1938-39 and replaced with zandar of French origin. Although the latter is not used as an official term at present, either, it is included in KSSJ nevertheless and can be heard in the folk song "Detvianski zandari" (The gendarmes of Detva). Not used as an official term at present, either, is policia but is still found included and marked as collogu. While the explanation for zandar (v min. aj u nas; used in our area in the past, too) is printed in normal type, with policia the same explanation is printed in small type (u nas v min.; for similar inconsistencies in typography, see bubenik, notar in la). KSSJ does contain many words that refer, like the missing *cetnik, to past realities no longer in existence at present in Slovakia, which fact is explained in the definition of, for instance, zandar. Let us consider pandtir (armed guard in old Hungary), zeman (a member of the lower gentry), etc. Although both these words are equal as to their historicity, for unknown reasons only the latter is provided with the stylistic label hist. ( =historizmus). For ispan hist. , see point 4 below. What is even more surprising is that, out of this random list of eight words, three: *beza, *cetnik, *stavka (over one third), that have no features, phonemic or grammatical, alien to genuine Slovak, have been replaced not with other native Slovak words but with words of foreign origin: orgovan (Turkish), zandar (French gendarme), strajk (English strike), respectively! These cases are even more striking than is the case of pravitko - linear . For, while the native pravitko has been ' rehabilitated, ' it is the foreign synonym �142 SLOVAKIA linear used earlier as a replacement for pravitko that is now considered obsolescent, that is, on the 'way out.' There are more cases of this kind to be recorded: the native words cinovnik, arch. , obnos, subst., etc. have been eclipsed by words of foreign origin: funkcionar, suma (both Latin), respectively, etc. The word *mluvnica, imported from Czech in the nineteenth century, is no longer listed in KSSJ, either, having been replaced with the foreign term gramatika (Latin - Greek)! (c) Changes in the Word-Forming Elements of Slovak. /1/ In the course of the great wave of 'Slovakizing Slovak' itself in the late thirties and the early forties, the substantival suffixes: --citko, --ftko, 6 --iste7 were replaced with, respectively, --adlo, --idlo, --isko. Nevertheless, in accord with the popular saying: 'an exception confirms the rule,' pravitko (ruler), as discussed in 36 above, is again acceptable, probably the only word in present-day Slovak that has been 'exonerated' although retaining the proscribed suffix, while its foreign synonym linear is now considered obsolescent. Let us take a closer look at how this rule has been applied to -adlo, --idlo (previously --citko, --[tko) denoting an 'instrument.' /i/ In some cases, the root is retained: lehatko (sofa), s rav. ( = spravne; correctly) le.zadlo; meritko (measure), s rav. meradlo. There is a deviation from, or exception to, this rule, as could have been expected: lizatko (lollipop), sprav. lizanka (and not *lizadlo, probably not being considered an 'instrument;' the latter form is, nevertheless, a regular word meaning 'a place for animals to lick salt'). Unlike the above cases, the formerly used form *kruzitko (a pair of compasses) is not listed in KSSJ any more, only the new form kruzidlo. /ii/ In other cases, again, a different word is brought in: kukatko (binoculars), s rav. d'alekohl'ad , and not the expected *kukadlo, although the verb still remains: kukat' (to look, to peep); razitko (seal, stamp), sprav. peciatka, although razidlo, razit' (to coin) do exist, but in different meanings; see point (e) below. /iii/ The handling of the replacement of --iste with --isko is uneven. For the most part, the old forms ending in --iste are not �SLOVAKIA 143 listed, only the new forms: bojisko, hl'adisko, ihrisko, kupalisko, nalezisko, prekladisko, pristavisko (battlefield, auditorium, playground, swimming pool, place of find, place of reloading, harbor) . Evidently, they denote a 'place, location of action .' Nevertheless, in four cases found at random, the two formulations are placed side by side, as equivalents; surprisingly, the 'old' form is listed first in: schodiste, schodisko (staircase). In most cases, however, the form preferred at present is placed first : nakladisko, nakladiste (loading place), skladisko, skladiste (warehouse), zoradisko, zoradiste (place of filing or assembly). /2/ As to the suffix --Iy previously used as an ending of adjectives and passive verbal participles, it has been replaced in most cases with as many as three other forms: --ny, --ty, --nuty, respectively: *urastly (grown up), *zastaraly (outdated, obsolete) have changed into urasteny, zastarany; *opadly (fallen off), *zapadly (far-off; buried, hidden) have become opadnuty, zapadnuty. Nevertheless, we do find in KSSJ a form: usadly (settled) which, according to the above principle, should be *usadeny or *usadnuty, these latter two forms are not, however, listed in KSSJ. Nor do we find there an analogous form *posadly but only the organic and expected posadnuty (possessed) . While the form uplynuly (past) is labeled kniz . ( =knizny; bookish), the form minuly (past), although ending in --ly, is an adjective to be distinguished from the form minuty, which is the passive participle of the verb minut' (sa) (to spend; to pass) . (d) Dictionary Making and Politics. In order for us to assess the make-up of KSSJ correctly, we have to take into consideration the conditions under which this dictionary was compiled and published, that is, in a country where linguistic matters have not infrequently been approached as political matters at the same time. The slogan, " Na Slovensku po slovensky" [(Use) Slovak in Slovakia], was a powerful weapon in the late �144 SLOVAKIA thirties in the political struggle for an autonomous and ultimately an independent Slovakia. Let us further illustrate our argument. On the one hand, KSSJ is to some extent to be complimented for listing a number of especially American acronyms that may not always be readily understood by an average foreigner. 8 Those listed include: AP skr. ( = skratka; abbreviation) Associated Press; UPI [ju-pi-aj] skr. United Press International; CIA [si-aj-ej] skr. Central Intelligence Agency. So far, so good but here comes the rub: the English text is rendered as "Ostredna vyzvedna sluzba," which, in its turn, means: 'central spying agency,' mistranslating the word "intelligence," which actually means 'spravodajska.' On the other hand, the parallel CIC [si-aj-si] skr. Counter Intelligence Corps is rendered as "Vojenska tajna sluzba, '' which, again, means 'military secret service.' All of this looks inconsistent and even confusing. On the other hand, a correct literal translation is accorded the FBI [ef-bi-aj] skr. Federal Bureau of Investigation, rendered as "Federalny vysetrovaci urad." Thus, in the case of the CIA and CIC, a free characteristic has been substituted for a literal translation. The FBI could just as suitably have been rendered as 'Federalna policia. ' By inappropriately using the loaded word "vyzvedna" (spying) and thus editorializing, instead of merely translating the acronym CIA, the KSSJ compilers have introduced their political bias. This becomes more pronounced in view of the opposite fact, namely, that they have 'omitted' to list the CIA's Soviet counterparts, the KGB and its well-known predecessors, the NKVD, GPU, and Ceka, undoubtedly included in books dealing with USSR history. Quite the same 'approach' to the CIA has been adopted by Maria lvanova-Salingova in her Maly slovnik cudzich slov (A Small Dictionary of Foreign Words; Bratislava 1972), except that she does list the NKVD and the Ceka. Neither of these dictionaries lists, as could have been expected, the internationalized Russian acronym for GULAG that has become universally known through Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three-volume book, The Gulag Archipelago (1974-78), so far only published in the West but about to be brought out by the Soviet monthly Novij Mir "this year," �SLOVAKIA 145 that is, 1989. 9 Thus, the Soviets themselves seem to be starting to show more openness (glasnost') about their society, while the editors of KSSJ seem to have been hampered by some fear that by including terms like GULAG they might be accused of divulging some unspecified 'state secrets. ' As to other topical Russian terms missing in KSSJ, see point 4 below . In this connection, P.B. Cove's comment in his Preface to Webster 3 (1961) is highly pertinent: Accuracy in addition to requiring freedom from error and conformity to truth requires a dictionary to state meanings in which words are in fact used, not to give editorial opinion on what their meanings should be (p.4a). Another case with which issue must be taken is the term cechoslovakizmus and its definition in KSSJ as burz. ideologicko-polit. koncepcia hlasajuca narodnu jednotu Cechov a Slovakov a popierajuca samobytnost' Slovakov (a bourgeois ideological-polit. concept promulgating the national unity of the Czechs and the Slovaks and denying the Slovaks their individuality). A check in KSSJ's ' ancestor' of twenty-eight years ago, volume one of the academic SSJ (1959), has been most revealing: it limits the application of this term to the period of the first 'bourgeois' Czechoslovakia, that is, the period from 1918 to 1938-39, which makes quite a difference. Let us ponder the implications of the KSSJ definition by considering briefly the tragic fate of Vladimir Clementis (1902-52) . He was as dedicated a Slovak communist as any . After the mysterious 'leap' of Jan Masaryk from his window in Prague in 1948, Clementis became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister. In 1952 he was executed for having been found 'guilty,' among others, of the ' crime' of Slovak 'bourgeois nationalism,' which should be the antithesis of the above 'bourgeois Czechoslovakism.' Nonetheless, contrary to that, Clementis was neither a 'bourgeois,' nor did he advocate a complete separation of the Slovaks from the Czechs . As is well known by now, how ever, those who sent Clementis to the gallows committed that heinous homicide from, basically, the same positions as are attacked in the above definition, that is, "cechoslovakizmus," with that ' minor' difference, however, that �146 SLOVAKIA it was not 'bourgeois,' but of another color. The KSSJ qualification of the term "cechoslovakizmus" as only 'bourgeois' is, thus, strikingly one-sided and incorrect. In this way KSSJ has somewhat blurred the distinction between an encyclopedia and a dictionary. Instead of these misguided excursions into politics, KSSJ should have totally concentrated on perfecting the linguistic apparatus of the included words - the primary function of a dictionary - so as to be of utmost help to the average user of Slovak and 'particularly the pupils and students' (p. 11), as the editors themselves claim, in the cases of uncertainty regarding the many exceptions and variant forms in grammar and spelling for which Slovak is notorious, and even feared, among its less language-conscious and foreign users. As our critique of KSSJ has brought to light, there would have been ample opportunity to do just that. It has not been done sufficiently well. The contradictions of the existing political setup that might fall to some extent under the above definition of "cechoslovakizmus" will become evident in three more instances taken from KSSJ. /i/ The composition of the acronym for the Czechoslovak News Agency, CSTK, is rendered as "Ceskoslovenska tlafova kancelaria. '' This form of the acronym is used, for instance, in the Slovak daily Pravda of Bratislava, while the Czech daily Rude prdvo of Prague, unlike the KSSJ and Pravda, prints only CTK, which in this connection should stand for "Ceska tiskova kancelar" (Czech News Agency). /ii/ Similarly, the acronym CSD originally, in Czech, stood for "C(eskoslovenske) S(tatnf) D(rahy)" (Czechoslovak State Railroads). This should be rendered in Slovak, at best, as CSD, that is, "C(eskoslovenske) S(!:atne) D(rahy)." CSD could also be interpreted as representing "C(es_!<ol S(lovenske statne) D(rahy)," which should actually result in CSSD, analogically to the above CSTK. Both renderings use the word "Drahy," instead of the more appropriate Slovak term "zeleznice" (railroads; see point 3b above). /iii/ The third case concerns the popular blend Sazka made up of the initial elements of the Czech words "sazkova kancelaf" (betting office). In Slovak, the equivalent words are "stavkova kancelaria" and the corresponding Slovak blend would be simply Stavka. This form would have, however, clashed with the now pro- �SLOVAKIA 147 scribed and unlisted word *stavka replaced with strajk (of English origin; see point 3b above), although stavka is acceptable in the relevant sense of 'bet.' Regrettably, the composition of another popular blend known throughout the world, tuzex (a hard currency store), although listed in KSSJ, is not given. Let us venture to suggest the elements visible to the 'naked' eye of an uninitiated observer: tuz ( = tuzemsky - Czech for 'inland' ) ex ( =export). (e) Vacant Slots. Our indepth look into the vocabulary of contemporary Slovak as presented in KSSJ has uncovered some gaps or vacant slots in its make-up . /1/ There are a few words that look like derived ones but the supposed derivational base does not exist, in contemporary Slovak at least; or even the other way round: /2/ Although a derivational base is considered acceptable or correct, some derivations from that base acceptable previously are classified as unacceptable now. Let us discuss a few instances: /1/ The verb related to the noun is either incorrect or not used in Slovak: dopisovatel' (correspondent), pisaf (to write) but dopis (letter), dopisovat' si (to correspond, to write) are labeled incorrect (see point la above); dotaz (question, inquiry), obsolescent; dotaznik (questionnaire), otazka (question), otaznik (question mark) but *(d)(o)tazat' sa, *dotazovat' sa (to ask) are not listed; nalez (find, finding), nalezisko (place of find), vynalez (discovery, invention) but *naliezt' (to find) is not listed; nemluvna (toddler), bookish but *mluva (speech), *mluvnica (grammar; see point (b) above), *(ne)mluvit' ([not] to speak) are not listed; posluchac (listener), poslucharen (auditorium), sluch (hearing), shichadlo (telephone receiver; earphone) but *(po )sluchat' (to listen) is not listed; spesnina (railroad express delivery) but *spechat' (to hasten, to hurry) is not listed; �148 SLOVAKIA zloba (hatred, enmity) but *zlobit' (to anger, to irritate) is not listed, the respective meanings of the noun and the verb not being quite identical. For more similar cases (dielci, odstavec, etc.) see point la above, and 3c1ii (for kukatko, razitko) . /2/ The verb is correct in one sense but not in another: the noun riaditel' (director) is correctly derived from the verb riadit' (to direct); since the latter has been labeled as incorrect in the sense of 'to operate a motor vehicle,' the previously used derivation *riadic (driver, chauffeur) is no longer listed . Somewhat similar are the following two cases. Batozina (luggage) and bielizen (laundry) have replaced, respectively, zavazadlo, pradlo labeled incorrect, although they were quite popular in the not too distant past and although they are derived from verbs considered correct even at present: zaviazat' (to tie), prat' (to do the laundry, to wash). See point la above. Similarly, jazdit' (to go, ride, travel), vytkmit' (to expostulate) are correct but not *odjazd (departure), *vytka (censure, reprimand) replaced with, respectively, odchod, vycitka. Out of the words quoted above, those marked with the asterisk (*) and those italicized, although not current in contemporary Slovak, do occur in Czech, albeit in a somewhat different form appropriate for the Czech language. A somewhat parallel situation obtains in the case of the phrase panelova diskusia . 10 It is an exact Slovak rendering of the English phrase "a panel discussion." In this case, however, the expected word base *panel, in the sense of the English 'panel, group, ' does not yet exist in Slovak, and is only used in the architectural sense of' a prefabricated building block.' Here we may witness the germ of a potential future extension of the present meaning of the word panel, which KSSJ may be anticipating or forestalling. See point Sb below. (f) Consistency in Spelling. The cases discussed above point first of all to one conclusion. If the need to observe consistency is an obvious virtue expected in any and every kind of activity, lexicographical work is no exception. On the contrary, the latter's social and cultural respon- �SLOVAKIA 149 sibility is the greater, for its product, a dictionary, is expected to be used not only by thousands but even by millions of people. And it is in this respect that the new dictionary, KSSJ, leaves a lot to be desired. An area of conspicuous inconsistency is that of spelling. Why the different forms: a priori but apropo? tvid but twist? lutz (and not *luc) when salchov (and not *salchow)? It looks somewhat forced and incongruous, if not outright ridiculous to insist on the spelling biblia, and not *Biblia, at least in the religious sense of 'Bible,' the more so since initial capitals have been duly applied in Svate pismo (Holy Writ), as well as Stary zakon (OT) and Novy zakon (NT) inconsequentially interpreted as "cast' bib lie." No explanation seems to have been given for the use of the semi-French spelling in resume (correctly resume), while the verb is rezumovat'. It is a shame indeed or maybe only hilarious that the acronym for the ruling 'fraternal' party of the close socialist neighbor and ally to the north-west, SED, is transliterated and divided with a lot of mistakes as Socialistische Eintheitspartei Deut-schland, instead of the correct Sozialistische Einheitspartei Detsch-lands. With Slovak luckily not being current in the GDR and, thus, KSSJ not being in 'danger' of coming into mass use there, this faux pas may go unnoticed there and not cause any 'fraternal' falling out. Similarly, the last word in the transliteration of the acronym UNESCO is incorrectly divided and transliterated as Organizations, instead of the correct Organization, while the Slovak text has the correct singular: Organizacia. The same last word in NATO is correctly divided, though, yet wrongly spelled as Organisa-tion. They do get it right in their third attempt, that is, in the transliteration of such unexpected and 'indispensable' an inclusion as is SEATO where the last word is at last properly spelled and divided: Organi-zation! Let us close this point by adding a preliminary observation to the effect that there is not only no apparent consistency but rather a considerable uncertainty, vacillation, and even chaos as to the proper spelling of many words of English origin that have entered �150 SLOVAKIA the Slovak language in considerable numbers. More will be said about this matter in a subsequent article. 4. Choice of Words. This is not a mean task that confronts the compilers of any dictionary but especially one that bears in its title the crucial word Kratky (Short). The cardinal question is a Hamletian one: to include/exclude, or not to include/exclude. A viable approach would be one on the basis of a frequency count of words as has been compiled by Jozef Mistrik in his book Frekvencia tvarov a konstrukcii v slovencine (Bratislava 1985). In any case, the saying does apply: "Damned if you include/exclude and damned if you don't exclude/include," for nearly each user of KSSJ will find one or more of his or her favorite or pet words missing. Let me quote just a few: *kabala, *megalopolis, *ovomaltina (a popular cocoa-like beverage), *polucia (involuntary ejaculation), *potapka, slg. (dandy), *Slovac (the Slovaks), *svitok or *zvitok (scroll), *svajciarsky (while there is, for inst., svedsky and even bengalsky) - this latter mainly for the sake of the proper placing of the diacritical marks, *siamsky, *sibirsky, *zagniavit' (to trample), perfective, to go with gniavit', imperf., and of course, last but not least, the very topical twosome that has spread recently all over the world: *glasnost' and *perestrojka! (See *GULAG in 3d.) 11 The words of English origin missing in KSSJ will be discussed in a subsequent article. On the other hand, the user of KSSJ may wonder about the necessity of including such highly specialized words hardly ever met with in common daily conversation or reading, such as: lewisit, selsyn, torr, etc. While these are foreign loans in Slovak, I wonder how many of our non-specialist readers know what they mean . The following is a very much more down-to-earth area, of increasing interest. KSSJ lists names of several current automobile makes: fiatka, mercedeska, moskvic, simka, skoda, tatra, trabant, volga, wartburg, zigulik, as well as the former or 'late' pragovka and tatraplan. �SLOVAKIA 151 It is surprising that the name of the very prototype of all subsequent motorcars and one that is practically synonymous with the latter generic term, the legendary *fordka, is missing; in popular language it seems to have been replaced with the form *ford, also unlisted. So, too, is the name of the earlier popular Czech make *aerovka, no longer manufactured. On the other hand, KSSJ does teem with words the reality behind which belongs to a more or less remote past, for instance, is pan hist . ( = historizmus) royal governor of a county (in old, pre-1918 Hungary; for *cetnik, see 3b above). KSSJ includes the names of Euklides and Pytagoras; yet, for instance, the equally prestigious and deserving *Archimedes, to name just one, is missing, although his name does occur in the phrase Archimedova veta and the 2200th anniversary of his death in 212 B.C. was celebrated world-wide in 1988. The compilers of KSSJ seem to have more confidence in, or a better experience with, the tranquilizer dinyl, while excluding the universally popular *aspirin, which may have changed its name to, or been replaced with, acylpyrin. 5. Definition of Word Meanings. (a) KSSJ has adopted a useful device, namely, to make the meanings of words clearer by means of references to antonyms or opposites, for instance: polygamia _Qp. ( = opozitum) monogamia, and vice versa; zastarany (obsolete, outdated) QE_. moderny - in this case a native word is elucidated in contrast to a foreign word. (b) Missing Meanings . The entry cent does not include a reference to its function as part of the U.S. currency . - Mancovat' sa used to mean, in youngsters' lingo, also 'vyt'ahovat' sa, vystatovat' sa' (to show off). - Napinak, in students' slang, used to stand for 'napomienka' (reprimand) . The meaning 'krajina' (country; region, county), previously expressed also by means of the word zem (earth), is not even listed as inappropriate with this latter word . For panel, see point 3e end, above. �152 SLOVAKIA (c) Wrong Meanings. Is omsa (mass), according to KSSJ, part of only the Catholic church service? Evidently, the compilers are not church goers. While zhnit' means 'to rot,' zhnite poriadky cannot mean "zastarane," that is, 'an outdated setup/order.' Would Marcellus have meant the latter with his famous "Something is rotten ( =outdated?) in the state of Denmark"? (Hamlet, 1.4). Hardly. (d) Appellatives. Some of the KSSJ compilers must be fond of figure skating. This is made more than obvious by the inclusion of at least four terms: axel, lutz, rittberger, salchov. 12 They are explained as deriving from the names of their respective first figure-skating practitioners: Axel Paulsen, A. Lutz, W. Rittberger, U. Salchow. As to the inconsistency in spelling some of these terms, see 3f above. The procedure of explaining some common words as deriving from personal names, as exemplified above, has not been generally, uniformly or systematically observed throughout KSSJ. Let us offer just two examples of popular words at this point. The fact that brovning, a type of pistol, derives its name from the American Browning is left unmentioned. Equally unmentioned is the fact that the popular brand of bread, graham, owes its name to the American S. Graham. Significantly, the vast majority of appellatives derived from English and American names has remained unexplained. Why? The reasons are obvious. Details will be given in a subsequent article. 6. Wrong Ordering. Wrong alphabetic sequence: kuzlo (magic) should be preceded, and not followed, by kuzlit' (to cast spells). 7. Stylistic Labeling. KSSJ is very generous in applying stylistic labels. An outsider may often wonder about the criteria that govern the application of that stylistic yardstick. In this respect, only the following cases, noticed at random, need correction. �SLOVAKIA 153 Hattrick is not a publ. ( =publicisticky; journalistic) term but one from the realm of sports, and this is how it is labeled in the academic SSJ VI.37. The term apartheid comes from Afrikaans. It applies only to South Africa, which fact is not pointed out. KSSJ uses pairs of synonymous stylistic labels, one member being foreign, the other native, the distinction between them not being made very clear, as shown in this English rendering: archaic - obsolete (zastarany), vulgar - gross (hruby), substandard - non-literary (nespisovny). Inconsistencies in, and an outright neglect of, labeling many words as coming from American English, to be distinguished from British English, will be discussed in a subsequent article. 8. 'Four-Letter' Words. I must disappoint you, for we are not going to quote them here. We have to speak about them without them. Suffice it to say that it came as a rude shock for us to run into these expressions on the pages of the 'authoritative' KSSJ! The total of the words of this kind found in the dictionary is about twenty-five, including nine root words used as bases from which more 'four-letter' words are derived by means of additional suffixes and prefixes. One very 'fertile' word base has produced as many as six derivatives! Since these words are subject to the same rules of grammar and word formation as any other 'normal' word, you may wonder and ask with Juliet: What's in a name? (Romeo and Juliet, 11.2). Let us tell you and try to satisfy your curiosity. These peripheral words denote organs and activities of the human body (sex, excretion). Fortunately, those expressions selected (by a committee?) for inclusion in KSSJ do not belong to the hard-core obscene type that has deservedly been excluded but are of the 'milder' sort. What is to be discussed here, in spite of the rather small number of these words and their relatively 'milder' offensive nature, is the 'wisdom' and effect of their inclusion in a dictionary enjoying official sanction and one that is addressed, as stated in the introduction to KSSJ, "especially to pupils and students ... " (p. 11, section I. 1). �154 SLOVAKIA The professed goal of KSSJ is 'to contribute to raising the culture of language' by means of 'a strict selection of lexical units' deriving from the literary language. This does 'not allow the inclusion of words and phrases that are marginal, exclusive or isolated.' Yet, it is in the very same breath that the stated principle is violated, for they go on to speak, somewhat apologetically, it is true, about 'the merely exceptional (sic) inclusion of terms that are narrowly specialized, dialectal, slang, archaic, and rare,' while failing to refer to the fact of a simultaneous inclusion of vulgar and gross expressions. In so doing, they cherish a curious but misguided hope of 'improving' upon the stylistic standing of these marginal, substandard lexical elements. And I have failed to come across as yet any article whatsoever discussing these terms. It is highly doubtful whether the inclusion of vulgar and gross terms is one of those vaunted means of 'raising the culture of language' and whether their being admitted into non-vulgar lexical company will take the edge of vulgarity and grossness off these words. It is illogical indeed to argue, as they do, that the 'cultural level will be raised,' while in so doing they are, ironically, lowering the standards: the actual effect of the action is the exact opposite of the twisted expectation. It is a curious 'revolutionary' idea indeed to expect that culture can be raised by the help of, among others, vulgarity and grossness! Since KSSJ has the backing of the highest political authorities in the country and has been produced by the leading official language institution, there is no doubt that such a momentous decision as the one to include vulgar and gross terms must itself enjoy, directly or indirectly, the sanction of the highest authorities. If we give this even the minimum of thought, we cannot but conclude that it is a sorry state of affairs when the professed goal of 'raising the culture of language' is subverted by those very people who make this claim. We wonder, however, to what extent this 'loosening up' has been prompted, among others, also by the recent trend - in American lexicography! Our curiosity in this respect is prompted by the fact that the stated goals of KSSJ (1987) are, strangely, very close indeed to those formulated in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1961, which "has been prepared with a constant regar9- for the needs of the high school and col- �SLOVAKIA 155 lege student . . . The dictionary more than ever is the indispensable instrument of understanding and progress." (Preface). With KSSJ being addressed, like Webster 3, 'especially to pupils and students,' there is one single, straightforward question to be put to the compilers: Are the pupils and students, in their oral presentations in class and in written tests, as well as at home, supposed to be free to use any of the words listed in KSSJ, including the vulgar and gross terms? Will the use, by the students or anyone else, for that matter, of these latter terms contribute to 'raising their cultural standard'? Our answer: Hardly so. To us all this appears like a very dubious proposition. Once a vulgar or gross word makes its entry into a dictionary, especially one that aims at achieving prestige, the dubious word itself comes to enjoy some of that prestige, too, for hardly anyone among non-specialists pays attention to stylistic labels, in the same way as an average dictionary user very seldom takes the trouble of reading the introduction to a dictionary, however short the latter may be. It seems as if these items - an introduction and stylistic labeling - are included in a dictionary merely to please and appease the specialist. Out of these roughly nine root words appearing in twentyfive word forms, most are labeled "hrube" (gross) and the other again 'vulgar' in KSSJ. Let us see how these two labels are applied to other cases. Used in the sense of 'nipple, teat, pap,' the word cecok is a regular, ' normal,' stylistically unmarked word. When employed to refer to a female breast, however, it is labeled 'vulgar.' The adjective teply (warm), besides its regular, 'normal' functions, is used in its fifth function to denote a 'homosexual,' which usage is labeled 'gross' (hrube) in KSSJ. It seems that on the strength of the four 'positive' functions, this fifth use of the word teply, rather than to be termed 'gross,' should be considered a euphemism. This can also apply to the English gay, which, surprisingly also in its fifth, and last, sense denotes a 'homosexual' labeled 'slang' in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969). It seems that the academic SSJ IV.449 is closer to the mark when labeling teply - in its fifth sens here, too, - �156 SLOVAKIA as 'lower colloquial,' while the other 'gross' words of KSSJ are labeled ' vulgar' in the academic SSJ. On the other hand, it is far from clear why one word, cecok, is labeled 'vulgar' in KSSJ, while the other words of this group are termed 'gross,' both labels, "hruby" (gross) - "vulgarny, " being defined as synonymous in KSSJ . CONCLUSION Forty years ago, the late A.V. Isacenko formulated the tasks of the linguists, including lexicographers, in this way: ' to direct actively the development of language, . . . to democratize the standard language. ' 13 'Democratization' does not mean 'vulgarization.' Linguists, thus, have a great responsibility not merely to record their language passively but, as specialists, to get actively, constructively, and positively involved in the creative shaping of its development. NOTES *For their valuable comments o n this review essay, I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Louise B. Hammer of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, the editor Dr. M. Stolarik, and some colleagues in Bratislava, wh o wish to remain anonymou s. For an earlier review of the KSSJ by J.M . Kochik, see Slovakia 33 (1987-88), pp. 108-109. 1 Matilda Hayekova, Dejiny slovenskych slovn{kov do r. 1945. Bra tislava 1979. 2 Vincent Blanar in his review of the KSSJ, Slovenskti rec, 53 (1988), No. 3, p . 185: " ... preco su slova chyba, porucha vhodnejsie ako ztivada, ked' sa tie slova vyznamove celkom nekryju . . . ?" 3 A cryptic allusion to Alexander Du bcek here? 4 In her review of the KSSJ, Slavica slovaca, 23 (1988), No . 3, p. 279. 5 Viera Slivkova, " Vrchny rozhod ca, vrchna sestra - hlavny rozhodca, hlavna sestra? " Kultura s/ova, 21 (1987), No. 4, pp . 126-27. 6 Stefan Peciar, "Slovenske ekvivalenty ceskych vyrazov na --tko," ibid ., 2 (1968), No. 10, pp. 329-35. 7 Ferd inand Buffa , " Slova na --isko, --iste v spisovnej slovencine, " Slovenske odbome ntizvoslovie, 6 (1958), No. 5, pp . 129-32. 8 Ma tej Povazaj, "Skratky a znacky a ich spracova nie v KSSJ," Kultura slova, 18 (1984), No. 7, pp . 225-31 . 9 David Remnick, " Soviet Journal To Publish ' Gulag'," Th e Washington Post -Style, April 21, 1989, CI, C9 . �SLOVAKIA 157 10 Jan Horecky, " Co je panelova diskusia?" Kultura slova , 18 (1984), No . 10, pp. 380-81 . 11 For glasnost', see the Pravda (Bratislava), January 19, 1989, p . 2. --In an editorial, ' 'V znameni prestavby, ' ' the term ''glasnost'' ' is not mentioned at all in Slavia s/ovaca, 23 (1988), No. 2, pp . 113-14. 12 Alena Anettova, " Axel, Rittberger - axel, rittberger," Kultura slova, 20 (1986), No . 3, pp. 84-86. 13 A.V. Isacenko, " Zaklady materialistickej jazykovedy," Slovenska rec, 15 (1949-50), Nos . 3-4, p . 71. This article was written before Czecho-Slovakia' s 'velvet revolution ' of 17 November 1989. A Slovak version is to be published in the PohVzdy (Montreal) . �� SLOVAKIA 129 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et al., Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka. Bratislava: Veda, 1987. 587 pp. Jan Simko West Virginia University, Parkersburg, W.Va. I The purpose of this review essay is to assess some aspects of the vocabulary of present-day Slovak on the basis of the material included in this most recent dictionary. In order to present it in proper perspective, it is necessary to see the dictionary as part of the historical stream of Slovak dictionary making . The 'father' of Slovak lexicography was the Reverend Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Towards the end of the eighteenth century he made a valiant, though unsuccessful effort to elevate the western Slovak dialect into the first official Slovak literary standard. Bernolak compiled a noteworthy lexicographical work, the Slowar Slowenski Cesko-Lat'insko-Nemecko-Uherski seu Lexicon Slavicum Bohemico-Latino-Germanico-Ungaricum. It is considered a signal pioneer achievement for one person working singlehanriedly in those days. Bernolak had started his ambitious project as early as 1787 and completed it twenty-one years later. Printed in Budapest, the capital of Hungary of which Slovakia formed a part, the sixvolume dictionary appeared only posthumously between 1825 and 1827. Significantly, this was one year before the publication of Noah Webster's (1758-1843) classic, An American Dictionary of the English Language. It took about a hundred years for a more modern Slovak dictionary to appear. It was the Slovensky slovn{k z literatury aj nareci (1924-25) containing around 40,000 entries compiled by Karel Kalal (1886-1930) and Miroslav Kalal (1893-1962). A noteworthy dictionary of the thirties was the Slovensky frazeologicky slovnik (Praha - Presov: Ceskoslovenska graficka unia, first edition 1931, second ed. 1933, supplement 1937) produced by Peter Tvrdy (1850-1935). 1 It was under the auspices of the leading Slovak cultural institution, the �SLOVAKIA 130 Matica slovenska of Turciansky Svaty Martin, that Anton Janosik (1904-71) and Eugen Jona (b. 1909) had set out to work on a larger dictionary, the Slovn{k spisovneho jazyka slovenskeho (1946-49), which, however, remained uncompleted. The extensive Matica material of around half a million cards was taken over by the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, which has published the first comprehensive dictionary to date, the Slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (1959-68), with Stefan Peciar (1912-1988) as its editor. In the 79,784 entries of its five vo!umes, the SSJ treats 125,302 words covering a period of around 150 years. The material of the rather slim supplementary sixth volume has not been tabulated. Since 1931 urgent needs of Slovak users have been met by the orthographical-grammatical manual, the Pravidla slovenskeho pravopisu (eleventh edition 1971). It is a chronicle of the moving and often also turbulent history of Slovak in modern times. Not unlike a bus, railroad or airline schedule, this book regulates the current usage of Slovak and, with official sanction to back it up, it has enjoyed something of the authority and power of the law. Since, due to their long production periods, dictionaries tend to lag behind the fast pace of vocabulary development and language change, the need began to be felt to bring the SSJ up to date. The result, more accessible to the general public than the six-volume SSJ, is the recent one-volume KSSJ under discussion. On its 555 pages, it treats around 50,000 words including derivations, covering a period of about one-hundred years. II 1. The Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (KSSJ) is organized as follows: (a) Entries are printed in boldface type. Incorrect or unacceptable words are, as a rule, but not always, printed in regular type usually followed by a rising arrow ( + ) referring to the correct word form(s) appearing, most of the time, in boldface type, for instance: crawl kraul, and it is under this latter heading that the word is found treated. Let us survey the other possibilities: dopis (letter), sprav. ( =spravne; correctly) list (see point 3e below); + �SLOVAKIA 131 kartac (brush), sprav. kefa; pradlo (laundry), sprav. bielizen (see point 3e below); zavazadlo (luggage), sprav. batozina (see point 3e below); vyporiadat' sa (to settle), nespis . ( =nespisovne; non-standard) vyrovnat' sa. It is under the latter words printed in boldface that these cases are treated in KSSJ. In other instances, it is, nonetheless, under the main entry printed in boldface type, although not considered quite acceptable, that the words are treated: blby (stupid), subst. ( = substandardny) sprosty, hlupy; chovat' sa (to behave), vhodnejsie (more suitable) spravat' sa. The following, although synonyms, are handled differently: zavada (defect), vhodnejsie chyba 2; but: vada (defect) 1. sprav. chyba ... In this latter case, each word is, surprisingly, printed in boldface type but, unlike the similar cases above (dopis etc.), the treatment is nevertheless given under the 'incorrect' main entry! In some cases, the word considered 'incorrect' may appear 'correct' in another form. In the following case, the derived adjective is considered 'incorrect,' while the root word is considered 'correct': dielcf (partial), sprav. ciastkovy; but the root word is acceptable: diel (part), cast', ciastka. Similarly: tryskove lietadlo (jet aircraft), sprav. prudove lietadlo, although the word base tryska (jet) is correct or acceptable. Other similar cases: obtiaz (difficulty), sprav. t'azkost'; but the verb obt'azovat' (to trouble) is acceptable; odstavec (paragraph), sprav. odsek; but odstavit' (to set off, to separate) is acceptable; zahajit' (to start, to open), sprav. otvorit', zacat'; but hajit' (to defend) is acceptable: in this case, the word base (the 'correct' hajit') and the derived form (the 'incorrect' zahajit') do not share the same basic meaning. In another case, again, the 'correct' form appears only in one use but not in others: kl'ud (quiet), sprav. pokoj; the latter is no longer listed in the sense of 'room' = izba or its derivative *pokojska (chamber �132 SLOVAKIA maid) = chyzna, the two expunged forms current previously but considered of Czech provenance. Finally, some words - marked with an asterisk here(*) - , previously current but not listed any more in KSSJ, do appear in other forms: *brusle (a pair of skates; now korcule) but bnisit' (to sharpen); *savec (mammal; now cicavec) but sat' (to suck) does exist, although cicat' is considered 'more suitable' (vhodnejsie); *uprchlik (fugitive; now utecenec) but prchat' .. . 2. expr. ( = expresivne; to flee) is included. For more instances, see point 3e below. Some phraseology is also suggested for correction. Under doba, there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( = pracovny) cas . Each correct entry has an abbreviated small-type index attached to it characterizing it as to its respective part of speech. In addition to that, nouns are also marked as to gender and verbs as to whether they are perfective or imperfective, and both nouns and verbs have some basic inflectional forms given. Many nouns of foreign origin have no declension in Slovak, for instance : lady [lejd-] neskl. z (angl.) ( = nesklonne zenske anglicke; not declined, feminine, English). The typography used in KSSJ is not always consistent. In one case, the characteristic is properly in small type: bubenik (drummer) . .. 2. v min. ( =v minulosti; in the past) . In another case, the same characteristic is printed in normal type : notar (notary) .. . 2. v min. For other examples see 3b: policia, zandar. A very helpful item is the indication of the pronunciation of doubtful or difficult cases placed in square brackets following the main entry . Let us stop at the interesting word dekan (dean) . Being of Latin origin, it was first pronounced with the initial hard [d], which was later 'Slovakized' and softened or palatalized to [d'] but now returned to [d] again . In the case of a word having more individual meanings than one, they are numbered with boldface figures: 1. . . . 2 . . . . etc. �SLOVAKIA 133 and often illustrated with examples of usage printed in italics. Thus, for instance, under doba there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( =pracovny) cas. Sometimes the division of meanings raises questions, for instance: opera 1. dielo (work); budova (building) ... : why are these totally distinct and separate meanings grouped together, and not under their own numbers, 1., 2.? In the case of a word form belonging to more than one part of speech, each is marked, within the same entry, with boldface Roman numerals: dobre (well) I. rfsl. ( = prfslovka; adverb) . . . II. cast. ( = castica; particle). If the respective separate meanings of a word belong to /a/ totally different semantic areas or to lb / marked stylistic spheres, use is made of small-type characteristics, for instance: /a/ deklinacia ~ ( = zensky; feminine) 1. lingv. ( = lingvisticky) sklonovanie (declension) 2. ~- ( =fyzikalny) .. . /b/ dial' z poet. ( = poeticky) dial'ka (distance). For unknown reasons, there are inconsistencies in the handling of words with more meanings, if one is animate and the other inanimate. In one example, the two meanings are numbered individually under one headword: trampka 1. (woman hiker = animate) 2.(canvas shoes = inanimate). Another case parallel to this one is, however, handled differently, although also under one heading. The headword introduces the animate meaning, while the same word is printed later within the nest, introducing the inanimate meaning: tramp ziv. ( = zivotny; animate) ... tramp neziv. ( = nezivotny; inanimate) tramping; nepodarok ziv. (misfit) . .. nepodarok neziv . (lemon, faulty product; see point 36); starter (anim. = a person giving a sign to start) . .. starter (inanim. = a thing that starts)! Are there any basic differences as to the respective semantic structures of these words, except a difference of gender: trampka feminine, tramp etc . masculine and, with starter, of English origin? �SLOVAKIA 134 There are many similar cases in KSSJ, for instance: zehlic ziv. ( = zivotny; animate = he who irons) ... zehlic neziv . ( = nezivotny; inanimate = iron); but: zehlicka 1. (woman ironing) . . . 2. (iron). A small square □ used with verbs is followed by the habitual phraseological combinations . A full, large dot • is followed by idiomatic expressions. (b) Not every word appears as an indepedent entry: words derived from a basic root are, as a rule but not always, grouped in a nest under one main entry and mostly indicated by a suffix, both headword and suffix appearing in boldface type: hokej . . . ; --ovy. Less often, the derived word appears in a full word form : /a/ in the same nest: atletika ... atlet ... atleticky; /bl as an independent entry, irrespective of whether placed immediately after the root word: /i/ hokej ... hokejista . .. hokejka; or alphabetically separated from the root word by several entries: /ii/ skore ... (5 other entries) skorovat', etc . In another possible case, again, a derived word form, alphabetically separated from its headword, is yet treated under the latter. In this instance, an arrow rising to the right points to the main entry word under which to find the derived form treated, for instance: dubcek (little oak) dub. 3 Although in most cases the semantic structure of a derived word form is close to that of the word base, it is not always clear why a derived word immediately following its word base is listed not simply by means of the derivational suffix within one nest but as a separate entry, for instance: hladic (man ironing) hladicka 1. (woman ironing); 2. (iron), and not simply: hladic .. . ; --ka ... (See above for zehlic, zehlicka.) + �SLOVAKIA 135 In an exaggerated effort to justify KSSJ's titleKratky (short), the suffixes listed in a nest appear not infrequently too short, creating uncertainty or even confusion as to what they stand for, for instance: basketbal ... ; --ista ... ; --ka. Does this mean that the suffix --ka is simply attached to the headword so as to give *basketbalka? Not at all, for there is no such word in Slovak, at present at least. In reality, the suffix --ka is the feminine variant of the masculine ending in the suffix --ista, so that the actual word has the correct form: basketbalistka. If, instead of the bare --ka, KSSJ had printed at least --tka, the 'mystery' as to the correct derivational form would be easier to solve, indicating that it is the feminine variant of the preceding --ista. KSSJ is teeming with instances of this kind, confusing an uninitiated or foreign user made uncertain as to how the skeleton suffix should be correctly attached to the headword . No wonder or surprisingly, Klara Buzassyova, although an employee of the Linguistics Institute of the Slovak Academy that produced the dictionary, dared to voice her criticism that KSSJ "thus subjects its non-linguistic user to rather great demands. " 4 Let us consider a few striking cases: film, --ovy, --o: does this give, on the analogy of filmovy, also a *filmo? Again, not at all. Since the latter form does not exist, why not make it perfectly clear that the suffix is --ovo? Similarly: komfort, --ny, --e, --ost'. Should this sequence give: komfortny, *komforte, *komfortost'? Again: not at all! Since the forms marked with the asterisk (*) do not exist in present-day Slovak, why not help the user by a very tiny device indeed of adding a mere -n- that would not take up too much additional space at all but would mean quite a difference by indicating that --ne, --nost' stand for the correct forms: komfortne, komfortnost'. Again, so very little is needed to produce a great difference in the case of standardizacia, --acny: should the suffix contain only one more letter : --zacny, there would be no doubt whatsoever that the correct derivation is not a *standardacny or the like but standardizacny . �136 SLOVAKIA As to the independent entry standardny -- itself derived from the earlier entry standard -- : do the suffixes listed in the nest: --e, --ost', stand for: *standarde, *standardost'? Absolutely not at all: these forms do not exist. And once again, a very short extension by one more letter, a mere -n-, requiring very little additional space indeed, would make a substantial difference, benefiting correct usage: --ne, --nost' give the correct standardne, standardnost'. Our choice of these examples of English origin listed in KSSJ has been made with the purpose of facilitating proper understanding by our readers. In this connection, many more examples of this confusing kind could be quoted from the purely Slovak word stock. This brings us finally to the most nonsensical cases of them all: polo, --ovy; plexisklo, --ovy: does the attachment of the suffixes result in: *p6loovy? *plexiskloovy? Let us have a hearty laugh: where they really could have saved space, they did not; they needed more! 2. Abbreviated Verbal Endings. A complication or confusion similar to the one just discussed is created in the following cases. There are a number of pairs of verbs starting with the respective prefixes: za--,zo--, zm--, zn--, s--. A pair consists of one - transitive - verb ending in --it' and the other - intransitive - ending in --iet'. Since the application of the proper form of the ending vowel may cause difficulty, our concern here is with the abbreviated form of the ending as suggested in the text of the KSSJ, the handling of which is not always helpful but rather, as we have seen in several previous instances, confusing and not uniform at all. KSSJ is very helpful in indicating the past tense of some verbs: znecitliviet', znehybniet', znervozniet' (to become insensitive, immobile, nervous) as z--el each. Why then is the past tense not only of zmocniet', znarodniet', zovseobecniet'but also that of zostihlit' (to become stronger, popular, generally known; to make slim) indicated in KSSJ as just z--1, although in reality the past tense of the first three - intransitive - verbs ends in --el, while that of the fourth - transitive - verb ends in --ii? Similarly, the past tense of znevidiet' sa (to dislike) is indicated �SLOVAKIA 137 as z--lo; should this represent a form *znevidielo? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. Then why not make it easy for the user by indicating the past tense ending as --elo, that is: znevidelo? Why is it not made perfectly clear that the abbreviated past tense forms of zosilniet' (to get stronger) as indicated in KSSJ: z-1, z--la stand for z--el, z--ela, and not *zosilniel, --a, while zosilnit' (to make stronger), with the same skeleton past tense as above: z--1, stands for z--il? There does not seem to be any system or consistency of approach in the following cases. While, on the one hand, the past tense of zotmiet' sa, zotmit' sa (to get dark) is properly distinguished as, respectively, z--elo sa, z--ilo sa, and that of the synonymous stmiet' sa, stmit' sa as, respectively, s--elo sa, s--ilo sa, in the case of the parallel forms: zatmiet' sa, zatmit' sa (to get dark), on the other hand, the past tense is only indicated by the extreme shorthand form z--lo sa . Does this give a form *zatmielo sa? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. An uninitiated user is left 'dangling in the wind,' wondering and at a loss as to what form of the vowel, [i] or [e ], to insert in the skeleton past tense offered in KSSJ z--lo sa, which should be z--elo sa; z--ilo sa, impersonal. Why all these shortcuts, shortcomings, gaps, defects, you may ask? Let Hamlet answer your impatient question: Thrift, thrift, Horatio! (1.2) Or shall we rather tap Polonius' s perspicacity and worldly wisdom in adducing his famous aside: Though this be madness, yet there is method it't (11.2). Is there? 3. The Word Stock of Present-Day Slovak. (a) Vocabulary Growth . The vocabulary of a language is, in a sense, a living organism. During the existence of a language there is growth as well as decay in it going on all the time. This idea was emphasized by Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the 'father' of English lexicography, in his Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It came in answer to those people who asked him to 'fix' the English language once and for all. He was fully aware, however, that this was impossible to do because of the ever-changing nature of language. And vocabulary is its most dynamic area. �138 SLOVAKIA New lexical units are created from the existing material or are admitted from other languages. Other lexical units which are losing their effectiveness or usefulness are replaced or discarded. This is to satisfy the ever-changing needs of the speech community faced with the task of naming new phenomena arising in the course of developments in the socio-political and economic spheres affecting the progress of daily life. The word stock is exceptionally sensitive to all these events which it promptly records. Existing words may, again, extend their scope by adopting new meanings or may be limited in their range by discarding other meanings, and their stylistic status may be reevaluated . This latter phenomenon has been initiated or stimulated more recently as a result of the effort called the 'democratization of language.' In this process, some substandard non-literary 'four-letter' or vulgar or gross expressions, by being admitted into respectful dictionaries of the standard language, have been granted a certain degree of social acceptability, as will be discussed in point 8. The spectacular growth of English can be documented by figures adduced from the impressive expansion of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language . Compared to its first edition of 1966, the second edition published in 1987 (the same year as the first edition of KSSJ) contains in its 315,000 entries 50,000 new items and 75,000 new definitions. This increase in the vocabulary of English, which covers a rather short span of only twenty-one years, is roughly equivalent to the abbreviated word stock of Slovak contained in the KSSJ! And this latter is supposed to cover a period of about one hundred years. Needless to say, Slovak is not likely to see any such massive vocabulary growth within an equal length of time. KSSJ contains around 50,000 entries that include most of the derived word forms grouped in nests under one main heading, as discussed in point la above. In comparison, the five-volume academic Slovnik slovenskeho jazyka (SSJ, 1959-65) treats 125,302 words under 79,784 entries, with additions included in the supplementary sixth volume (1968). It must be considered quite an achievement for a one-volume dictionary, the KSSJ, to cram onto its 555 three-column pages around one third of the material that is treated in the two-column SSJ of six volumes. SSJ contains, of �SLOVAKIA 139 course, much more illustrative material gathered from a period of about 150 years, roughly since the establishment of the present literary standard in 1843, while the main concern of KSSJ is to cover the more recent usage of around 100 years. A careful perusal of KSSJ' s word list from A to Z has yielded a very instructive picture of the current state of the Slovak lexicon. Its evaluation offers an idea of the trends and tendencies that have brought it about. The following movements within the word stock of Slovak have been observed. (b) ' Rehabilitated' and Some Missing Words in KSSJ . Many words that around fifty years ago fell out of favor in the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' seem to have been reinstated or 'rehabilitated' - this term being deemed appropriate for the purpose of adequately characterizing certain events or processes taking place, from time to time, in the public life of that geographical area. The boldface type in which these words are printed in KSSJ indicates their present acceptability, although several of them are labeled archaic, bookish (knizne), obsolescent (zastaravajuce), obsolete (zastarane'), colloquial (hovorove'), and substandard. In the following list, the ' rehabilitated' word, printed first, is followed by one that was previously, and is even at present, often considered the more 'correct' of the two: draha = zeleznica (railroad; cf. CSD in 3d ii below) drzy, col. = bezocivy (impudent) hasic, col. = poziarnik (fireman) koktat', col. = zajakavat' sa (to stutter) konat' sa = byt', uskutocnit' sa (to take place) krabica, ~;ubst . = skatul' a (box) krysa = potkan (rat) kuzelnfk = carodejnfk (magician) l'advina = oblicka (kidney) nadrazie = stanica (railroad etc. station) nachadzat' sa = byt' (to be, to exist) neni, subst. = nie je (is not) obnos, subst. = suma (sum) ohl'adne/ohl'adom, obsol. = vo veci (concerning, re) pernik = medovnfk (gingerbread) pocas = cez, za (during) pozde, obsol. = neskoro (late) pravitko = linear, obsolesc. (ruler; cf. c1 below) �140 SLOVAKIA prianie = zelanie (wish) pruh = pas (stripe, strip) rys, book. = crta (feature) rysovat' sa = crtat' sa (to loom) skrz(e) , obsolesc. = pre (for) snad', book. = asi, azda (perhaps) sranda, subst. = fart (joke) st'aznost' = ponosa (complaint) st'azovat' sa = ponosovat' sa (to complain) skrtat' = preciarkovat' (to cross out) svanda, subst. = vtip (joke) tesnopis, obsol. = rychlopis ukol = uloha (task; quota) vafok = vrecko (pocket) vrchny = hlavny (superior) 5 zehlicka = hladicka (iron) ziaden = nijaky (none) zizen, arch. = tuzba (yearning). Out of the 36 words quoted here, 15, that is, well over one third (41.66%) of those printed first are considered out of the mainstream of normal, stylistically unmarked literary Slovak: 5 substandard (subst.), 3 colloquial (col.), 3 obsolete (obsol.), 2 bookish (book.), 1 archaic (arch.), 1 obsolescent (obsolesc.). These words seem to have been resurrected after an earlier eclipse and have been in effect given a new lease on life due to not being labeled as 'incorrect.' This or a similar label would have relegated them to being printed, as a rule but not always, merely in normal type, if they were included at all, as has been discussed in point la above. Some of these pairs are synonymous: prianie - zelanie. In other cases there is some semantic, stylistic or functional differentiation: potkan (zool. Rattus) - krysa (zool. Rathus . .. ; this latter should be Rattus . . . ) denoting also 'an insidious person.' Stanica (railroad station) denotes a broader concept than nadrazie . Many of the above first-printed words seem to be more at home in Czech than in Slovak but, due to the fact that the Slovaks and Czechs live side by side in one state, an importation of words from the numerically predominant Czech into Slovak - the ratio being 2:1 - is unavoidable. There are scores of words that were very popular not so many years ago, definitely in the twenties and thirties: *beza, *cetnik, *paprslek, *pomazanka, *stavka, *valka, *zem, *zmetok. �SLOVAKIA 141 In the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' after 1939, they were replaced with: orgovan, zandar, hie, natierka, strajk, vojna, krajina, nepodarok (for this cf. la) (lilac, gendarme, ray, bread spread, strike, war, country, 'lemon' - faulty product). The first-quoted words (beza etc.) are no longer listed in KSSJ, not even as incorrect ones! It is hard to believe that these words have completely disappeared from, let us say, colloquial Slovak at least, for most of then are still used in Czech and, thus, can still be heard in present-day Slovakia, too. This non-inclusion is especially striking in the case of cetn{k (gendarme). It was the official term used between 1918 and at least 1938-39 and replaced with zandar of French origin. Although the latter is not used as an official term at present, either, it is included in KSSJ nevertheless and can be heard in the folk song "Detvianski zandari" (The gendarmes of Detva). Not used as an official term at present, either, is policia but is still found included and marked as collogu. While the explanation for zandar (v min. aj u nas; used in our area in the past, too) is printed in normal type, with policia the same explanation is printed in small type (u nas v min.; for similar inconsistencies in typography, see bubenik, notar in la). KSSJ does contain many words that refer, like the missing *cetnik, to past realities no longer in existence at present in Slovakia, which fact is explained in the definition of, for instance, zandar. Let us consider pandtir (armed guard in old Hungary), zeman (a member of the lower gentry), etc. Although both these words are equal as to their historicity, for unknown reasons only the latter is provided with the stylistic label hist. ( =historizmus). For ispan hist. , see point 4 below. What is even more surprising is that, out of this random list of eight words, three: *beza, *cetnik, *stavka (over one third), that have no features, phonemic or grammatical, alien to genuine Slovak, have been replaced not with other native Slovak words but with words of foreign origin: orgovan (Turkish), zandar (French gendarme), strajk (English strike), respectively! These cases are even more striking than is the case of pravitko - linear . For, while the native pravitko has been ' rehabilitated, ' it is the foreign synonym �142 SLOVAKIA linear used earlier as a replacement for pravitko that is now considered obsolescent, that is, on the 'way out.' There are more cases of this kind to be recorded: the native words cinovnik, arch. , obnos, subst., etc. have been eclipsed by words of foreign origin: funkcionar, suma (both Latin), respectively, etc. The word *mluvnica, imported from Czech in the nineteenth century, is no longer listed in KSSJ, either, having been replaced with the foreign term gramatika (Latin - Greek)! (c) Changes in the Word-Forming Elements of Slovak. /1/ In the course of the great wave of 'Slovakizing Slovak' itself in the late thirties and the early forties, the substantival suffixes: --citko, --ftko, 6 --iste7 were replaced with, respectively, --adlo, --idlo, --isko. Nevertheless, in accord with the popular saying: 'an exception confirms the rule,' pravitko (ruler), as discussed in 36 above, is again acceptable, probably the only word in present-day Slovak that has been 'exonerated' although retaining the proscribed suffix, while its foreign synonym linear is now considered obsolescent. Let us take a closer look at how this rule has been applied to -adlo, --idlo (previously --citko, --[tko) denoting an 'instrument.' /i/ In some cases, the root is retained: lehatko (sofa), s rav. ( = spravne; correctly) le.zadlo; meritko (measure), s rav. meradlo. There is a deviation from, or exception to, this rule, as could have been expected: lizatko (lollipop), sprav. lizanka (and not *lizadlo, probably not being considered an 'instrument;' the latter form is, nevertheless, a regular word meaning 'a place for animals to lick salt'). Unlike the above cases, the formerly used form *kruzitko (a pair of compasses) is not listed in KSSJ any more, only the new form kruzidlo. /ii/ In other cases, again, a different word is brought in: kukatko (binoculars), s rav. d'alekohl'ad , and not the expected *kukadlo, although the verb still remains: kukat' (to look, to peep); razitko (seal, stamp), sprav. peciatka, although razidlo, razit' (to coin) do exist, but in different meanings; see point (e) below. /iii/ The handling of the replacement of --iste with --isko is uneven. For the most part, the old forms ending in --iste are not �SLOVAKIA 143 listed, only the new forms: bojisko, hl'adisko, ihrisko, kupalisko, nalezisko, prekladisko, pristavisko (battlefield, auditorium, playground, swimming pool, place of find, place of reloading, harbor) . Evidently, they denote a 'place, location of action .' Nevertheless, in four cases found at random, the two formulations are placed side by side, as equivalents; surprisingly, the 'old' form is listed first in: schodiste, schodisko (staircase). In most cases, however, the form preferred at present is placed first : nakladisko, nakladiste (loading place), skladisko, skladiste (warehouse), zoradisko, zoradiste (place of filing or assembly). /2/ As to the suffix --Iy previously used as an ending of adjectives and passive verbal participles, it has been replaced in most cases with as many as three other forms: --ny, --ty, --nuty, respectively: *urastly (grown up), *zastaraly (outdated, obsolete) have changed into urasteny, zastarany; *opadly (fallen off), *zapadly (far-off; buried, hidden) have become opadnuty, zapadnuty. Nevertheless, we do find in KSSJ a form: usadly (settled) which, according to the above principle, should be *usadeny or *usadnuty, these latter two forms are not, however, listed in KSSJ. Nor do we find there an analogous form *posadly but only the organic and expected posadnuty (possessed) . While the form uplynuly (past) is labeled kniz . ( =knizny; bookish), the form minuly (past), although ending in --ly, is an adjective to be distinguished from the form minuty, which is the passive participle of the verb minut' (sa) (to spend; to pass) . (d) Dictionary Making and Politics. In order for us to assess the make-up of KSSJ correctly, we have to take into consideration the conditions under which this dictionary was compiled and published, that is, in a country where linguistic matters have not infrequently been approached as political matters at the same time. The slogan, " Na Slovensku po slovensky" [(Use) Slovak in Slovakia], was a powerful weapon in the late �144 SLOVAKIA thirties in the political struggle for an autonomous and ultimately an independent Slovakia. Let us further illustrate our argument. On the one hand, KSSJ is to some extent to be complimented for listing a number of especially American acronyms that may not always be readily understood by an average foreigner. 8 Those listed include: AP skr. ( = skratka; abbreviation) Associated Press; UPI [ju-pi-aj] skr. United Press International; CIA [si-aj-ej] skr. Central Intelligence Agency. So far, so good but here comes the rub: the English text is rendered as "Ostredna vyzvedna sluzba," which, in its turn, means: 'central spying agency,' mistranslating the word "intelligence," which actually means 'spravodajska.' On the other hand, the parallel CIC [si-aj-si] skr. Counter Intelligence Corps is rendered as "Vojenska tajna sluzba, '' which, again, means 'military secret service.' All of this looks inconsistent and even confusing. On the other hand, a correct literal translation is accorded the FBI [ef-bi-aj] skr. Federal Bureau of Investigation, rendered as "Federalny vysetrovaci urad." Thus, in the case of the CIA and CIC, a free characteristic has been substituted for a literal translation. The FBI could just as suitably have been rendered as 'Federalna policia. ' By inappropriately using the loaded word "vyzvedna" (spying) and thus editorializing, instead of merely translating the acronym CIA, the KSSJ compilers have introduced their political bias. This becomes more pronounced in view of the opposite fact, namely, that they have 'omitted' to list the CIA's Soviet counterparts, the KGB and its well-known predecessors, the NKVD, GPU, and Ceka, undoubtedly included in books dealing with USSR history. Quite the same 'approach' to the CIA has been adopted by Maria lvanova-Salingova in her Maly slovnik cudzich slov (A Small Dictionary of Foreign Words; Bratislava 1972), except that she does list the NKVD and the Ceka. Neither of these dictionaries lists, as could have been expected, the internationalized Russian acronym for GULAG that has become universally known through Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three-volume book, The Gulag Archipelago (1974-78), so far only published in the West but about to be brought out by the Soviet monthly Novij Mir "this year," �SLOVAKIA 145 that is, 1989. 9 Thus, the Soviets themselves seem to be starting to show more openness (glasnost') about their society, while the editors of KSSJ seem to have been hampered by some fear that by including terms like GULAG they might be accused of divulging some unspecified 'state secrets. ' As to other topical Russian terms missing in KSSJ, see point 4 below . In this connection, P.B. Cove's comment in his Preface to Webster 3 (1961) is highly pertinent: Accuracy in addition to requiring freedom from error and conformity to truth requires a dictionary to state meanings in which words are in fact used, not to give editorial opinion on what their meanings should be (p.4a). Another case with which issue must be taken is the term cechoslovakizmus and its definition in KSSJ as burz. ideologicko-polit. koncepcia hlasajuca narodnu jednotu Cechov a Slovakov a popierajuca samobytnost' Slovakov (a bourgeois ideological-polit. concept promulgating the national unity of the Czechs and the Slovaks and denying the Slovaks their individuality). A check in KSSJ's ' ancestor' of twenty-eight years ago, volume one of the academic SSJ (1959), has been most revealing: it limits the application of this term to the period of the first 'bourgeois' Czechoslovakia, that is, the period from 1918 to 1938-39, which makes quite a difference. Let us ponder the implications of the KSSJ definition by considering briefly the tragic fate of Vladimir Clementis (1902-52) . He was as dedicated a Slovak communist as any . After the mysterious 'leap' of Jan Masaryk from his window in Prague in 1948, Clementis became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister. In 1952 he was executed for having been found 'guilty,' among others, of the ' crime' of Slovak 'bourgeois nationalism,' which should be the antithesis of the above 'bourgeois Czechoslovakism.' Nonetheless, contrary to that, Clementis was neither a 'bourgeois,' nor did he advocate a complete separation of the Slovaks from the Czechs . As is well known by now, how ever, those who sent Clementis to the gallows committed that heinous homicide from, basically, the same positions as are attacked in the above definition, that is, "cechoslovakizmus," with that ' minor' difference, however, that �146 SLOVAKIA it was not 'bourgeois,' but of another color. The KSSJ qualification of the term "cechoslovakizmus" as only 'bourgeois' is, thus, strikingly one-sided and incorrect. In this way KSSJ has somewhat blurred the distinction between an encyclopedia and a dictionary. Instead of these misguided excursions into politics, KSSJ should have totally concentrated on perfecting the linguistic apparatus of the included words - the primary function of a dictionary - so as to be of utmost help to the average user of Slovak and 'particularly the pupils and students' (p. 11), as the editors themselves claim, in the cases of uncertainty regarding the many exceptions and variant forms in grammar and spelling for which Slovak is notorious, and even feared, among its less language-conscious and foreign users. As our critique of KSSJ has brought to light, there would have been ample opportunity to do just that. It has not been done sufficiently well. The contradictions of the existing political setup that might fall to some extent under the above definition of "cechoslovakizmus" will become evident in three more instances taken from KSSJ. /i/ The composition of the acronym for the Czechoslovak News Agency, CSTK, is rendered as "Ceskoslovenska tlafova kancelaria. '' This form of the acronym is used, for instance, in the Slovak daily Pravda of Bratislava, while the Czech daily Rude prdvo of Prague, unlike the KSSJ and Pravda, prints only CTK, which in this connection should stand for "Ceska tiskova kancelar" (Czech News Agency). /ii/ Similarly, the acronym CSD originally, in Czech, stood for "C(eskoslovenske) S(tatnf) D(rahy)" (Czechoslovak State Railroads). This should be rendered in Slovak, at best, as CSD, that is, "C(eskoslovenske) S(!:atne) D(rahy)." CSD could also be interpreted as representing "C(es_!<ol S(lovenske statne) D(rahy)," which should actually result in CSSD, analogically to the above CSTK. Both renderings use the word "Drahy," instead of the more appropriate Slovak term "zeleznice" (railroads; see point 3b above). /iii/ The third case concerns the popular blend Sazka made up of the initial elements of the Czech words "sazkova kancelaf" (betting office). In Slovak, the equivalent words are "stavkova kancelaria" and the corresponding Slovak blend would be simply Stavka. This form would have, however, clashed with the now pro- �SLOVAKIA 147 scribed and unlisted word *stavka replaced with strajk (of English origin; see point 3b above), although stavka is acceptable in the relevant sense of 'bet.' Regrettably, the composition of another popular blend known throughout the world, tuzex (a hard currency store), although listed in KSSJ, is not given. Let us venture to suggest the elements visible to the 'naked' eye of an uninitiated observer: tuz ( = tuzemsky - Czech for 'inland' ) ex ( =export). (e) Vacant Slots. Our indepth look into the vocabulary of contemporary Slovak as presented in KSSJ has uncovered some gaps or vacant slots in its make-up . /1/ There are a few words that look like derived ones but the supposed derivational base does not exist, in contemporary Slovak at least; or even the other way round: /2/ Although a derivational base is considered acceptable or correct, some derivations from that base acceptable previously are classified as unacceptable now. Let us discuss a few instances: /1/ The verb related to the noun is either incorrect or not used in Slovak: dopisovatel' (correspondent), pisaf (to write) but dopis (letter), dopisovat' si (to correspond, to write) are labeled incorrect (see point la above); dotaz (question, inquiry), obsolescent; dotaznik (questionnaire), otazka (question), otaznik (question mark) but *(d)(o)tazat' sa, *dotazovat' sa (to ask) are not listed; nalez (find, finding), nalezisko (place of find), vynalez (discovery, invention) but *naliezt' (to find) is not listed; nemluvna (toddler), bookish but *mluva (speech), *mluvnica (grammar; see point (b) above), *(ne)mluvit' ([not] to speak) are not listed; posluchac (listener), poslucharen (auditorium), sluch (hearing), shichadlo (telephone receiver; earphone) but *(po )sluchat' (to listen) is not listed; spesnina (railroad express delivery) but *spechat' (to hasten, to hurry) is not listed; �148 SLOVAKIA zloba (hatred, enmity) but *zlobit' (to anger, to irritate) is not listed, the respective meanings of the noun and the verb not being quite identical. For more similar cases (dielci, odstavec, etc.) see point la above, and 3c1ii (for kukatko, razitko) . /2/ The verb is correct in one sense but not in another: the noun riaditel' (director) is correctly derived from the verb riadit' (to direct); since the latter has been labeled as incorrect in the sense of 'to operate a motor vehicle,' the previously used derivation *riadic (driver, chauffeur) is no longer listed . Somewhat similar are the following two cases. Batozina (luggage) and bielizen (laundry) have replaced, respectively, zavazadlo, pradlo labeled incorrect, although they were quite popular in the not too distant past and although they are derived from verbs considered correct even at present: zaviazat' (to tie), prat' (to do the laundry, to wash). See point la above. Similarly, jazdit' (to go, ride, travel), vytkmit' (to expostulate) are correct but not *odjazd (departure), *vytka (censure, reprimand) replaced with, respectively, odchod, vycitka. Out of the words quoted above, those marked with the asterisk (*) and those italicized, although not current in contemporary Slovak, do occur in Czech, albeit in a somewhat different form appropriate for the Czech language. A somewhat parallel situation obtains in the case of the phrase panelova diskusia . 10 It is an exact Slovak rendering of the English phrase "a panel discussion." In this case, however, the expected word base *panel, in the sense of the English 'panel, group, ' does not yet exist in Slovak, and is only used in the architectural sense of' a prefabricated building block.' Here we may witness the germ of a potential future extension of the present meaning of the word panel, which KSSJ may be anticipating or forestalling. See point Sb below. (f) Consistency in Spelling. The cases discussed above point first of all to one conclusion. If the need to observe consistency is an obvious virtue expected in any and every kind of activity, lexicographical work is no exception. On the contrary, the latter's social and cultural respon- �SLOVAKIA 149 sibility is the greater, for its product, a dictionary, is expected to be used not only by thousands but even by millions of people. And it is in this respect that the new dictionary, KSSJ, leaves a lot to be desired. An area of conspicuous inconsistency is that of spelling. Why the different forms: a priori but apropo? tvid but twist? lutz (and not *luc) when salchov (and not *salchow)? It looks somewhat forced and incongruous, if not outright ridiculous to insist on the spelling biblia, and not *Biblia, at least in the religious sense of 'Bible,' the more so since initial capitals have been duly applied in Svate pismo (Holy Writ), as well as Stary zakon (OT) and Novy zakon (NT) inconsequentially interpreted as "cast' bib lie." No explanation seems to have been given for the use of the semi-French spelling in resume (correctly resume), while the verb is rezumovat'. It is a shame indeed or maybe only hilarious that the acronym for the ruling 'fraternal' party of the close socialist neighbor and ally to the north-west, SED, is transliterated and divided with a lot of mistakes as Socialistische Eintheitspartei Deut-schland, instead of the correct Sozialistische Einheitspartei Detsch-lands. With Slovak luckily not being current in the GDR and, thus, KSSJ not being in 'danger' of coming into mass use there, this faux pas may go unnoticed there and not cause any 'fraternal' falling out. Similarly, the last word in the transliteration of the acronym UNESCO is incorrectly divided and transliterated as Organizations, instead of the correct Organization, while the Slovak text has the correct singular: Organizacia. The same last word in NATO is correctly divided, though, yet wrongly spelled as Organisa-tion. They do get it right in their third attempt, that is, in the transliteration of such unexpected and 'indispensable' an inclusion as is SEATO where the last word is at last properly spelled and divided: Organi-zation! Let us close this point by adding a preliminary observation to the effect that there is not only no apparent consistency but rather a considerable uncertainty, vacillation, and even chaos as to the proper spelling of many words of English origin that have entered �150 SLOVAKIA the Slovak language in considerable numbers. More will be said about this matter in a subsequent article. 4. Choice of Words. This is not a mean task that confronts the compilers of any dictionary but especially one that bears in its title the crucial word Kratky (Short). The cardinal question is a Hamletian one: to include/exclude, or not to include/exclude. A viable approach would be one on the basis of a frequency count of words as has been compiled by Jozef Mistrik in his book Frekvencia tvarov a konstrukcii v slovencine (Bratislava 1985). In any case, the saying does apply: "Damned if you include/exclude and damned if you don't exclude/include," for nearly each user of KSSJ will find one or more of his or her favorite or pet words missing. Let me quote just a few: *kabala, *megalopolis, *ovomaltina (a popular cocoa-like beverage), *polucia (involuntary ejaculation), *potapka, slg. (dandy), *Slovac (the Slovaks), *svitok or *zvitok (scroll), *svajciarsky (while there is, for inst., svedsky and even bengalsky) - this latter mainly for the sake of the proper placing of the diacritical marks, *siamsky, *sibirsky, *zagniavit' (to trample), perfective, to go with gniavit', imperf., and of course, last but not least, the very topical twosome that has spread recently all over the world: *glasnost' and *perestrojka! (See *GULAG in 3d.) 11 The words of English origin missing in KSSJ will be discussed in a subsequent article. On the other hand, the user of KSSJ may wonder about the necessity of including such highly specialized words hardly ever met with in common daily conversation or reading, such as: lewisit, selsyn, torr, etc. While these are foreign loans in Slovak, I wonder how many of our non-specialist readers know what they mean . The following is a very much more down-to-earth area, of increasing interest. KSSJ lists names of several current automobile makes: fiatka, mercedeska, moskvic, simka, skoda, tatra, trabant, volga, wartburg, zigulik, as well as the former or 'late' pragovka and tatraplan. �SLOVAKIA 151 It is surprising that the name of the very prototype of all subsequent motorcars and one that is practically synonymous with the latter generic term, the legendary *fordka, is missing; in popular language it seems to have been replaced with the form *ford, also unlisted. So, too, is the name of the earlier popular Czech make *aerovka, no longer manufactured. On the other hand, KSSJ does teem with words the reality behind which belongs to a more or less remote past, for instance, is pan hist . ( = historizmus) royal governor of a county (in old, pre-1918 Hungary; for *cetnik, see 3b above). KSSJ includes the names of Euklides and Pytagoras; yet, for instance, the equally prestigious and deserving *Archimedes, to name just one, is missing, although his name does occur in the phrase Archimedova veta and the 2200th anniversary of his death in 212 B.C. was celebrated world-wide in 1988. The compilers of KSSJ seem to have more confidence in, or a better experience with, the tranquilizer dinyl, while excluding the universally popular *aspirin, which may have changed its name to, or been replaced with, acylpyrin. 5. Definition of Word Meanings. (a) KSSJ has adopted a useful device, namely, to make the meanings of words clearer by means of references to antonyms or opposites, for instance: polygamia _Qp. ( = opozitum) monogamia, and vice versa; zastarany (obsolete, outdated) QE_. moderny - in this case a native word is elucidated in contrast to a foreign word. (b) Missing Meanings . The entry cent does not include a reference to its function as part of the U.S. currency . - Mancovat' sa used to mean, in youngsters' lingo, also 'vyt'ahovat' sa, vystatovat' sa' (to show off). - Napinak, in students' slang, used to stand for 'napomienka' (reprimand) . The meaning 'krajina' (country; region, county), previously expressed also by means of the word zem (earth), is not even listed as inappropriate with this latter word . For panel, see point 3e end, above. �152 SLOVAKIA (c) Wrong Meanings. Is omsa (mass), according to KSSJ, part of only the Catholic church service? Evidently, the compilers are not church goers. While zhnit' means 'to rot,' zhnite poriadky cannot mean "zastarane," that is, 'an outdated setup/order.' Would Marcellus have meant the latter with his famous "Something is rotten ( =outdated?) in the state of Denmark"? (Hamlet, 1.4). Hardly. (d) Appellatives. Some of the KSSJ compilers must be fond of figure skating. This is made more than obvious by the inclusion of at least four terms: axel, lutz, rittberger, salchov. 12 They are explained as deriving from the names of their respective first figure-skating practitioners: Axel Paulsen, A. Lutz, W. Rittberger, U. Salchow. As to the inconsistency in spelling some of these terms, see 3f above. The procedure of explaining some common words as deriving from personal names, as exemplified above, has not been generally, uniformly or systematically observed throughout KSSJ. Let us offer just two examples of popular words at this point. The fact that brovning, a type of pistol, derives its name from the American Browning is left unmentioned. Equally unmentioned is the fact that the popular brand of bread, graham, owes its name to the American S. Graham. Significantly, the vast majority of appellatives derived from English and American names has remained unexplained. Why? The reasons are obvious. Details will be given in a subsequent article. 6. Wrong Ordering. Wrong alphabetic sequence: kuzlo (magic) should be preceded, and not followed, by kuzlit' (to cast spells). 7. Stylistic Labeling. KSSJ is very generous in applying stylistic labels. An outsider may often wonder about the criteria that govern the application of that stylistic yardstick. In this respect, only the following cases, noticed at random, need correction. �SLOVAKIA 153 Hattrick is not a publ. ( =publicisticky; journalistic) term but one from the realm of sports, and this is how it is labeled in the academic SSJ VI.37. The term apartheid comes from Afrikaans. It applies only to South Africa, which fact is not pointed out. KSSJ uses pairs of synonymous stylistic labels, one member being foreign, the other native, the distinction between them not being made very clear, as shown in this English rendering: archaic - obsolete (zastarany), vulgar - gross (hruby), substandard - non-literary (nespisovny). Inconsistencies in, and an outright neglect of, labeling many words as coming from American English, to be distinguished from British English, will be discussed in a subsequent article. 8. 'Four-Letter' Words. I must disappoint you, for we are not going to quote them here. We have to speak about them without them. Suffice it to say that it came as a rude shock for us to run into these expressions on the pages of the 'authoritative' KSSJ! The total of the words of this kind found in the dictionary is about twenty-five, including nine root words used as bases from which more 'four-letter' words are derived by means of additional suffixes and prefixes. One very 'fertile' word base has produced as many as six derivatives! Since these words are subject to the same rules of grammar and word formation as any other 'normal' word, you may wonder and ask with Juliet: What's in a name? (Romeo and Juliet, 11.2). Let us tell you and try to satisfy your curiosity. These peripheral words denote organs and activities of the human body (sex, excretion). Fortunately, those expressions selected (by a committee?) for inclusion in KSSJ do not belong to the hard-core obscene type that has deservedly been excluded but are of the 'milder' sort. What is to be discussed here, in spite of the rather small number of these words and their relatively 'milder' offensive nature, is the 'wisdom' and effect of their inclusion in a dictionary enjoying official sanction and one that is addressed, as stated in the introduction to KSSJ, "especially to pupils and students ... " (p. 11, section I. 1). �154 SLOVAKIA The professed goal of KSSJ is 'to contribute to raising the culture of language' by means of 'a strict selection of lexical units' deriving from the literary language. This does 'not allow the inclusion of words and phrases that are marginal, exclusive or isolated.' Yet, it is in the very same breath that the stated principle is violated, for they go on to speak, somewhat apologetically, it is true, about 'the merely exceptional (sic) inclusion of terms that are narrowly specialized, dialectal, slang, archaic, and rare,' while failing to refer to the fact of a simultaneous inclusion of vulgar and gross expressions. In so doing, they cherish a curious but misguided hope of 'improving' upon the stylistic standing of these marginal, substandard lexical elements. And I have failed to come across as yet any article whatsoever discussing these terms. It is highly doubtful whether the inclusion of vulgar and gross terms is one of those vaunted means of 'raising the culture of language' and whether their being admitted into non-vulgar lexical company will take the edge of vulgarity and grossness off these words. It is illogical indeed to argue, as they do, that the 'cultural level will be raised,' while in so doing they are, ironically, lowering the standards: the actual effect of the action is the exact opposite of the twisted expectation. It is a curious 'revolutionary' idea indeed to expect that culture can be raised by the help of, among others, vulgarity and grossness! Since KSSJ has the backing of the highest political authorities in the country and has been produced by the leading official language institution, there is no doubt that such a momentous decision as the one to include vulgar and gross terms must itself enjoy, directly or indirectly, the sanction of the highest authorities. If we give this even the minimum of thought, we cannot but conclude that it is a sorry state of affairs when the professed goal of 'raising the culture of language' is subverted by those very people who make this claim. We wonder, however, to what extent this 'loosening up' has been prompted, among others, also by the recent trend - in American lexicography! Our curiosity in this respect is prompted by the fact that the stated goals of KSSJ (1987) are, strangely, very close indeed to those formulated in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1961, which "has been prepared with a constant regar9- for the needs of the high school and col- �SLOVAKIA 155 lege student . . . The dictionary more than ever is the indispensable instrument of understanding and progress." (Preface). With KSSJ being addressed, like Webster 3, 'especially to pupils and students,' there is one single, straightforward question to be put to the compilers: Are the pupils and students, in their oral presentations in class and in written tests, as well as at home, supposed to be free to use any of the words listed in KSSJ, including the vulgar and gross terms? Will the use, by the students or anyone else, for that matter, of these latter terms contribute to 'raising their cultural standard'? Our answer: Hardly so. To us all this appears like a very dubious proposition. Once a vulgar or gross word makes its entry into a dictionary, especially one that aims at achieving prestige, the dubious word itself comes to enjoy some of that prestige, too, for hardly anyone among non-specialists pays attention to stylistic labels, in the same way as an average dictionary user very seldom takes the trouble of reading the introduction to a dictionary, however short the latter may be. It seems as if these items - an introduction and stylistic labeling - are included in a dictionary merely to please and appease the specialist. Out of these roughly nine root words appearing in twentyfive word forms, most are labeled "hrube" (gross) and the other again 'vulgar' in KSSJ. Let us see how these two labels are applied to other cases. Used in the sense of 'nipple, teat, pap,' the word cecok is a regular, ' normal,' stylistically unmarked word. When employed to refer to a female breast, however, it is labeled 'vulgar.' The adjective teply (warm), besides its regular, 'normal' functions, is used in its fifth function to denote a 'homosexual,' which usage is labeled 'gross' (hrube) in KSSJ. It seems that on the strength of the four 'positive' functions, this fifth use of the word teply, rather than to be termed 'gross,' should be considered a euphemism. This can also apply to the English gay, which, surprisingly also in its fifth, and last, sense denotes a 'homosexual' labeled 'slang' in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969). It seems that the academic SSJ IV.449 is closer to the mark when labeling teply - in its fifth sens here, too, - �156 SLOVAKIA as 'lower colloquial,' while the other 'gross' words of KSSJ are labeled ' vulgar' in the academic SSJ. On the other hand, it is far from clear why one word, cecok, is labeled 'vulgar' in KSSJ, while the other words of this group are termed 'gross,' both labels, "hruby" (gross) - "vulgarny, " being defined as synonymous in KSSJ . CONCLUSION Forty years ago, the late A.V. Isacenko formulated the tasks of the linguists, including lexicographers, in this way: ' to direct actively the development of language, . . . to democratize the standard language. ' 13 'Democratization' does not mean 'vulgarization.' Linguists, thus, have a great responsibility not merely to record their language passively but, as specialists, to get actively, constructively, and positively involved in the creative shaping of its development. NOTES *For their valuable comments o n this review essay, I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Louise B. Hammer of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, the editor Dr. M. Stolarik, and some colleagues in Bratislava, wh o wish to remain anonymou s. For an earlier review of the KSSJ by J.M . Kochik, see Slovakia 33 (1987-88), pp. 108-109. 1 Matilda Hayekova, Dejiny slovenskych slovn{kov do r. 1945. Bra tislava 1979. 2 Vincent Blanar in his review of the KSSJ, Slovenskti rec, 53 (1988), No. 3, p . 185: " ... preco su slova chyba, porucha vhodnejsie ako ztivada, ked' sa tie slova vyznamove celkom nekryju . . . ?" 3 A cryptic allusion to Alexander Du bcek here? 4 In her review of the KSSJ, Slavica slovaca, 23 (1988), No . 3, p. 279. 5 Viera Slivkova, " Vrchny rozhod ca, vrchna sestra - hlavny rozhodca, hlavna sestra? " Kultura s/ova, 21 (1987), No. 4, pp . 126-27. 6 Stefan Peciar, "Slovenske ekvivalenty ceskych vyrazov na --tko," ibid ., 2 (1968), No. 10, pp. 329-35. 7 Ferd inand Buffa , " Slova na --isko, --iste v spisovnej slovencine, " Slovenske odbome ntizvoslovie, 6 (1958), No. 5, pp . 129-32. 8 Ma tej Povazaj, "Skratky a znacky a ich spracova nie v KSSJ," Kultura slova, 18 (1984), No. 7, pp . 225-31 . 9 David Remnick, " Soviet Journal To Publish ' Gulag'," Th e Washington Post -Style, April 21, 1989, CI, C9 . �SLOVAKIA 157 10 Jan Horecky, " Co je panelova diskusia?" Kultura slova , 18 (1984), No . 10, pp. 380-81 . 11 For glasnost', see the Pravda (Bratislava), January 19, 1989, p . 2. --In an editorial, ' 'V znameni prestavby, ' ' the term ''glasnost'' ' is not mentioned at all in Slavia s/ovaca, 23 (1988), No. 2, pp . 113-14. 12 Alena Anettova, " Axel, Rittberger - axel, rittberger," Kultura slova, 20 (1986), No . 3, pp. 84-86. 13 A.V. Isacenko, " Zaklady materialistickej jazykovedy," Slovenska rec, 15 (1949-50), Nos . 3-4, p . 71. This article was written before Czecho-Slovakia' s 'velvet revolution ' of 17 November 1989. A Slovak version is to be published in the PohVzdy (Montreal) . �� 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 1989-90, Vol. 34 Description An account of the resource Vol. 34 (No. 62-63), 1989-90. 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 1989-90 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 129 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et al., Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka. Bratislava: Veda, 1987. 587 pp. Jan Simko West Virginia University, Parkersburg, W.Va. I The purpose of this review essay is to assess some aspects of the vocabulary of present-day Slovak on the basis of the material included in this most recent dictionary. In order to present it in proper perspective, it is necessary to see the dictionary as part of the historical stream of Slovak dictionary making . The 'father' of Slovak lexicography was the Reverend Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Towards the end of the eighteenth century he made a valiant, though unsuccessful effort to elevate the western Slovak dialect into the first official Slovak literary standard. Bernolak compiled a noteworthy lexicographical work, the Slowar Slowenski Cesko-Lat'insko-Nemecko-Uherski seu Lexicon Slavicum Bohemico-Latino-Germanico-Ungaricum. It is considered a signal pioneer achievement for one person working singlehanriedly in those days. Bernolak had started his ambitious project as early as 1787 and completed it twenty-one years later. Printed in Budapest, the capital of Hungary of which Slovakia formed a part, the sixvolume dictionary appeared only posthumously between 1825 and 1827. Significantly, this was one year before the publication of Noah Webster's (1758-1843) classic, An American Dictionary of the English Language. It took about a hundred years for a more modern Slovak dictionary to appear. It was the Slovensky slovn{k z literatury aj nareci (1924-25) containing around 40,000 entries compiled by Karel Kalal (1886-1930) and Miroslav Kalal (1893-1962). A noteworthy dictionary of the thirties was the Slovensky frazeologicky slovnik (Praha - Presov: Ceskoslovenska graficka unia, first edition 1931, second ed. 1933, supplement 1937) produced by Peter Tvrdy (1850-1935). 1 It was under the auspices of the leading Slovak cultural institution, the SLOVAKIA 130 Matica slovenska of Turciansky Svaty Martin, that Anton Janosik (1904-71) and Eugen Jona (b. 1909) had set out to work on a larger dictionary, the Slovn{k spisovneho jazyka slovenskeho (1946-49), which, however, remained uncompleted. The extensive Matica material of around half a million cards was taken over by the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, which has published the first comprehensive dictionary to date, the Slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (1959-68), with Stefan Peciar (1912-1988) as its editor. In the 79,784 entries of its five vo!umes, the SSJ treats 125,302 words covering a period of around 150 years. The material of the rather slim supplementary sixth volume has not been tabulated. Since 1931 urgent needs of Slovak users have been met by the orthographical-grammatical manual, the Pravidla slovenskeho pravopisu (eleventh edition 1971). It is a chronicle of the moving and often also turbulent history of Slovak in modern times. Not unlike a bus, railroad or airline schedule, this book regulates the current usage of Slovak and, with official sanction to back it up, it has enjoyed something of the authority and power of the law. Since, due to their long production periods, dictionaries tend to lag behind the fast pace of vocabulary development and language change, the need began to be felt to bring the SSJ up to date. The result, more accessible to the general public than the six-volume SSJ, is the recent one-volume KSSJ under discussion. On its 555 pages, it treats around 50,000 words including derivations, covering a period of about one-hundred years. II 1. The Kratky slovn{k slovenskeho jazyka (KSSJ) is organized as follows: (a) Entries are printed in boldface type. Incorrect or unacceptable words are, as a rule, but not always, printed in regular type usually followed by a rising arrow ( + ) referring to the correct word form(s) appearing, most of the time, in boldface type, for instance: crawl kraul, and it is under this latter heading that the word is found treated. Let us survey the other possibilities: dopis (letter), sprav. ( =spravne; correctly) list (see point 3e below); + SLOVAKIA 131 kartac (brush), sprav. kefa; pradlo (laundry), sprav. bielizen (see point 3e below); zavazadlo (luggage), sprav. batozina (see point 3e below); vyporiadat' sa (to settle), nespis . ( =nespisovne; non-standard) vyrovnat' sa. It is under the latter words printed in boldface that these cases are treated in KSSJ. In other instances, it is, nonetheless, under the main entry printed in boldface type, although not considered quite acceptable, that the words are treated: blby (stupid), subst. ( = substandardny) sprosty, hlupy; chovat' sa (to behave), vhodnejsie (more suitable) spravat' sa. The following, although synonyms, are handled differently: zavada (defect), vhodnejsie chyba 2; but: vada (defect) 1. sprav. chyba ... In this latter case, each word is, surprisingly, printed in boldface type but, unlike the similar cases above (dopis etc.), the treatment is nevertheless given under the 'incorrect' main entry! In some cases, the word considered 'incorrect' may appear 'correct' in another form. In the following case, the derived adjective is considered 'incorrect,' while the root word is considered 'correct': dielcf (partial), sprav. ciastkovy; but the root word is acceptable: diel (part), cast', ciastka. Similarly: tryskove lietadlo (jet aircraft), sprav. prudove lietadlo, although the word base tryska (jet) is correct or acceptable. Other similar cases: obtiaz (difficulty), sprav. t'azkost'; but the verb obt'azovat' (to trouble) is acceptable; odstavec (paragraph), sprav. odsek; but odstavit' (to set off, to separate) is acceptable; zahajit' (to start, to open), sprav. otvorit', zacat'; but hajit' (to defend) is acceptable: in this case, the word base (the 'correct' hajit') and the derived form (the 'incorrect' zahajit') do not share the same basic meaning. In another case, again, the 'correct' form appears only in one use but not in others: kl'ud (quiet), sprav. pokoj; the latter is no longer listed in the sense of 'room' = izba or its derivative *pokojska (chamber 132 SLOVAKIA maid) = chyzna, the two expunged forms current previously but considered of Czech provenance. Finally, some words - marked with an asterisk here(*) - , previously current but not listed any more in KSSJ, do appear in other forms: *brusle (a pair of skates; now korcule) but bnisit' (to sharpen); *savec (mammal; now cicavec) but sat' (to suck) does exist, although cicat' is considered 'more suitable' (vhodnejsie); *uprchlik (fugitive; now utecenec) but prchat' .. . 2. expr. ( = expresivne; to flee) is included. For more instances, see point 3e below. Some phraseology is also suggested for correction. Under doba, there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( = pracovny) cas . Each correct entry has an abbreviated small-type index attached to it characterizing it as to its respective part of speech. In addition to that, nouns are also marked as to gender and verbs as to whether they are perfective or imperfective, and both nouns and verbs have some basic inflectional forms given. Many nouns of foreign origin have no declension in Slovak, for instance : lady [lejd-] neskl. z (angl.) ( = nesklonne zenske anglicke; not declined, feminine, English). The typography used in KSSJ is not always consistent. In one case, the characteristic is properly in small type: bubenik (drummer) . .. 2. v min. ( =v minulosti; in the past) . In another case, the same characteristic is printed in normal type : notar (notary) .. . 2. v min. For other examples see 3b: policia, zandar. A very helpful item is the indication of the pronunciation of doubtful or difficult cases placed in square brackets following the main entry . Let us stop at the interesting word dekan (dean) . Being of Latin origin, it was first pronounced with the initial hard [d], which was later 'Slovakized' and softened or palatalized to [d'] but now returned to [d] again . In the case of a word having more individual meanings than one, they are numbered with boldface figures: 1. . . . 2 . . . . etc. SLOVAKIA 133 and often illustrated with examples of usage printed in italics. Thus, for instance, under doba there is a phrase: pracovnd d. (working time) vhodnejsie (more suitable) prac. ( =pracovny) cas. Sometimes the division of meanings raises questions, for instance: opera 1. dielo (work); budova (building) ... : why are these totally distinct and separate meanings grouped together, and not under their own numbers, 1., 2.? In the case of a word form belonging to more than one part of speech, each is marked, within the same entry, with boldface Roman numerals: dobre (well) I. rfsl. ( = prfslovka; adverb) . . . II. cast. ( = castica; particle). If the respective separate meanings of a word belong to /a/ totally different semantic areas or to lb / marked stylistic spheres, use is made of small-type characteristics, for instance: /a/ deklinacia ~ ( = zensky; feminine) 1. lingv. ( = lingvisticky) sklonovanie (declension) 2. ~- ( =fyzikalny) .. . /b/ dial' z poet. ( = poeticky) dial'ka (distance). For unknown reasons, there are inconsistencies in the handling of words with more meanings, if one is animate and the other inanimate. In one example, the two meanings are numbered individually under one headword: trampka 1. (woman hiker = animate) 2.(canvas shoes = inanimate). Another case parallel to this one is, however, handled differently, although also under one heading. The headword introduces the animate meaning, while the same word is printed later within the nest, introducing the inanimate meaning: tramp ziv. ( = zivotny; animate) ... tramp neziv. ( = nezivotny; inanimate) tramping; nepodarok ziv. (misfit) . .. nepodarok neziv . (lemon, faulty product; see point 36); starter (anim. = a person giving a sign to start) . .. starter (inanim. = a thing that starts)! Are there any basic differences as to the respective semantic structures of these words, except a difference of gender: trampka feminine, tramp etc . masculine and, with starter, of English origin? SLOVAKIA 134 There are many similar cases in KSSJ, for instance: zehlic ziv. ( = zivotny; animate = he who irons) ... zehlic neziv . ( = nezivotny; inanimate = iron); but: zehlicka 1. (woman ironing) . . . 2. (iron). A small square □ used with verbs is followed by the habitual phraseological combinations . A full, large dot • is followed by idiomatic expressions. (b) Not every word appears as an indepedent entry: words derived from a basic root are, as a rule but not always, grouped in a nest under one main entry and mostly indicated by a suffix, both headword and suffix appearing in boldface type: hokej . . . ; --ovy. Less often, the derived word appears in a full word form : /a/ in the same nest: atletika ... atlet ... atleticky; /bl as an independent entry, irrespective of whether placed immediately after the root word: /i/ hokej ... hokejista . .. hokejka; or alphabetically separated from the root word by several entries: /ii/ skore ... (5 other entries) skorovat', etc . In another possible case, again, a derived word form, alphabetically separated from its headword, is yet treated under the latter. In this instance, an arrow rising to the right points to the main entry word under which to find the derived form treated, for instance: dubcek (little oak) dub. 3 Although in most cases the semantic structure of a derived word form is close to that of the word base, it is not always clear why a derived word immediately following its word base is listed not simply by means of the derivational suffix within one nest but as a separate entry, for instance: hladic (man ironing) hladicka 1. (woman ironing); 2. (iron), and not simply: hladic .. . ; --ka ... (See above for zehlic, zehlicka.) + SLOVAKIA 135 In an exaggerated effort to justify KSSJ's titleKratky (short), the suffixes listed in a nest appear not infrequently too short, creating uncertainty or even confusion as to what they stand for, for instance: basketbal ... ; --ista ... ; --ka. Does this mean that the suffix --ka is simply attached to the headword so as to give *basketbalka? Not at all, for there is no such word in Slovak, at present at least. In reality, the suffix --ka is the feminine variant of the masculine ending in the suffix --ista, so that the actual word has the correct form: basketbalistka. If, instead of the bare --ka, KSSJ had printed at least --tka, the 'mystery' as to the correct derivational form would be easier to solve, indicating that it is the feminine variant of the preceding --ista. KSSJ is teeming with instances of this kind, confusing an uninitiated or foreign user made uncertain as to how the skeleton suffix should be correctly attached to the headword . No wonder or surprisingly, Klara Buzassyova, although an employee of the Linguistics Institute of the Slovak Academy that produced the dictionary, dared to voice her criticism that KSSJ "thus subjects its non-linguistic user to rather great demands. " 4 Let us consider a few striking cases: film, --ovy, --o: does this give, on the analogy of filmovy, also a *filmo? Again, not at all. Since the latter form does not exist, why not make it perfectly clear that the suffix is --ovo? Similarly: komfort, --ny, --e, --ost'. Should this sequence give: komfortny, *komforte, *komfortost'? Again: not at all! Since the forms marked with the asterisk (*) do not exist in present-day Slovak, why not help the user by a very tiny device indeed of adding a mere -n- that would not take up too much additional space at all but would mean quite a difference by indicating that --ne, --nost' stand for the correct forms: komfortne, komfortnost'. Again, so very little is needed to produce a great difference in the case of standardizacia, --acny: should the suffix contain only one more letter : --zacny, there would be no doubt whatsoever that the correct derivation is not a *standardacny or the like but standardizacny . 136 SLOVAKIA As to the independent entry standardny -- itself derived from the earlier entry standard -- : do the suffixes listed in the nest: --e, --ost', stand for: *standarde, *standardost'? Absolutely not at all: these forms do not exist. And once again, a very short extension by one more letter, a mere -n-, requiring very little additional space indeed, would make a substantial difference, benefiting correct usage: --ne, --nost' give the correct standardne, standardnost'. Our choice of these examples of English origin listed in KSSJ has been made with the purpose of facilitating proper understanding by our readers. In this connection, many more examples of this confusing kind could be quoted from the purely Slovak word stock. This brings us finally to the most nonsensical cases of them all: polo, --ovy; plexisklo, --ovy: does the attachment of the suffixes result in: *p6loovy? *plexiskloovy? Let us have a hearty laugh: where they really could have saved space, they did not; they needed more! 2. Abbreviated Verbal Endings. A complication or confusion similar to the one just discussed is created in the following cases. There are a number of pairs of verbs starting with the respective prefixes: za--,zo--, zm--, zn--, s--. A pair consists of one - transitive - verb ending in --it' and the other - intransitive - ending in --iet'. Since the application of the proper form of the ending vowel may cause difficulty, our concern here is with the abbreviated form of the ending as suggested in the text of the KSSJ, the handling of which is not always helpful but rather, as we have seen in several previous instances, confusing and not uniform at all. KSSJ is very helpful in indicating the past tense of some verbs: znecitliviet', znehybniet', znervozniet' (to become insensitive, immobile, nervous) as z--el each. Why then is the past tense not only of zmocniet', znarodniet', zovseobecniet'but also that of zostihlit' (to become stronger, popular, generally known; to make slim) indicated in KSSJ as just z--1, although in reality the past tense of the first three - intransitive - verbs ends in --el, while that of the fourth - transitive - verb ends in --ii? Similarly, the past tense of znevidiet' sa (to dislike) is indicated SLOVAKIA 137 as z--lo; should this represent a form *znevidielo? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. Then why not make it easy for the user by indicating the past tense ending as --elo, that is: znevidelo? Why is it not made perfectly clear that the abbreviated past tense forms of zosilniet' (to get stronger) as indicated in KSSJ: z-1, z--la stand for z--el, z--ela, and not *zosilniel, --a, while zosilnit' (to make stronger), with the same skeleton past tense as above: z--1, stands for z--il? There does not seem to be any system or consistency of approach in the following cases. While, on the one hand, the past tense of zotmiet' sa, zotmit' sa (to get dark) is properly distinguished as, respectively, z--elo sa, z--ilo sa, and that of the synonymous stmiet' sa, stmit' sa as, respectively, s--elo sa, s--ilo sa, in the case of the parallel forms: zatmiet' sa, zatmit' sa (to get dark), on the other hand, the past tense is only indicated by the extreme shorthand form z--lo sa . Does this give a form *zatmielo sa? Not at all: there is no such form in Slovak. An uninitiated user is left 'dangling in the wind,' wondering and at a loss as to what form of the vowel, [i] or [e ], to insert in the skeleton past tense offered in KSSJ z--lo sa, which should be z--elo sa; z--ilo sa, impersonal. Why all these shortcuts, shortcomings, gaps, defects, you may ask? Let Hamlet answer your impatient question: Thrift, thrift, Horatio! (1.2) Or shall we rather tap Polonius' s perspicacity and worldly wisdom in adducing his famous aside: Though this be madness, yet there is method it't (11.2). Is there? 3. The Word Stock of Present-Day Slovak. (a) Vocabulary Growth . The vocabulary of a language is, in a sense, a living organism. During the existence of a language there is growth as well as decay in it going on all the time. This idea was emphasized by Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the 'father' of English lexicography, in his Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It came in answer to those people who asked him to 'fix' the English language once and for all. He was fully aware, however, that this was impossible to do because of the ever-changing nature of language. And vocabulary is its most dynamic area. 138 SLOVAKIA New lexical units are created from the existing material or are admitted from other languages. Other lexical units which are losing their effectiveness or usefulness are replaced or discarded. This is to satisfy the ever-changing needs of the speech community faced with the task of naming new phenomena arising in the course of developments in the socio-political and economic spheres affecting the progress of daily life. The word stock is exceptionally sensitive to all these events which it promptly records. Existing words may, again, extend their scope by adopting new meanings or may be limited in their range by discarding other meanings, and their stylistic status may be reevaluated . This latter phenomenon has been initiated or stimulated more recently as a result of the effort called the 'democratization of language.' In this process, some substandard non-literary 'four-letter' or vulgar or gross expressions, by being admitted into respectful dictionaries of the standard language, have been granted a certain degree of social acceptability, as will be discussed in point 8. The spectacular growth of English can be documented by figures adduced from the impressive expansion of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language . Compared to its first edition of 1966, the second edition published in 1987 (the same year as the first edition of KSSJ) contains in its 315,000 entries 50,000 new items and 75,000 new definitions. This increase in the vocabulary of English, which covers a rather short span of only twenty-one years, is roughly equivalent to the abbreviated word stock of Slovak contained in the KSSJ! And this latter is supposed to cover a period of about one hundred years. Needless to say, Slovak is not likely to see any such massive vocabulary growth within an equal length of time. KSSJ contains around 50,000 entries that include most of the derived word forms grouped in nests under one main heading, as discussed in point la above. In comparison, the five-volume academic Slovnik slovenskeho jazyka (SSJ, 1959-65) treats 125,302 words under 79,784 entries, with additions included in the supplementary sixth volume (1968). It must be considered quite an achievement for a one-volume dictionary, the KSSJ, to cram onto its 555 three-column pages around one third of the material that is treated in the two-column SSJ of six volumes. SSJ contains, of SLOVAKIA 139 course, much more illustrative material gathered from a period of about 150 years, roughly since the establishment of the present literary standard in 1843, while the main concern of KSSJ is to cover the more recent usage of around 100 years. A careful perusal of KSSJ' s word list from A to Z has yielded a very instructive picture of the current state of the Slovak lexicon. Its evaluation offers an idea of the trends and tendencies that have brought it about. The following movements within the word stock of Slovak have been observed. (b) ' Rehabilitated' and Some Missing Words in KSSJ . Many words that around fifty years ago fell out of favor in the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' seem to have been reinstated or 'rehabilitated' - this term being deemed appropriate for the purpose of adequately characterizing certain events or processes taking place, from time to time, in the public life of that geographical area. The boldface type in which these words are printed in KSSJ indicates their present acceptability, although several of them are labeled archaic, bookish (knizne), obsolescent (zastaravajuce), obsolete (zastarane'), colloquial (hovorove'), and substandard. In the following list, the ' rehabilitated' word, printed first, is followed by one that was previously, and is even at present, often considered the more 'correct' of the two: draha = zeleznica (railroad; cf. CSD in 3d ii below) drzy, col. = bezocivy (impudent) hasic, col. = poziarnik (fireman) koktat', col. = zajakavat' sa (to stutter) konat' sa = byt', uskutocnit' sa (to take place) krabica, ~;ubst . = skatul' a (box) krysa = potkan (rat) kuzelnfk = carodejnfk (magician) l'advina = oblicka (kidney) nadrazie = stanica (railroad etc. station) nachadzat' sa = byt' (to be, to exist) neni, subst. = nie je (is not) obnos, subst. = suma (sum) ohl'adne/ohl'adom, obsol. = vo veci (concerning, re) pernik = medovnfk (gingerbread) pocas = cez, za (during) pozde, obsol. = neskoro (late) pravitko = linear, obsolesc. (ruler; cf. c1 below) 140 SLOVAKIA prianie = zelanie (wish) pruh = pas (stripe, strip) rys, book. = crta (feature) rysovat' sa = crtat' sa (to loom) skrz(e) , obsolesc. = pre (for) snad', book. = asi, azda (perhaps) sranda, subst. = fart (joke) st'aznost' = ponosa (complaint) st'azovat' sa = ponosovat' sa (to complain) skrtat' = preciarkovat' (to cross out) svanda, subst. = vtip (joke) tesnopis, obsol. = rychlopis ukol = uloha (task; quota) vafok = vrecko (pocket) vrchny = hlavny (superior) 5 zehlicka = hladicka (iron) ziaden = nijaky (none) zizen, arch. = tuzba (yearning). Out of the 36 words quoted here, 15, that is, well over one third (41.66%) of those printed first are considered out of the mainstream of normal, stylistically unmarked literary Slovak: 5 substandard (subst.), 3 colloquial (col.), 3 obsolete (obsol.), 2 bookish (book.), 1 archaic (arch.), 1 obsolescent (obsolesc.). These words seem to have been resurrected after an earlier eclipse and have been in effect given a new lease on life due to not being labeled as 'incorrect.' This or a similar label would have relegated them to being printed, as a rule but not always, merely in normal type, if they were included at all, as has been discussed in point la above. Some of these pairs are synonymous: prianie - zelanie. In other cases there is some semantic, stylistic or functional differentiation: potkan (zool. Rattus) - krysa (zool. Rathus . .. ; this latter should be Rattus . . . ) denoting also 'an insidious person.' Stanica (railroad station) denotes a broader concept than nadrazie . Many of the above first-printed words seem to be more at home in Czech than in Slovak but, due to the fact that the Slovaks and Czechs live side by side in one state, an importation of words from the numerically predominant Czech into Slovak - the ratio being 2:1 - is unavoidable. There are scores of words that were very popular not so many years ago, definitely in the twenties and thirties: *beza, *cetnik, *paprslek, *pomazanka, *stavka, *valka, *zem, *zmetok. SLOVAKIA 141 In the process of 'Slovakizing Slovak' after 1939, they were replaced with: orgovan, zandar, hie, natierka, strajk, vojna, krajina, nepodarok (for this cf. la) (lilac, gendarme, ray, bread spread, strike, war, country, 'lemon' - faulty product). The first-quoted words (beza etc.) are no longer listed in KSSJ, not even as incorrect ones! It is hard to believe that these words have completely disappeared from, let us say, colloquial Slovak at least, for most of then are still used in Czech and, thus, can still be heard in present-day Slovakia, too. This non-inclusion is especially striking in the case of cetn{k (gendarme). It was the official term used between 1918 and at least 1938-39 and replaced with zandar of French origin. Although the latter is not used as an official term at present, either, it is included in KSSJ nevertheless and can be heard in the folk song "Detvianski zandari" (The gendarmes of Detva). Not used as an official term at present, either, is policia but is still found included and marked as collogu. While the explanation for zandar (v min. aj u nas; used in our area in the past, too) is printed in normal type, with policia the same explanation is printed in small type (u nas v min.; for similar inconsistencies in typography, see bubenik, notar in la). KSSJ does contain many words that refer, like the missing *cetnik, to past realities no longer in existence at present in Slovakia, which fact is explained in the definition of, for instance, zandar. Let us consider pandtir (armed guard in old Hungary), zeman (a member of the lower gentry), etc. Although both these words are equal as to their historicity, for unknown reasons only the latter is provided with the stylistic label hist. ( =historizmus). For ispan hist. , see point 4 below. What is even more surprising is that, out of this random list of eight words, three: *beza, *cetnik, *stavka (over one third), that have no features, phonemic or grammatical, alien to genuine Slovak, have been replaced not with other native Slovak words but with words of foreign origin: orgovan (Turkish), zandar (French gendarme), strajk (English strike), respectively! These cases are even more striking than is the case of pravitko - linear . For, while the native pravitko has been ' rehabilitated, ' it is the foreign synonym 142 SLOVAKIA linear used earlier as a replacement for pravitko that is now considered obsolescent, that is, on the 'way out.' There are more cases of this kind to be recorded: the native words cinovnik, arch. , obnos, subst., etc. have been eclipsed by words of foreign origin: funkcionar, suma (both Latin), respectively, etc. The word *mluvnica, imported from Czech in the nineteenth century, is no longer listed in KSSJ, either, having been replaced with the foreign term gramatika (Latin - Greek)! (c) Changes in the Word-Forming Elements of Slovak. /1/ In the course of the great wave of 'Slovakizing Slovak' itself in the late thirties and the early forties, the substantival suffixes: --citko, --ftko, 6 --iste7 were replaced with, respectively, --adlo, --idlo, --isko. Nevertheless, in accord with the popular saying: 'an exception confirms the rule,' pravitko (ruler), as discussed in 36 above, is again acceptable, probably the only word in present-day Slovak that has been 'exonerated' although retaining the proscribed suffix, while its foreign synonym linear is now considered obsolescent. Let us take a closer look at how this rule has been applied to -adlo, --idlo (previously --citko, --[tko) denoting an 'instrument.' /i/ In some cases, the root is retained: lehatko (sofa), s rav. ( = spravne; correctly) le.zadlo; meritko (measure), s rav. meradlo. There is a deviation from, or exception to, this rule, as could have been expected: lizatko (lollipop), sprav. lizanka (and not *lizadlo, probably not being considered an 'instrument;' the latter form is, nevertheless, a regular word meaning 'a place for animals to lick salt'). Unlike the above cases, the formerly used form *kruzitko (a pair of compasses) is not listed in KSSJ any more, only the new form kruzidlo. /ii/ In other cases, again, a different word is brought in: kukatko (binoculars), s rav. d'alekohl'ad , and not the expected *kukadlo, although the verb still remains: kukat' (to look, to peep); razitko (seal, stamp), sprav. peciatka, although razidlo, razit' (to coin) do exist, but in different meanings; see point (e) below. /iii/ The handling of the replacement of --iste with --isko is uneven. For the most part, the old forms ending in --iste are not SLOVAKIA 143 listed, only the new forms: bojisko, hl'adisko, ihrisko, kupalisko, nalezisko, prekladisko, pristavisko (battlefield, auditorium, playground, swimming pool, place of find, place of reloading, harbor) . Evidently, they denote a 'place, location of action .' Nevertheless, in four cases found at random, the two formulations are placed side by side, as equivalents; surprisingly, the 'old' form is listed first in: schodiste, schodisko (staircase). In most cases, however, the form preferred at present is placed first : nakladisko, nakladiste (loading place), skladisko, skladiste (warehouse), zoradisko, zoradiste (place of filing or assembly). /2/ As to the suffix --Iy previously used as an ending of adjectives and passive verbal participles, it has been replaced in most cases with as many as three other forms: --ny, --ty, --nuty, respectively: *urastly (grown up), *zastaraly (outdated, obsolete) have changed into urasteny, zastarany; *opadly (fallen off), *zapadly (far-off; buried, hidden) have become opadnuty, zapadnuty. Nevertheless, we do find in KSSJ a form: usadly (settled) which, according to the above principle, should be *usadeny or *usadnuty, these latter two forms are not, however, listed in KSSJ. Nor do we find there an analogous form *posadly but only the organic and expected posadnuty (possessed) . While the form uplynuly (past) is labeled kniz . ( =knizny; bookish), the form minuly (past), although ending in --ly, is an adjective to be distinguished from the form minuty, which is the passive participle of the verb minut' (sa) (to spend; to pass) . (d) Dictionary Making and Politics. In order for us to assess the make-up of KSSJ correctly, we have to take into consideration the conditions under which this dictionary was compiled and published, that is, in a country where linguistic matters have not infrequently been approached as political matters at the same time. The slogan, " Na Slovensku po slovensky" [(Use) Slovak in Slovakia], was a powerful weapon in the late 144 SLOVAKIA thirties in the political struggle for an autonomous and ultimately an independent Slovakia. Let us further illustrate our argument. On the one hand, KSSJ is to some extent to be complimented for listing a number of especially American acronyms that may not always be readily understood by an average foreigner. 8 Those listed include: AP skr. ( = skratka; abbreviation) Associated Press; UPI [ju-pi-aj] skr. United Press International; CIA [si-aj-ej] skr. Central Intelligence Agency. So far, so good but here comes the rub: the English text is rendered as "Ostredna vyzvedna sluzba," which, in its turn, means: 'central spying agency,' mistranslating the word "intelligence," which actually means 'spravodajska.' On the other hand, the parallel CIC [si-aj-si] skr. Counter Intelligence Corps is rendered as "Vojenska tajna sluzba, '' which, again, means 'military secret service.' All of this looks inconsistent and even confusing. On the other hand, a correct literal translation is accorded the FBI [ef-bi-aj] skr. Federal Bureau of Investigation, rendered as "Federalny vysetrovaci urad." Thus, in the case of the CIA and CIC, a free characteristic has been substituted for a literal translation. The FBI could just as suitably have been rendered as 'Federalna policia. ' By inappropriately using the loaded word "vyzvedna" (spying) and thus editorializing, instead of merely translating the acronym CIA, the KSSJ compilers have introduced their political bias. This becomes more pronounced in view of the opposite fact, namely, that they have 'omitted' to list the CIA's Soviet counterparts, the KGB and its well-known predecessors, the NKVD, GPU, and Ceka, undoubtedly included in books dealing with USSR history. Quite the same 'approach' to the CIA has been adopted by Maria lvanova-Salingova in her Maly slovnik cudzich slov (A Small Dictionary of Foreign Words; Bratislava 1972), except that she does list the NKVD and the Ceka. Neither of these dictionaries lists, as could have been expected, the internationalized Russian acronym for GULAG that has become universally known through Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three-volume book, The Gulag Archipelago (1974-78), so far only published in the West but about to be brought out by the Soviet monthly Novij Mir "this year," SLOVAKIA 145 that is, 1989. 9 Thus, the Soviets themselves seem to be starting to show more openness (glasnost') about their society, while the editors of KSSJ seem to have been hampered by some fear that by including terms like GULAG they might be accused of divulging some unspecified 'state secrets. ' As to other topical Russian terms missing in KSSJ, see point 4 below . In this connection, P.B. Cove's comment in his Preface to Webster 3 (1961) is highly pertinent: Accuracy in addition to requiring freedom from error and conformity to truth requires a dictionary to state meanings in which words are in fact used, not to give editorial opinion on what their meanings should be (p.4a). Another case with which issue must be taken is the term cechoslovakizmus and its definition in KSSJ as burz. ideologicko-polit. koncepcia hlasajuca narodnu jednotu Cechov a Slovakov a popierajuca samobytnost' Slovakov (a bourgeois ideological-polit. concept promulgating the national unity of the Czechs and the Slovaks and denying the Slovaks their individuality). A check in KSSJ's ' ancestor' of twenty-eight years ago, volume one of the academic SSJ (1959), has been most revealing: it limits the application of this term to the period of the first 'bourgeois' Czechoslovakia, that is, the period from 1918 to 1938-39, which makes quite a difference. Let us ponder the implications of the KSSJ definition by considering briefly the tragic fate of Vladimir Clementis (1902-52) . He was as dedicated a Slovak communist as any . After the mysterious 'leap' of Jan Masaryk from his window in Prague in 1948, Clementis became Czechoslovakia's foreign minister. In 1952 he was executed for having been found 'guilty,' among others, of the ' crime' of Slovak 'bourgeois nationalism,' which should be the antithesis of the above 'bourgeois Czechoslovakism.' Nonetheless, contrary to that, Clementis was neither a 'bourgeois,' nor did he advocate a complete separation of the Slovaks from the Czechs . As is well known by now, how ever, those who sent Clementis to the gallows committed that heinous homicide from, basically, the same positions as are attacked in the above definition, that is, "cechoslovakizmus," with that ' minor' difference, however, that 146 SLOVAKIA it was not 'bourgeois,' but of another color. The KSSJ qualification of the term "cechoslovakizmus" as only 'bourgeois' is, thus, strikingly one-sided and incorrect. In this way KSSJ has somewhat blurred the distinction between an encyclopedia and a dictionary. Instead of these misguided excursions into politics, KSSJ should have totally concentrated on perfecting the linguistic apparatus of the included words - the primary function of a dictionary - so as to be of utmost help to the average user of Slovak and 'particularly the pupils and students' (p. 11), as the editors themselves claim, in the cases of uncertainty regarding the many exceptions and variant forms in grammar and spelling for which Slovak is notorious, and even feared, among its less language-conscious and foreign users. As our critique of KSSJ has brought to light, there would have been ample opportunity to do just that. It has not been done sufficiently well. The contradictions of the existing political setup that might fall to some extent under the above definition of "cechoslovakizmus" will become evident in three more instances taken from KSSJ. /i/ The composition of the acronym for the Czechoslovak News Agency, CSTK, is rendered as "Ceskoslovenska tlafova kancelaria. '' This form of the acronym is used, for instance, in the Slovak daily Pravda of Bratislava, while the Czech daily Rude prdvo of Prague, unlike the KSSJ and Pravda, prints only CTK, which in this connection should stand for "Ceska tiskova kancelar" (Czech News Agency). /ii/ Similarly, the acronym CSD originally, in Czech, stood for "C(eskoslovenske) S(tatnf) D(rahy)" (Czechoslovak State Railroads). This should be rendered in Slovak, at best, as CSD, that is, "C(eskoslovenske) S(!:atne) D(rahy)." CSD could also be interpreted as representing "C(es_!<ol S(lovenske statne) D(rahy)," which should actually result in CSSD, analogically to the above CSTK. Both renderings use the word "Drahy," instead of the more appropriate Slovak term "zeleznice" (railroads; see point 3b above). /iii/ The third case concerns the popular blend Sazka made up of the initial elements of the Czech words "sazkova kancelaf" (betting office). In Slovak, the equivalent words are "stavkova kancelaria" and the corresponding Slovak blend would be simply Stavka. This form would have, however, clashed with the now pro- SLOVAKIA 147 scribed and unlisted word *stavka replaced with strajk (of English origin; see point 3b above), although stavka is acceptable in the relevant sense of 'bet.' Regrettably, the composition of another popular blend known throughout the world, tuzex (a hard currency store), although listed in KSSJ, is not given. Let us venture to suggest the elements visible to the 'naked' eye of an uninitiated observer: tuz ( = tuzemsky - Czech for 'inland' ) ex ( =export). (e) Vacant Slots. Our indepth look into the vocabulary of contemporary Slovak as presented in KSSJ has uncovered some gaps or vacant slots in its make-up . /1/ There are a few words that look like derived ones but the supposed derivational base does not exist, in contemporary Slovak at least; or even the other way round: /2/ Although a derivational base is considered acceptable or correct, some derivations from that base acceptable previously are classified as unacceptable now. Let us discuss a few instances: /1/ The verb related to the noun is either incorrect or not used in Slovak: dopisovatel' (correspondent), pisaf (to write) but dopis (letter), dopisovat' si (to correspond, to write) are labeled incorrect (see point la above); dotaz (question, inquiry), obsolescent; dotaznik (questionnaire), otazka (question), otaznik (question mark) but *(d)(o)tazat' sa, *dotazovat' sa (to ask) are not listed; nalez (find, finding), nalezisko (place of find), vynalez (discovery, invention) but *naliezt' (to find) is not listed; nemluvna (toddler), bookish but *mluva (speech), *mluvnica (grammar; see point (b) above), *(ne)mluvit' ([not] to speak) are not listed; posluchac (listener), poslucharen (auditorium), sluch (hearing), shichadlo (telephone receiver; earphone) but *(po )sluchat' (to listen) is not listed; spesnina (railroad express delivery) but *spechat' (to hasten, to hurry) is not listed; 148 SLOVAKIA zloba (hatred, enmity) but *zlobit' (to anger, to irritate) is not listed, the respective meanings of the noun and the verb not being quite identical. For more similar cases (dielci, odstavec, etc.) see point la above, and 3c1ii (for kukatko, razitko) . /2/ The verb is correct in one sense but not in another: the noun riaditel' (director) is correctly derived from the verb riadit' (to direct); since the latter has been labeled as incorrect in the sense of 'to operate a motor vehicle,' the previously used derivation *riadic (driver, chauffeur) is no longer listed . Somewhat similar are the following two cases. Batozina (luggage) and bielizen (laundry) have replaced, respectively, zavazadlo, pradlo labeled incorrect, although they were quite popular in the not too distant past and although they are derived from verbs considered correct even at present: zaviazat' (to tie), prat' (to do the laundry, to wash). See point la above. Similarly, jazdit' (to go, ride, travel), vytkmit' (to expostulate) are correct but not *odjazd (departure), *vytka (censure, reprimand) replaced with, respectively, odchod, vycitka. Out of the words quoted above, those marked with the asterisk (*) and those italicized, although not current in contemporary Slovak, do occur in Czech, albeit in a somewhat different form appropriate for the Czech language. A somewhat parallel situation obtains in the case of the phrase panelova diskusia . 10 It is an exact Slovak rendering of the English phrase "a panel discussion." In this case, however, the expected word base *panel, in the sense of the English 'panel, group, ' does not yet exist in Slovak, and is only used in the architectural sense of' a prefabricated building block.' Here we may witness the germ of a potential future extension of the present meaning of the word panel, which KSSJ may be anticipating or forestalling. See point Sb below. (f) Consistency in Spelling. The cases discussed above point first of all to one conclusion. If the need to observe consistency is an obvious virtue expected in any and every kind of activity, lexicographical work is no exception. On the contrary, the latter's social and cultural respon- SLOVAKIA 149 sibility is the greater, for its product, a dictionary, is expected to be used not only by thousands but even by millions of people. And it is in this respect that the new dictionary, KSSJ, leaves a lot to be desired. An area of conspicuous inconsistency is that of spelling. Why the different forms: a priori but apropo? tvid but twist? lutz (and not *luc) when salchov (and not *salchow)? It looks somewhat forced and incongruous, if not outright ridiculous to insist on the spelling biblia, and not *Biblia, at least in the religious sense of 'Bible,' the more so since initial capitals have been duly applied in Svate pismo (Holy Writ), as well as Stary zakon (OT) and Novy zakon (NT) inconsequentially interpreted as "cast' bib lie." No explanation seems to have been given for the use of the semi-French spelling in resume (correctly resume), while the verb is rezumovat'. It is a shame indeed or maybe only hilarious that the acronym for the ruling 'fraternal' party of the close socialist neighbor and ally to the north-west, SED, is transliterated and divided with a lot of mistakes as Socialistische Eintheitspartei Deut-schland, instead of the correct Sozialistische Einheitspartei Detsch-lands. With Slovak luckily not being current in the GDR and, thus, KSSJ not being in 'danger' of coming into mass use there, this faux pas may go unnoticed there and not cause any 'fraternal' falling out. Similarly, the last word in the transliteration of the acronym UNESCO is incorrectly divided and transliterated as Organizations, instead of the correct Organization, while the Slovak text has the correct singular: Organizacia. The same last word in NATO is correctly divided, though, yet wrongly spelled as Organisa-tion. They do get it right in their third attempt, that is, in the transliteration of such unexpected and 'indispensable' an inclusion as is SEATO where the last word is at last properly spelled and divided: Organi-zation! Let us close this point by adding a preliminary observation to the effect that there is not only no apparent consistency but rather a considerable uncertainty, vacillation, and even chaos as to the proper spelling of many words of English origin that have entered 150 SLOVAKIA the Slovak language in considerable numbers. More will be said about this matter in a subsequent article. 4. Choice of Words. This is not a mean task that confronts the compilers of any dictionary but especially one that bears in its title the crucial word Kratky (Short). The cardinal question is a Hamletian one: to include/exclude, or not to include/exclude. A viable approach would be one on the basis of a frequency count of words as has been compiled by Jozef Mistrik in his book Frekvencia tvarov a konstrukcii v slovencine (Bratislava 1985). In any case, the saying does apply: "Damned if you include/exclude and damned if you don't exclude/include," for nearly each user of KSSJ will find one or more of his or her favorite or pet words missing. Let me quote just a few: *kabala, *megalopolis, *ovomaltina (a popular cocoa-like beverage), *polucia (involuntary ejaculation), *potapka, slg. (dandy), *Slovac (the Slovaks), *svitok or *zvitok (scroll), *svajciarsky (while there is, for inst., svedsky and even bengalsky) - this latter mainly for the sake of the proper placing of the diacritical marks, *siamsky, *sibirsky, *zagniavit' (to trample), perfective, to go with gniavit', imperf., and of course, last but not least, the very topical twosome that has spread recently all over the world: *glasnost' and *perestrojka! (See *GULAG in 3d.) 11 The words of English origin missing in KSSJ will be discussed in a subsequent article. On the other hand, the user of KSSJ may wonder about the necessity of including such highly specialized words hardly ever met with in common daily conversation or reading, such as: lewisit, selsyn, torr, etc. While these are foreign loans in Slovak, I wonder how many of our non-specialist readers know what they mean . The following is a very much more down-to-earth area, of increasing interest. KSSJ lists names of several current automobile makes: fiatka, mercedeska, moskvic, simka, skoda, tatra, trabant, volga, wartburg, zigulik, as well as the former or 'late' pragovka and tatraplan. SLOVAKIA 151 It is surprising that the name of the very prototype of all subsequent motorcars and one that is practically synonymous with the latter generic term, the legendary *fordka, is missing; in popular language it seems to have been replaced with the form *ford, also unlisted. So, too, is the name of the earlier popular Czech make *aerovka, no longer manufactured. On the other hand, KSSJ does teem with words the reality behind which belongs to a more or less remote past, for instance, is pan hist . ( = historizmus) royal governor of a county (in old, pre-1918 Hungary; for *cetnik, see 3b above). KSSJ includes the names of Euklides and Pytagoras; yet, for instance, the equally prestigious and deserving *Archimedes, to name just one, is missing, although his name does occur in the phrase Archimedova veta and the 2200th anniversary of his death in 212 B.C. was celebrated world-wide in 1988. The compilers of KSSJ seem to have more confidence in, or a better experience with, the tranquilizer dinyl, while excluding the universally popular *aspirin, which may have changed its name to, or been replaced with, acylpyrin. 5. Definition of Word Meanings. (a) KSSJ has adopted a useful device, namely, to make the meanings of words clearer by means of references to antonyms or opposites, for instance: polygamia _Qp. ( = opozitum) monogamia, and vice versa; zastarany (obsolete, outdated) QE_. moderny - in this case a native word is elucidated in contrast to a foreign word. (b) Missing Meanings . The entry cent does not include a reference to its function as part of the U.S. currency . - Mancovat' sa used to mean, in youngsters' lingo, also 'vyt'ahovat' sa, vystatovat' sa' (to show off). - Napinak, in students' slang, used to stand for 'napomienka' (reprimand) . The meaning 'krajina' (country; region, county), previously expressed also by means of the word zem (earth), is not even listed as inappropriate with this latter word . For panel, see point 3e end, above. 152 SLOVAKIA (c) Wrong Meanings. Is omsa (mass), according to KSSJ, part of only the Catholic church service? Evidently, the compilers are not church goers. While zhnit' means 'to rot,' zhnite poriadky cannot mean "zastarane," that is, 'an outdated setup/order.' Would Marcellus have meant the latter with his famous "Something is rotten ( =outdated?) in the state of Denmark"? (Hamlet, 1.4). Hardly. (d) Appellatives. Some of the KSSJ compilers must be fond of figure skating. This is made more than obvious by the inclusion of at least four terms: axel, lutz, rittberger, salchov. 12 They are explained as deriving from the names of their respective first figure-skating practitioners: Axel Paulsen, A. Lutz, W. Rittberger, U. Salchow. As to the inconsistency in spelling some of these terms, see 3f above. The procedure of explaining some common words as deriving from personal names, as exemplified above, has not been generally, uniformly or systematically observed throughout KSSJ. Let us offer just two examples of popular words at this point. The fact that brovning, a type of pistol, derives its name from the American Browning is left unmentioned. Equally unmentioned is the fact that the popular brand of bread, graham, owes its name to the American S. Graham. Significantly, the vast majority of appellatives derived from English and American names has remained unexplained. Why? The reasons are obvious. Details will be given in a subsequent article. 6. Wrong Ordering. Wrong alphabetic sequence: kuzlo (magic) should be preceded, and not followed, by kuzlit' (to cast spells). 7. Stylistic Labeling. KSSJ is very generous in applying stylistic labels. An outsider may often wonder about the criteria that govern the application of that stylistic yardstick. In this respect, only the following cases, noticed at random, need correction. SLOVAKIA 153 Hattrick is not a publ. ( =publicisticky; journalistic) term but one from the realm of sports, and this is how it is labeled in the academic SSJ VI.37. The term apartheid comes from Afrikaans. It applies only to South Africa, which fact is not pointed out. KSSJ uses pairs of synonymous stylistic labels, one member being foreign, the other native, the distinction between them not being made very clear, as shown in this English rendering: archaic - obsolete (zastarany), vulgar - gross (hruby), substandard - non-literary (nespisovny). Inconsistencies in, and an outright neglect of, labeling many words as coming from American English, to be distinguished from British English, will be discussed in a subsequent article. 8. 'Four-Letter' Words. I must disappoint you, for we are not going to quote them here. We have to speak about them without them. Suffice it to say that it came as a rude shock for us to run into these expressions on the pages of the 'authoritative' KSSJ! The total of the words of this kind found in the dictionary is about twenty-five, including nine root words used as bases from which more 'four-letter' words are derived by means of additional suffixes and prefixes. One very 'fertile' word base has produced as many as six derivatives! Since these words are subject to the same rules of grammar and word formation as any other 'normal' word, you may wonder and ask with Juliet: What's in a name? (Romeo and Juliet, 11.2). Let us tell you and try to satisfy your curiosity. These peripheral words denote organs and activities of the human body (sex, excretion). Fortunately, those expressions selected (by a committee?) for inclusion in KSSJ do not belong to the hard-core obscene type that has deservedly been excluded but are of the 'milder' sort. What is to be discussed here, in spite of the rather small number of these words and their relatively 'milder' offensive nature, is the 'wisdom' and effect of their inclusion in a dictionary enjoying official sanction and one that is addressed, as stated in the introduction to KSSJ, "especially to pupils and students ... " (p. 11, section I. 1). 154 SLOVAKIA The professed goal of KSSJ is 'to contribute to raising the culture of language' by means of 'a strict selection of lexical units' deriving from the literary language. This does 'not allow the inclusion of words and phrases that are marginal, exclusive or isolated.' Yet, it is in the very same breath that the stated principle is violated, for they go on to speak, somewhat apologetically, it is true, about 'the merely exceptional (sic) inclusion of terms that are narrowly specialized, dialectal, slang, archaic, and rare,' while failing to refer to the fact of a simultaneous inclusion of vulgar and gross expressions. In so doing, they cherish a curious but misguided hope of 'improving' upon the stylistic standing of these marginal, substandard lexical elements. And I have failed to come across as yet any article whatsoever discussing these terms. It is highly doubtful whether the inclusion of vulgar and gross terms is one of those vaunted means of 'raising the culture of language' and whether their being admitted into non-vulgar lexical company will take the edge of vulgarity and grossness off these words. It is illogical indeed to argue, as they do, that the 'cultural level will be raised,' while in so doing they are, ironically, lowering the standards: the actual effect of the action is the exact opposite of the twisted expectation. It is a curious 'revolutionary' idea indeed to expect that culture can be raised by the help of, among others, vulgarity and grossness! Since KSSJ has the backing of the highest political authorities in the country and has been produced by the leading official language institution, there is no doubt that such a momentous decision as the one to include vulgar and gross terms must itself enjoy, directly or indirectly, the sanction of the highest authorities. If we give this even the minimum of thought, we cannot but conclude that it is a sorry state of affairs when the professed goal of 'raising the culture of language' is subverted by those very people who make this claim. We wonder, however, to what extent this 'loosening up' has been prompted, among others, also by the recent trend - in American lexicography! Our curiosity in this respect is prompted by the fact that the stated goals of KSSJ (1987) are, strangely, very close indeed to those formulated in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1961, which "has been prepared with a constant regar9- for the needs of the high school and col- SLOVAKIA 155 lege student . . . The dictionary more than ever is the indispensable instrument of understanding and progress." (Preface). With KSSJ being addressed, like Webster 3, 'especially to pupils and students,' there is one single, straightforward question to be put to the compilers: Are the pupils and students, in their oral presentations in class and in written tests, as well as at home, supposed to be free to use any of the words listed in KSSJ, including the vulgar and gross terms? Will the use, by the students or anyone else, for that matter, of these latter terms contribute to 'raising their cultural standard'? Our answer: Hardly so. To us all this appears like a very dubious proposition. Once a vulgar or gross word makes its entry into a dictionary, especially one that aims at achieving prestige, the dubious word itself comes to enjoy some of that prestige, too, for hardly anyone among non-specialists pays attention to stylistic labels, in the same way as an average dictionary user very seldom takes the trouble of reading the introduction to a dictionary, however short the latter may be. It seems as if these items - an introduction and stylistic labeling - are included in a dictionary merely to please and appease the specialist. Out of these roughly nine root words appearing in twentyfive word forms, most are labeled "hrube" (gross) and the other again 'vulgar' in KSSJ. Let us see how these two labels are applied to other cases. Used in the sense of 'nipple, teat, pap,' the word cecok is a regular, ' normal,' stylistically unmarked word. When employed to refer to a female breast, however, it is labeled 'vulgar.' The adjective teply (warm), besides its regular, 'normal' functions, is used in its fifth function to denote a 'homosexual,' which usage is labeled 'gross' (hrube) in KSSJ. It seems that on the strength of the four 'positive' functions, this fifth use of the word teply, rather than to be termed 'gross,' should be considered a euphemism. This can also apply to the English gay, which, surprisingly also in its fifth, and last, sense denotes a 'homosexual' labeled 'slang' in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969). It seems that the academic SSJ IV.449 is closer to the mark when labeling teply - in its fifth sens here, too, - 156 SLOVAKIA as 'lower colloquial,' while the other 'gross' words of KSSJ are labeled ' vulgar' in the academic SSJ. On the other hand, it is far from clear why one word, cecok, is labeled 'vulgar' in KSSJ, while the other words of this group are termed 'gross,' both labels, "hruby" (gross) - "vulgarny, " being defined as synonymous in KSSJ . CONCLUSION Forty years ago, the late A.V. Isacenko formulated the tasks of the linguists, including lexicographers, in this way: ' to direct actively the development of language, . . . to democratize the standard language. ' 13 'Democratization' does not mean 'vulgarization.' Linguists, thus, have a great responsibility not merely to record their language passively but, as specialists, to get actively, constructively, and positively involved in the creative shaping of its development. NOTES *For their valuable comments o n this review essay, I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Louise B. Hammer of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, the editor Dr. M. Stolarik, and some colleagues in Bratislava, wh o wish to remain anonymou s. For an earlier review of the KSSJ by J.M . Kochik, see Slovakia 33 (1987-88), pp. 108-109. 1 Matilda Hayekova, Dejiny slovenskych slovn{kov do r. 1945. Bra tislava 1979. 2 Vincent Blanar in his review of the KSSJ, Slovenskti rec, 53 (1988), No. 3, p . 185: " ... preco su slova chyba, porucha vhodnejsie ako ztivada, ked' sa tie slova vyznamove celkom nekryju . . . ?" 3 A cryptic allusion to Alexander Du bcek here? 4 In her review of the KSSJ, Slavica slovaca, 23 (1988), No . 3, p. 279. 5 Viera Slivkova, " Vrchny rozhod ca, vrchna sestra - hlavny rozhodca, hlavna sestra? " Kultura s/ova, 21 (1987), No. 4, pp . 126-27. 6 Stefan Peciar, "Slovenske ekvivalenty ceskych vyrazov na --tko," ibid ., 2 (1968), No. 10, pp. 329-35. 7 Ferd inand Buffa , " Slova na --isko, --iste v spisovnej slovencine, " Slovenske odbome ntizvoslovie, 6 (1958), No. 5, pp . 129-32. 8 Ma tej Povazaj, "Skratky a znacky a ich spracova nie v KSSJ," Kultura slova, 18 (1984), No. 7, pp . 225-31 . 9 David Remnick, " Soviet Journal To Publish ' Gulag'," Th e Washington Post -Style, April 21, 1989, CI, C9 . SLOVAKIA 157 10 Jan Horecky, " Co je panelova diskusia?" Kultura slova , 18 (1984), No . 10, pp. 380-81 . 11 For glasnost', see the Pravda (Bratislava), January 19, 1989, p . 2. --In an editorial, ' 'V znameni prestavby, ' ' the term ''glasnost'' ' is not mentioned at all in Slavia s/ovaca, 23 (1988), No. 2, pp . 113-14. 12 Alena Anettova, " Axel, Rittberger - axel, rittberger," Kultura slova, 20 (1986), No . 3, pp. 84-86. 13 A.V. Isacenko, " Zaklady materialistickej jazykovedy," Slovenska rec, 15 (1949-50), Nos . 3-4, p . 71. This article was written before Czecho-Slovakia' s 'velvet revolution ' of 17 November 1989. A Slovak version is to be published in the PohVzdy (Montreal) .  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: Ján Kačala, Mária Pisárčiková et al., Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka Description An account of the resource Ján Šimko Slovakia, Vol. 34 (No. 62-63), 1989-90 pp. 129-157 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Šimko, Ján, 1920-2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-90 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/96c88b0c43ad0dee0c1922896b17068a.pdf 9a5cce28c1f8b40e16f0754233eab5dc PDF Text Text 58 SLOVAKIA ELEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OF PRAYERFUL SONG A Survey of Slovak Church Music BY ,SISTE R M. PASCH AL , SS. C. M. Characterized from the very dawn of history as a singing people, the 'S lovaks readily consecrated this talent to God's service when the glad tidings of the Gospel were brought to them more than eleven hundred years ago. Christianization of the Slovaks dates back to the ninth century, to the consecration of the first Catholic church, built by Prince Pribina in Nitra in 833. Thereafter, down through the centuries, the Slovak people have been praising God with hymns and songs. In prosperity and in adversity, in the humble church of an obscure village as well as in a baroque cathedral like that of Kosice, at the simple tasks about the home as well as on festive pilgrimages, centuries ago as well as in our own day the hymn and the chant are offered to God by generation after generation of Slovak Catholics. In recent times Slovak congregational singing attracted considerable attention during the pilgrimages which the Federation of Slovak Catholics sponsored to shrines in Canada, New York, Philadelphia, Scranton, and Washington, D. C. Onlokers were frankly amazed at the spectacle. Rarely, if ever, had they seen such large groups united in prayerful song. It is truly an inspiration to hear the Slovaks sing at their religious services especially where there is congregational participation. How did the ancestors of Modern Slovaks develop their religious music and how closely does it follow the spirit of the liturgy ? From the earliest Christian era the Catholic Church has solicitously guarded the art and purity of music in Her public worship. In this respect Church authori'ties in Slovakia were exceptionally vigilant. The Byzantine rite with its exquisitely melodic liturgy was introduced amonf the Slovaks by SS. Cyril and Methodius in 863. Through their apostles the Slovak people likewise learned to foster a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion which is so deeply rooted among the �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks that in most of their churches it is still customary for the Rosary Society to sing Marian hymns in public procession after High Mass on the first Sunday of the month. The saintly brothers translated the missal (Kievsky misal), the ritual (Euchologium Sinajske), the breviary and a collection of liturgical hymns (strumicky oktoich) into Old Slavonic. When they visited Rome to confer with the Holy Father, Pope Adrian LI placed these liturgical books on the Blessed Virgin's altar and blessed them. Then he permitted SS. Cyril and Methodius to use the Slavonic language in the Hturgy. "Hospodine, pomiluj ny," whose author very likely was St. Methodius himself, is the only hymn preserved from that period. For several centuries the development of religious music was halted by persecutions directed against the Old Slavonic liturgy and sterile period followed. By the twelfth century, however, various diocesan synods began to approve directives for liturgical singing. A summary of the most important of these would include the following: In 1114 the Synod of Ostrihom legislated that only hymns approved by Church authorities be used in the churches. In 1494 the Synod of Nitra directed that Holy Mass be accompanied with singing in all parish churches. The Synod of Trnava in 1560 commanded under pain of censure that no hymns either in the vernacular or in Latin be admitted for church use unless it could be ascertained that they had been approved by ecclesiastical authorities over a hundred years ago, lest the faithful by 'their very attraction to exercises of devotion be misled into heresy. In 1638 the Synod of Trnava char.ged a committee of competent musicians to collect liturgical hymns sung by the people and have them presented to Church authorities for approval and publication. This measure was needed to guard against the infiltration of Protestant influence which tried to establish itself with the seventeenth century's creation and importation of new homes. Composers of proved merit contributed to ~andard collections of �60 SLOVAKIA Slovak hymns and preserved acceptable manuscript copies. One such manuscript collection was Antifonae et cantiones variae cum notis musicis Slavonice et latine. rt comprises 338 sheets of copy. Another which is dated 1657 was Cantilenae conventus Lauritani ord. Serv. B. V. M. An even greater revival was brought about when the Slovak Jesuits founded the Catholic University of Trnava in 1635. In accordance with the prescriptions of the Council of Trent (1545-1'563) they collected the ancient Slovak liturgical hymns and prepared for the press the first printed Slovak hymnal Cantus Catholici. lt was published in two editions: in 1655 and in 1700 and it has been proved that its compiler was a Slovak Jesuit, Benedikt Szollossi (1601:J1656). Cantus Catholici has three hundred eighteen pages of unisonous hymns. Of these, sixty-two are Latin and two hundred twenty-seven are Slovak. In 1937 Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky revived about seventy hymns from the threehundred-year-old Cantus Catholici by introducing a modernized form of them in the Jedno,tny katolicky spevnik of which we shall speak presently. Cantus C3itholici is uniquely valuable from the musical standpoint inasmuch as its sources are traceable to Gregorian Chant. The ancient Slovak hymns preserved in it exemplify the use of tropes among the Slavs as early as the close of the Middle Ages. Tropes, of course, are a more or less poe'tical commentary that is woven into the liturgical text, forming with it a complete unit ; it is an interpolation in a liturgical text or the embellishment brought about by such interpolation, that is, insertions or additions. Let us take the Kyrie E1eison from tlhe Ordinary of the Mass as an example. On the last syllable of the "Kyrie" where a melisma was sung, a phrase or a stanza was composed to fit the melisma. In this way some additional text was inserted between the "Kyrie" and the "eleison." Consequently, a melismatic Kyrie had nine stanzaic insertions. The Gregorian Kyrie II in mode 3 carried this interpolation thus: Kyrie - fons bonitatis, Pater ingeniti, a quo cuncta procedunt - eleison. The Cau.tus Catholici has a �SLOVAKIA 61 closely paralleled translation of this interpolation: Hospodine, studnice dobrotj, Otce nerozeny, od teba wssecko dobre pochazi - smiluj sa natl nami. This is one example of how the ancient vernacular hymns of the Slovaks were developed in Gregorian style, characterized pricipally by the use of modal modulations and cadences ending on the dominant. It is interesting to note that a number of Slovak folk songs (of which there are some 40,000) were also developed in the same manner. The Latin preface of the Cantus Catholici points out the fact that the liturgy was performed in the vernacular at the altar and in choir. The hymns and psalms taug,ht in church were frequently repeated with much spirit at recreation and feasts, in the vineyards and in the field. In the course of time manuscripts of church music were collected by interested individuals. Outstanding among the composers and compilers were Pavlin Bajan (1783), a Franciscan; and later Andrej Radlinsky and Frantisek Sasinek, two priests who made a noteworthy contribution by their 1872 publication of Vseobecna sbierka cirkevnych katolickych pesniciek slovenskych, which contained 1,047 hymns. The Society of St. Adalbert commissioned Frantisek Matzenauer, a priest director, and Joseph Mathulay, an organist, to write the accompaniments for the above mentioned collection. The result was Duchovny spevnik katolicky (1882). In response to the November 22, 1903 "Motu Proprio" of St. Pius X , a national hymnal entitled Nabozny kresfan containing 400 hymns was compiled by Msgr. Andrej Hlinka and Joseph Chladek in 1906. A unique contribution to Catholic Slovak hymnody is the voluminous Jednotny katolicky spevnik (1937). lt was projected at a meeting held by the Society of St. Adalbert on March 8, 1921, when in the presence of three newly consecrated Slovak bishops and at their direction it was resolved to compile and publish a new hymnal. Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky, a highly reputable Slovak composer, was commissioned to harmonize and arrange the Slovak hymns. Committees on liturgy, literature, and hymnody collaborated with Schneider-Trnavs'ky in this re- �62 SLOVAKIA sponsible undertaking. For ten years they devoted themselves to the dedicated work of collecting the treasures of Slovak Church music, to discriminate, to discard whatever might be classified as undesirable and to preserve or to restore all that was worthy. The Committees observed the directives contained in the "Motu Proprio" of Pope Pius X and in the "Apostolic Constitution (December 22, 1928) of Pope Pius XI. The extensive bibliography enumerates references to thirty-three printed hymnals and onehundred-four printed manuals and prayer books; six manuscript collections of hymns without melodies and ten manuscript collections with melodies. All these were studied with scholarly diligence. Of the five hundred forty-one hymns listed in the index of the Jednotny katolicky spevnik those devoted to Christmas, Lent, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Blessed Virgin Mary are most largely represented. The contents are arranged according to the liturgical year with specific recommedations for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, for liturgical processions, and for various other religious functions. Out of consideration for the needs of the congregation, the limitations of school children, and the abilities of trained choirs who would use the hymnal, the compiler also included carols, hymns for pilgrimages, choral Slovak Mass hymns, and Latin hymns. It may be asked what qualities characterize Slovak liturgical and reltgious hymns. Careful study will show that it is their singular charm to have those very characteristics which are recommended in the "Musicae Sacrae Disciplina" (December 25, 1955) of Pope Pius Xfil. Slovak hymns confirm fully to Christian teaching, they use simple tunes and simple words, and they possess religious dignity and becoming gravity. They make no provisions for brilliant solos, they exhibit no florid styles, no elaborate cadences, no suggestive worldliness or sentimentality to distract the devotion of the worshippers. The music of the Mass hymns is consonant with the religious expression contained in the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass. As a matter of fact the very text of the �SLOVAKIA 63 Mass hymns is a close paraphrase of the text of the Ordinary. These Mass hymns are still sung in Slovak parish churches both in America and abroad during the Missa Cantata. By them the choir and the congregation are enabled to unite closely with the priest in the sacred action of the Mass. Most of the hymns for Lent and Advent are written in a minor tonality and express sincere expectation, longing, love, hope, and sorrow. Diatonic progressions and sequential melodic passages make the tunes naturally singable, and the inert musical signs of the Christmas and Easter hymns come to life best when they are sung and played by souls radiating a great love for God. Marian hymns expand the praises sung in honor of the Mother of God to very numerous lines comprising more than one hundred hymns. Generally the refrain reiterates the message of her feasts or a particular supplication. Hymns in honor of the Blessed Sacrament and the Saints as well as pilgrimages and processional hymns vary in their messages and expressions but they retain the same commendable simplicity of melody subordinated to the prayerfulness of the words. The melodic structure of the Chant depends on the accent which is the soul of the Latin word. Slovak vernacular hymns which are reliable translations from Latin texts are easily adapted to Gregorian Chant since the accent and the word order of the Slovak language readily correspond to the Latin original in very many instances. A few hymns that illustrate this adaptability from Latin to Slovak are : Stabat Mater - Sta.la Matka (Sequence) Lauda Sion - Chval' Sione (Sequence) Pange Lingua - Javte usta Adore Te - Klaniam sa Ti J esu Dulcis - J ezu sladky The genuineness and the excellence of Slovak hymn tones was recognized by such an authority as Nicola A. Montani, the compiler of the Saint Gregory Hymnal (1920). �64 SLOVAKIA Mr. Montani incorporated into this American hymn book over twenty Slovak hymn tunes for which he adapted English texts and one setting for the "Tantum Ergo." In his encyclical on sacred music the late Pope Pius XII mentioned that hymns are effective in the religious instruction of boys and girls. It is worthy of mention that children in iSlovakia sang their catechism at least as early as 1913. Andrej Camba!, a Slovak Jesuit, translated into Slovak the catechism hymns originally used by Ignac Parhamer, a Jesuit missionary who instructed the people of Austria-Hungary in the eighteenth century. In his preface Father Camba! wrote : "I present this Catechism to you in song, that you may learn Christian Doctrine in a delightful manner and have it well impressed upon your minds." This survey may help to show how rich is the heritage of sacred music which has been preserved by the Slovak people, who justly pride themselves on having 2,000 hymns in their treasury of music. These hymns are the expression of the mind and heart of the Church regarding sacred music. They also embody the joyous and prayerful spirit of a singing people. (Caecilia, Vol. 85, No. 2) • • • WHO SAID IT? "President Benes was always of the opinion, and in his Iaitest stateanenJts ail.ways stres.setl, tihait OUT pact of alliamce with Soviet Russia and our friendshl!p with other Slav nations mwst not encroa;ch on o:ur friendly and cordiail relations with other dean0teratic states. This is .the natural desire, shared 1b y an enormous majority of our people, and nothing presvents us :fu-oan keeping the cc:xruftdence of the democratic states and stTe:nigthenmg and deepening our friendshl!p with our great western Allies. Moscow, too, wants ro fumow this line of po:lircy. rt will, however, be necessary for certain ,preijrumces of the West with regard to the Soviet Union, which are stiil existing, to be swept away." - Premier Fierlinger of Ozeicho-Silovakia, OW1I Bulletin, June 1, 1945. � 58 SLOVAKIA ELEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OF PRAYERFUL SONG A Survey of Slovak Church Music BY ,SISTE R M. PASCH AL , SS. C. M. Characterized from the very dawn of history as a singing people, the 'S lovaks readily consecrated this talent to God's service when the glad tidings of the Gospel were brought to them more than eleven hundred years ago. Christianization of the Slovaks dates back to the ninth century, to the consecration of the first Catholic church, built by Prince Pribina in Nitra in 833. Thereafter, down through the centuries, the Slovak people have been praising God with hymns and songs. In prosperity and in adversity, in the humble church of an obscure village as well as in a baroque cathedral like that of Kosice, at the simple tasks about the home as well as on festive pilgrimages, centuries ago as well as in our own day the hymn and the chant are offered to God by generation after generation of Slovak Catholics. In recent times Slovak congregational singing attracted considerable attention during the pilgrimages which the Federation of Slovak Catholics sponsored to shrines in Canada, New York, Philadelphia, Scranton, and Washington, D. C. Onlokers were frankly amazed at the spectacle. Rarely, if ever, had they seen such large groups united in prayerful song. It is truly an inspiration to hear the Slovaks sing at their religious services especially where there is congregational participation. How did the ancestors of Modern Slovaks develop their religious music and how closely does it follow the spirit of the liturgy ? From the earliest Christian era the Catholic Church has solicitously guarded the art and purity of music in Her public worship. In this respect Church authori'ties in Slovakia were exceptionally vigilant. The Byzantine rite with its exquisitely melodic liturgy was introduced amonf the Slovaks by SS. Cyril and Methodius in 863. Through their apostles the Slovak people likewise learned to foster a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion which is so deeply rooted among the �SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks that in most of their churches it is still customary for the Rosary Society to sing Marian hymns in public procession after High Mass on the first Sunday of the month. The saintly brothers translated the missal (Kievsky misal), the ritual (Euchologium Sinajske), the breviary and a collection of liturgical hymns (strumicky oktoich) into Old Slavonic. When they visited Rome to confer with the Holy Father, Pope Adrian LI placed these liturgical books on the Blessed Virgin's altar and blessed them. Then he permitted SS. Cyril and Methodius to use the Slavonic language in the Hturgy. "Hospodine, pomiluj ny," whose author very likely was St. Methodius himself, is the only hymn preserved from that period. For several centuries the development of religious music was halted by persecutions directed against the Old Slavonic liturgy and sterile period followed. By the twelfth century, however, various diocesan synods began to approve directives for liturgical singing. A summary of the most important of these would include the following: In 1114 the Synod of Ostrihom legislated that only hymns approved by Church authorities be used in the churches. In 1494 the Synod of Nitra directed that Holy Mass be accompanied with singing in all parish churches. The Synod of Trnava in 1560 commanded under pain of censure that no hymns either in the vernacular or in Latin be admitted for church use unless it could be ascertained that they had been approved by ecclesiastical authorities over a hundred years ago, lest the faithful by 'their very attraction to exercises of devotion be misled into heresy. In 1638 the Synod of Trnava char.ged a committee of competent musicians to collect liturgical hymns sung by the people and have them presented to Church authorities for approval and publication. This measure was needed to guard against the infiltration of Protestant influence which tried to establish itself with the seventeenth century's creation and importation of new homes. Composers of proved merit contributed to ~andard collections of �60 SLOVAKIA Slovak hymns and preserved acceptable manuscript copies. One such manuscript collection was Antifonae et cantiones variae cum notis musicis Slavonice et latine. rt comprises 338 sheets of copy. Another which is dated 1657 was Cantilenae conventus Lauritani ord. Serv. B. V. M. An even greater revival was brought about when the Slovak Jesuits founded the Catholic University of Trnava in 1635. In accordance with the prescriptions of the Council of Trent (1545-1'563) they collected the ancient Slovak liturgical hymns and prepared for the press the first printed Slovak hymnal Cantus Catholici. lt was published in two editions: in 1655 and in 1700 and it has been proved that its compiler was a Slovak Jesuit, Benedikt Szollossi (1601:J1656). Cantus Catholici has three hundred eighteen pages of unisonous hymns. Of these, sixty-two are Latin and two hundred twenty-seven are Slovak. In 1937 Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky revived about seventy hymns from the threehundred-year-old Cantus Catholici by introducing a modernized form of them in the Jedno,tny katolicky spevnik of which we shall speak presently. Cantus C3itholici is uniquely valuable from the musical standpoint inasmuch as its sources are traceable to Gregorian Chant. The ancient Slovak hymns preserved in it exemplify the use of tropes among the Slavs as early as the close of the Middle Ages. Tropes, of course, are a more or less poe'tical commentary that is woven into the liturgical text, forming with it a complete unit ; it is an interpolation in a liturgical text or the embellishment brought about by such interpolation, that is, insertions or additions. Let us take the Kyrie E1eison from tlhe Ordinary of the Mass as an example. On the last syllable of the "Kyrie" where a melisma was sung, a phrase or a stanza was composed to fit the melisma. In this way some additional text was inserted between the "Kyrie" and the "eleison." Consequently, a melismatic Kyrie had nine stanzaic insertions. The Gregorian Kyrie II in mode 3 carried this interpolation thus: Kyrie - fons bonitatis, Pater ingeniti, a quo cuncta procedunt - eleison. The Cau.tus Catholici has a �SLOVAKIA 61 closely paralleled translation of this interpolation: Hospodine, studnice dobrotj, Otce nerozeny, od teba wssecko dobre pochazi - smiluj sa natl nami. This is one example of how the ancient vernacular hymns of the Slovaks were developed in Gregorian style, characterized pricipally by the use of modal modulations and cadences ending on the dominant. It is interesting to note that a number of Slovak folk songs (of which there are some 40,000) were also developed in the same manner. The Latin preface of the Cantus Catholici points out the fact that the liturgy was performed in the vernacular at the altar and in choir. The hymns and psalms taug,ht in church were frequently repeated with much spirit at recreation and feasts, in the vineyards and in the field. In the course of time manuscripts of church music were collected by interested individuals. Outstanding among the composers and compilers were Pavlin Bajan (1783), a Franciscan; and later Andrej Radlinsky and Frantisek Sasinek, two priests who made a noteworthy contribution by their 1872 publication of Vseobecna sbierka cirkevnych katolickych pesniciek slovenskych, which contained 1,047 hymns. The Society of St. Adalbert commissioned Frantisek Matzenauer, a priest director, and Joseph Mathulay, an organist, to write the accompaniments for the above mentioned collection. The result was Duchovny spevnik katolicky (1882). In response to the November 22, 1903 "Motu Proprio" of St. Pius X , a national hymnal entitled Nabozny kresfan containing 400 hymns was compiled by Msgr. Andrej Hlinka and Joseph Chladek in 1906. A unique contribution to Catholic Slovak hymnody is the voluminous Jednotny katolicky spevnik (1937). lt was projected at a meeting held by the Society of St. Adalbert on March 8, 1921, when in the presence of three newly consecrated Slovak bishops and at their direction it was resolved to compile and publish a new hymnal. Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky, a highly reputable Slovak composer, was commissioned to harmonize and arrange the Slovak hymns. Committees on liturgy, literature, and hymnody collaborated with Schneider-Trnavs'ky in this re- �62 SLOVAKIA sponsible undertaking. For ten years they devoted themselves to the dedicated work of collecting the treasures of Slovak Church music, to discriminate, to discard whatever might be classified as undesirable and to preserve or to restore all that was worthy. The Committees observed the directives contained in the "Motu Proprio" of Pope Pius X and in the "Apostolic Constitution (December 22, 1928) of Pope Pius XI. The extensive bibliography enumerates references to thirty-three printed hymnals and onehundred-four printed manuals and prayer books; six manuscript collections of hymns without melodies and ten manuscript collections with melodies. All these were studied with scholarly diligence. Of the five hundred forty-one hymns listed in the index of the Jednotny katolicky spevnik those devoted to Christmas, Lent, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Blessed Virgin Mary are most largely represented. The contents are arranged according to the liturgical year with specific recommedations for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, for liturgical processions, and for various other religious functions. Out of consideration for the needs of the congregation, the limitations of school children, and the abilities of trained choirs who would use the hymnal, the compiler also included carols, hymns for pilgrimages, choral Slovak Mass hymns, and Latin hymns. It may be asked what qualities characterize Slovak liturgical and reltgious hymns. Careful study will show that it is their singular charm to have those very characteristics which are recommended in the "Musicae Sacrae Disciplina" (December 25, 1955) of Pope Pius Xfil. Slovak hymns confirm fully to Christian teaching, they use simple tunes and simple words, and they possess religious dignity and becoming gravity. They make no provisions for brilliant solos, they exhibit no florid styles, no elaborate cadences, no suggestive worldliness or sentimentality to distract the devotion of the worshippers. The music of the Mass hymns is consonant with the religious expression contained in the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass. As a matter of fact the very text of the �SLOVAKIA 63 Mass hymns is a close paraphrase of the text of the Ordinary. These Mass hymns are still sung in Slovak parish churches both in America and abroad during the Missa Cantata. By them the choir and the congregation are enabled to unite closely with the priest in the sacred action of the Mass. Most of the hymns for Lent and Advent are written in a minor tonality and express sincere expectation, longing, love, hope, and sorrow. Diatonic progressions and sequential melodic passages make the tunes naturally singable, and the inert musical signs of the Christmas and Easter hymns come to life best when they are sung and played by souls radiating a great love for God. Marian hymns expand the praises sung in honor of the Mother of God to very numerous lines comprising more than one hundred hymns. Generally the refrain reiterates the message of her feasts or a particular supplication. Hymns in honor of the Blessed Sacrament and the Saints as well as pilgrimages and processional hymns vary in their messages and expressions but they retain the same commendable simplicity of melody subordinated to the prayerfulness of the words. The melodic structure of the Chant depends on the accent which is the soul of the Latin word. Slovak vernacular hymns which are reliable translations from Latin texts are easily adapted to Gregorian Chant since the accent and the word order of the Slovak language readily correspond to the Latin original in very many instances. A few hymns that illustrate this adaptability from Latin to Slovak are : Stabat Mater - Sta.la Matka (Sequence) Lauda Sion - Chval' Sione (Sequence) Pange Lingua - Javte usta Adore Te - Klaniam sa Ti J esu Dulcis - J ezu sladky The genuineness and the excellence of Slovak hymn tones was recognized by such an authority as Nicola A. Montani, the compiler of the Saint Gregory Hymnal (1920). �64 SLOVAKIA Mr. Montani incorporated into this American hymn book over twenty Slovak hymn tunes for which he adapted English texts and one setting for the "Tantum Ergo." In his encyclical on sacred music the late Pope Pius XII mentioned that hymns are effective in the religious instruction of boys and girls. It is worthy of mention that children in iSlovakia sang their catechism at least as early as 1913. Andrej Camba!, a Slovak Jesuit, translated into Slovak the catechism hymns originally used by Ignac Parhamer, a Jesuit missionary who instructed the people of Austria-Hungary in the eighteenth century. In his preface Father Camba! wrote : "I present this Catechism to you in song, that you may learn Christian Doctrine in a delightful manner and have it well impressed upon your minds." This survey may help to show how rich is the heritage of sacred music which has been preserved by the Slovak people, who justly pride themselves on having 2,000 hymns in their treasury of music. These hymns are the expression of the mind and heart of the Church regarding sacred music. They also embody the joyous and prayerful spirit of a singing people. (Caecilia, Vol. 85, No. 2) • • • WHO SAID IT? "President Benes was always of the opinion, and in his Iaitest stateanenJts ail.ways stres.setl, tihait OUT pact of alliamce with Soviet Russia and our friendshl!p with other Slav nations mwst not encroa;ch on o:ur friendly and cordiail relations with other dean0teratic states. This is .the natural desire, shared 1b y an enormous majority of our people, and nothing presvents us :fu-oan keeping the cc:xruftdence of the democratic states and stTe:nigthenmg and deepening our friendshl!p with our great western Allies. Moscow, too, wants ro fumow this line of po:lircy. rt will, however, be necessary for certain ,preijrumces of the West with regard to the Soviet Union, which are stiil existing, to be swept away." - Premier Fierlinger of Ozeicho-Silovakia, OW1I Bulletin, June 1, 1945. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1959, Vol. 9 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 4 [sic] (No. 29), March 1959.</li> <li>Issue 5 [sic] (No. 30), June-December 1959.</li> </ul> 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 1959 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 58 SLOVAKIA ELEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OF PRAYERFUL SONG A Survey of Slovak Church Music BY ,SISTE R M. PASCH AL , SS. C. M. Characterized from the very dawn of history as a singing people, the 'S lovaks readily consecrated this talent to God's service when the glad tidings of the Gospel were brought to them more than eleven hundred years ago. Christianization of the Slovaks dates back to the ninth century, to the consecration of the first Catholic church, built by Prince Pribina in Nitra in 833. Thereafter, down through the centuries, the Slovak people have been praising God with hymns and songs. In prosperity and in adversity, in the humble church of an obscure village as well as in a baroque cathedral like that of Kosice, at the simple tasks about the home as well as on festive pilgrimages, centuries ago as well as in our own day the hymn and the chant are offered to God by generation after generation of Slovak Catholics. In recent times Slovak congregational singing attracted considerable attention during the pilgrimages which the Federation of Slovak Catholics sponsored to shrines in Canada, New York, Philadelphia, Scranton, and Washington, D. C. Onlokers were frankly amazed at the spectacle. Rarely, if ever, had they seen such large groups united in prayerful song. It is truly an inspiration to hear the Slovaks sing at their religious services especially where there is congregational participation. How did the ancestors of Modern Slovaks develop their religious music and how closely does it follow the spirit of the liturgy ? From the earliest Christian era the Catholic Church has solicitously guarded the art and purity of music in Her public worship. In this respect Church authori'ties in Slovakia were exceptionally vigilant. The Byzantine rite with its exquisitely melodic liturgy was introduced amonf the Slovaks by SS. Cyril and Methodius in 863. Through their apostles the Slovak people likewise learned to foster a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion which is so deeply rooted among the SLOVAKIA 59 Slovaks that in most of their churches it is still customary for the Rosary Society to sing Marian hymns in public procession after High Mass on the first Sunday of the month. The saintly brothers translated the missal (Kievsky misal), the ritual (Euchologium Sinajske), the breviary and a collection of liturgical hymns (strumicky oktoich) into Old Slavonic. When they visited Rome to confer with the Holy Father, Pope Adrian LI placed these liturgical books on the Blessed Virgin's altar and blessed them. Then he permitted SS. Cyril and Methodius to use the Slavonic language in the Hturgy. "Hospodine, pomiluj ny," whose author very likely was St. Methodius himself, is the only hymn preserved from that period. For several centuries the development of religious music was halted by persecutions directed against the Old Slavonic liturgy and sterile period followed. By the twelfth century, however, various diocesan synods began to approve directives for liturgical singing. A summary of the most important of these would include the following: In 1114 the Synod of Ostrihom legislated that only hymns approved by Church authorities be used in the churches. In 1494 the Synod of Nitra directed that Holy Mass be accompanied with singing in all parish churches. The Synod of Trnava in 1560 commanded under pain of censure that no hymns either in the vernacular or in Latin be admitted for church use unless it could be ascertained that they had been approved by ecclesiastical authorities over a hundred years ago, lest the faithful by 'their very attraction to exercises of devotion be misled into heresy. In 1638 the Synod of Trnava char.ged a committee of competent musicians to collect liturgical hymns sung by the people and have them presented to Church authorities for approval and publication. This measure was needed to guard against the infiltration of Protestant influence which tried to establish itself with the seventeenth century's creation and importation of new homes. Composers of proved merit contributed to ~andard collections of 60 SLOVAKIA Slovak hymns and preserved acceptable manuscript copies. One such manuscript collection was Antifonae et cantiones variae cum notis musicis Slavonice et latine. rt comprises 338 sheets of copy. Another which is dated 1657 was Cantilenae conventus Lauritani ord. Serv. B. V. M. An even greater revival was brought about when the Slovak Jesuits founded the Catholic University of Trnava in 1635. In accordance with the prescriptions of the Council of Trent (1545-1'563) they collected the ancient Slovak liturgical hymns and prepared for the press the first printed Slovak hymnal Cantus Catholici. lt was published in two editions: in 1655 and in 1700 and it has been proved that its compiler was a Slovak Jesuit, Benedikt Szollossi (1601:J1656). Cantus Catholici has three hundred eighteen pages of unisonous hymns. Of these, sixty-two are Latin and two hundred twenty-seven are Slovak. In 1937 Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky revived about seventy hymns from the threehundred-year-old Cantus Catholici by introducing a modernized form of them in the Jedno,tny katolicky spevnik of which we shall speak presently. Cantus C3itholici is uniquely valuable from the musical standpoint inasmuch as its sources are traceable to Gregorian Chant. The ancient Slovak hymns preserved in it exemplify the use of tropes among the Slavs as early as the close of the Middle Ages. Tropes, of course, are a more or less poe'tical commentary that is woven into the liturgical text, forming with it a complete unit ; it is an interpolation in a liturgical text or the embellishment brought about by such interpolation, that is, insertions or additions. Let us take the Kyrie E1eison from tlhe Ordinary of the Mass as an example. On the last syllable of the "Kyrie" where a melisma was sung, a phrase or a stanza was composed to fit the melisma. In this way some additional text was inserted between the "Kyrie" and the "eleison." Consequently, a melismatic Kyrie had nine stanzaic insertions. The Gregorian Kyrie II in mode 3 carried this interpolation thus: Kyrie - fons bonitatis, Pater ingeniti, a quo cuncta procedunt - eleison. The Cau.tus Catholici has a SLOVAKIA 61 closely paralleled translation of this interpolation: Hospodine, studnice dobrotj, Otce nerozeny, od teba wssecko dobre pochazi - smiluj sa natl nami. This is one example of how the ancient vernacular hymns of the Slovaks were developed in Gregorian style, characterized pricipally by the use of modal modulations and cadences ending on the dominant. It is interesting to note that a number of Slovak folk songs (of which there are some 40,000) were also developed in the same manner. The Latin preface of the Cantus Catholici points out the fact that the liturgy was performed in the vernacular at the altar and in choir. The hymns and psalms taug,ht in church were frequently repeated with much spirit at recreation and feasts, in the vineyards and in the field. In the course of time manuscripts of church music were collected by interested individuals. Outstanding among the composers and compilers were Pavlin Bajan (1783), a Franciscan; and later Andrej Radlinsky and Frantisek Sasinek, two priests who made a noteworthy contribution by their 1872 publication of Vseobecna sbierka cirkevnych katolickych pesniciek slovenskych, which contained 1,047 hymns. The Society of St. Adalbert commissioned Frantisek Matzenauer, a priest director, and Joseph Mathulay, an organist, to write the accompaniments for the above mentioned collection. The result was Duchovny spevnik katolicky (1882). In response to the November 22, 1903 "Motu Proprio" of St. Pius X , a national hymnal entitled Nabozny kresfan containing 400 hymns was compiled by Msgr. Andrej Hlinka and Joseph Chladek in 1906. A unique contribution to Catholic Slovak hymnody is the voluminous Jednotny katolicky spevnik (1937). lt was projected at a meeting held by the Society of St. Adalbert on March 8, 1921, when in the presence of three newly consecrated Slovak bishops and at their direction it was resolved to compile and publish a new hymnal. Mikulas Schneider-Trnavsky, a highly reputable Slovak composer, was commissioned to harmonize and arrange the Slovak hymns. Committees on liturgy, literature, and hymnody collaborated with Schneider-Trnavs'ky in this re- 62 SLOVAKIA sponsible undertaking. For ten years they devoted themselves to the dedicated work of collecting the treasures of Slovak Church music, to discriminate, to discard whatever might be classified as undesirable and to preserve or to restore all that was worthy. The Committees observed the directives contained in the "Motu Proprio" of Pope Pius X and in the "Apostolic Constitution (December 22, 1928) of Pope Pius XI. The extensive bibliography enumerates references to thirty-three printed hymnals and onehundred-four printed manuals and prayer books; six manuscript collections of hymns without melodies and ten manuscript collections with melodies. All these were studied with scholarly diligence. Of the five hundred forty-one hymns listed in the index of the Jednotny katolicky spevnik those devoted to Christmas, Lent, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Blessed Virgin Mary are most largely represented. The contents are arranged according to the liturgical year with specific recommedations for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, for liturgical processions, and for various other religious functions. Out of consideration for the needs of the congregation, the limitations of school children, and the abilities of trained choirs who would use the hymnal, the compiler also included carols, hymns for pilgrimages, choral Slovak Mass hymns, and Latin hymns. It may be asked what qualities characterize Slovak liturgical and reltgious hymns. Careful study will show that it is their singular charm to have those very characteristics which are recommended in the "Musicae Sacrae Disciplina" (December 25, 1955) of Pope Pius Xfil. Slovak hymns confirm fully to Christian teaching, they use simple tunes and simple words, and they possess religious dignity and becoming gravity. They make no provisions for brilliant solos, they exhibit no florid styles, no elaborate cadences, no suggestive worldliness or sentimentality to distract the devotion of the worshippers. The music of the Mass hymns is consonant with the religious expression contained in the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass. As a matter of fact the very text of the SLOVAKIA 63 Mass hymns is a close paraphrase of the text of the Ordinary. These Mass hymns are still sung in Slovak parish churches both in America and abroad during the Missa Cantata. By them the choir and the congregation are enabled to unite closely with the priest in the sacred action of the Mass. Most of the hymns for Lent and Advent are written in a minor tonality and express sincere expectation, longing, love, hope, and sorrow. Diatonic progressions and sequential melodic passages make the tunes naturally singable, and the inert musical signs of the Christmas and Easter hymns come to life best when they are sung and played by souls radiating a great love for God. Marian hymns expand the praises sung in honor of the Mother of God to very numerous lines comprising more than one hundred hymns. Generally the refrain reiterates the message of her feasts or a particular supplication. Hymns in honor of the Blessed Sacrament and the Saints as well as pilgrimages and processional hymns vary in their messages and expressions but they retain the same commendable simplicity of melody subordinated to the prayerfulness of the words. The melodic structure of the Chant depends on the accent which is the soul of the Latin word. Slovak vernacular hymns which are reliable translations from Latin texts are easily adapted to Gregorian Chant since the accent and the word order of the Slovak language readily correspond to the Latin original in very many instances. A few hymns that illustrate this adaptability from Latin to Slovak are : Stabat Mater - Sta.la Matka (Sequence) Lauda Sion - Chval' Sione (Sequence) Pange Lingua - Javte usta Adore Te - Klaniam sa Ti J esu Dulcis - J ezu sladky The genuineness and the excellence of Slovak hymn tones was recognized by such an authority as Nicola A. Montani, the compiler of the Saint Gregory Hymnal (1920). 64 SLOVAKIA Mr. Montani incorporated into this American hymn book over twenty Slovak hymn tunes for which he adapted English texts and one setting for the "Tantum Ergo." In his encyclical on sacred music the late Pope Pius XII mentioned that hymns are effective in the religious instruction of boys and girls. It is worthy of mention that children in iSlovakia sang their catechism at least as early as 1913. Andrej Camba!, a Slovak Jesuit, translated into Slovak the catechism hymns originally used by Ignac Parhamer, a Jesuit missionary who instructed the people of Austria-Hungary in the eighteenth century. In his preface Father Camba! wrote : "I present this Catechism to you in song, that you may learn Christian Doctrine in a delightful manner and have it well impressed upon your minds." This survey may help to show how rich is the heritage of sacred music which has been preserved by the Slovak people, who justly pride themselves on having 2,000 hymns in their treasury of music. These hymns are the expression of the mind and heart of the Church regarding sacred music. They also embody the joyous and prayerful spirit of a singing people. (Caecilia, Vol. 85, No. 2) • • • WHO SAID IT? "President Benes was always of the opinion, and in his Iaitest stateanenJts ail.ways stres.setl, tihait OUT pact of alliamce with Soviet Russia and our friendshl!p with other Slav nations mwst not encroa;ch on o:ur friendly and cordiail relations with other dean0teratic states. This is .the natural desire, shared 1b y an enormous majority of our people, and nothing presvents us :fu-oan keeping the cc:xruftdence of the democratic states and stTe:nigthenmg and deepening our friendshl!p with our great western Allies. Moscow, too, wants ro fumow this line of po:lircy. rt will, however, be necessary for certain ,preijrumces of the West with regard to the Soviet Union, which are stiil existing, to be swept away." - Premier Fierlinger of Ozeicho-Silovakia, OW1I Bulletin, June 1, 1945.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eleven Hundred Years of Prayerful Song: A Survey of Slovak Church Music Description An account of the resource Sister M. Paschal, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 9, No. 5 (30), June-December 1959 pp. 58-64 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sister M. Paschal, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June-December 1959 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/ca848c11db1831c3dea9d219fc406d38.pdf 05ebb1620f2736aac93f4f27d4224040 PDF Text Text 60 SLOVAKIA will see to it that Bentt Czechoslovaks are replaced only by Beneš Czechoslovaks ! Summarlly said, there is nothlng new In the Czechoslovak sky. We are not at all surprlsl•d by the behavlor of the hard-bolled adherents or Czechoslovak centraliem. But we are very mucb surprlsed with the Slovak servants renderlnr. them Jip servlce. Rudolph Fraštackf, a BeneA Czechoslovak, recently rťturned from a European trip and told trlends that among the most recent Slovak escapees he dld not !Ind a slngle one who stands for Cze1.hoslovakism. Slnce these !atest escapees interpret the sentiments ot 1.he Slovaks at horne, we can safely say that in Slovakia, regardless of thelr reli gious or previous political divisiona, the Slovaks almoat to ,1 man are againat the reatoration of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks are In a bllnd alley, because they dld not b elieve In slgns of the tlmes. Freedom 1s the watchword, the everlastlng h ope and the ultlmate goal <•f all nations of the earth - lncluding the S lovak nation. FOR DR. STEPHEN OSUSKY'S BENEFIT DR. PETER SKALENICKÝ The more new refugees arrive from Slovakia, so all the more and repeatedly do they confirm the fa<:t that our policy, based in our stand of Slovak independence, is correct. Even these new escapees, often former adberents of former CzechoslovQk political parties, confinn the fact that the Slovak nation not only yearns for lts own independence, but also tbat in Slovakia today no one believes tbat it will be possible to renew the Czechoslovak Republic. Nay, the people at horne do not b elieve tbat responsible people in exile can be found wbo would work against Slovak independence. It ls something natural. Certainly, a nation wh!cb once has had its own state and bas tasted of the advantages of its own independence will never surrender it, and it can be deprived of it only by force and violence. We can look upon tbe origln of the Slovak Republic in any manner that we will, but no one can deny, nor can any one erase from Slovak hlstory tbe actuallty that the Slovaks did have thelr own state from 1939 to 1945, that tbey did bave their own president and tbeir own government, and that Slovakia dirl _appear on the map of Europe as an Independent political unit. It is often said that the Slovak Republic was a satelllte state. Even under sucb circumstances, it was comparatively more than tbe Slovaks had during the first Czecboslovak Republic, or after 1945. 'ľbe president of Slovakla and the government always had more power tban the president of the Slovak National Council (Lettrich) and the commissars had after 1945. tbat ls during the period wben tbe Czecboslovak Republic was already_ supposed to he a federative state. And even thougb tbe cluration of the Slovak State falls into the perlod of war, Swiss newsmen told tbe world that the Slovak Republic was an oasis of consolidated peace and welfare. Tbat was because the Slovaks decided tbeir own affairs In tbelr country. The president of the Slovak IRepublic coulcl grant reprieves to those sen- �SLOVAKIA 61 tenced to death; and he g ranted it in all cases. It serves and it shall continue to serve to the honor of the Slovak President and the Slovak Republic for all times that during its duration no one was e:xecuted in Slovakia by Slovak authorities. But what can be said about the period after 1945? Let us take a concrete case, that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of Slovakia. The Slovak Democratic Party, supported by the Catholics in the 1946 elections because they bel!eved tbat, among other things, it would prevent the execution or the Slovak President, did not even have the power to save bis life. Even in that case it was Beneš who had to decide, and declde he did - as he always had done before against Slovakia, on the recommendation of the Czech ministers who again wanted to come to Slovakia as liberators. The perlod from the Banská Bystrica insurrection (August 1944) is and shall remain a sad chapter in Slovak history. Tbis debacle ls the joint property of tbe Communists and the Lettricb Democrats. In the name of the revolution against Naziism they liquidated Slovak independence; in the name of democracy they vied with each other in attesting loyalty to Stalin and the Soviet Union; and in the namt o( humanity tbey built gallows. Today tbe communlsts In Czecboslovakia celebrate this revolution not because it was democratic, but because it was communistic. ll is well, however, that tbe Lettrichites, too, without reservatlons c-laimed and stlll claim it as their own, because thereby before bistory they assume the responsibili,ty for lhe liquidalion of Slovak independence, for lbe mass graves wilb hundreds of corpses, for the bloody verdicts of the People's Courts, for the thousands of citizens who langulshed in jails for long months, nay even years, without belng given a hearing or a tria!, for the torture-chambers of the STB (Securlty l:'ollce), for confiscatlng the property of persons who were not even given a tria! in Court, [or tbe arbitrary looting of churches and schools, for the revengeful police investigations and terror in the whole nation. Tbose are the marks of the politics of the people's• democratic rulers of Slovakia, the symbols of the freedom of the gallows a ccording to which Slovak and world history shall know them. The politlcian might, perbaps, pass over these matters with a heavy sigh In the interest of some agreement, the judge, however, must call a crime a crime, and the historian must record [acts on the pages or history. Today Slovakia has new generations, trained in the spirit or independence - generations wbo are suffering in jails and concentration camps at home. Many of them already have fa!len, but from thelr blood ls bom a new [orce and a new determination for those llving who shall never desert their nation and shall never surrender the right to thelr own lndependence. And abroad, in emigration, Slovakia has hundreds of young people who studied there and thousands of others who are going tbrougb the valuable school of Life. Let them be wheresoever they may, they s hall never s urrender the right to Slovak independence. During twenty years of the Czechoslovak Republlc, Slovaks only in isolated cases rould go abroad to study. Today the people's-<lemocratic regime has afforded them this advantage: they had to flee their homeland before its terror. And the �SLOVAKIA ideals, the bearers of which are especially these young generations, prove to us clearly that thls 1s the cbaln of natural evolutlon of Slovak revolutiona.ry efforts from the tlme of Štúr down to our present limes. We know that Louls Štúr proclaimed Slovak independence al• ready in 1848. Tbe Slovak parliament only sanctioned th!s revolutíonary act of Štúr's in 1939 and thus real!zed what Štúr's generatlon did not have enough strengtb to effect. We are often mistaken by the outslde imperialistlc pressure wbicb hastened the politlcal development of Slovakia. This, bowever, cannot be taken as a denial of the matteľ. If that were so, then tbe nation at home would not yearn !or, and tbe overwhelming majority of Slovak exlles would not work for, Slovak independence. Every nation has a na,tural am.bition to create its own bistory in its own state and, represented by its own state. as an independent factor lt wants to contribule to t he increase ot the cultural values of all hu manity. Tbe Slovaks demand thelr independence because they are ·a natlon with t.heir own bisto ry, language and cult ure, and because they are com• manded to do so by charity to themselves and by a healthy mind. Why there is not a Single natlon in the world tbat would not want to be Independent. Enslavement of one's own nation can be tbe deslre or vengeful, self-seeking, mentally warped and confused lndlv!duals. Let us look upon the matter from whatever standpolnt, Czechoslovak• ism is and shall always remain an expression of nationa\ and persona! inferiority. Let it not be a surprise, then, if we turn our attentlon loday to Dr. Stephen Osuský, the foremost Slovak among a very small group ot people who sl!IJ hold to the Czechoslovak conceptlon. We do t h at because we want to believe that Mr. Osuský wil\ not lend bis name to lmpede t.he efforts of the Slovak nation. For some time now we are gettíng report.s that the political group of Dr. Lettrich wants to solve the present crlsis of the Czechoslovak foreign reslstance wlth the aid of tbe person of Dr. Osuský, who is supposed to become president of the Council ot Free Czechoslovak!a. Dr. Osuský is not famlliar with tbe Slovak politlcal sltuation at horne, because he bas been away from Slovakia for many years. And yet some people, wbo have become accustomed to serve the Czechs in the in terest of their persona) careers, want to use Dr. Osuský to decelve the western world by claiming that Slovaks are for th e Czechoslovak Republic. These people have already gone so far as to pian a Czecbo-Slovak federation w!th Dr. Stepben Osuský as its first president. They want to explolt the situatlon, because they are reck• oning with a strong pressure on Czech ex!led factors on account ot the problem of the Sudeten Germans whicb especially today, wben negotlatlons are in progress to conclude a peace treaty wlt-h western Germany, ls gaining polltlcal !mportance. It !s believed that Germany, as an im portant factor of lnternatlona!· politics wh!cb sball have extraordlnary slgnificance for the defense ot Europe, shall lnslst on t he exclusion from the ex!led governments, whlch shall arise in tlme, of all those wbo willingly cooperated with Moscow, wbo with their pol!cies Jed their nations into the present situation and are a!so responslble for the brutal expulsion of millions of Germans from thelr anclent homelands. �SLOVAKIA 63 Th!s concerns especially the Czech politicians in exile, who are the bearers of Beneš's old pol!cy, wh!ch always was pro-Soviet and as such evoked many politlcal contentions and dltferences in Europe. The Germans may not want to intervene In the polltlcal affalrs of centra! European nations, but it is natural that they will want to have the nationality questlons in this sector solved at last to the full satisfactlon of the indivídua! natlons. And Germany, as an important European factor, has the full rlght to present these questions to the lnternatlonal forum. Such a development is undoubtedly presupp0$ed even by some people of Lettrich's faction who want to get something for themselves out of the situation, and Dr. Osuský !s supposed to help them in this. The representati ves of sever al families, reallzing their weakness In the naiton, still want to take possession or Slovakla so that they could gain rule there wlth the help of the Czechs. Once in power, they flgure that they wlll be able to proclaim the representatives of the idea of Slovak lndependence as enemles of the Czechoslovak Republic and so prevent their return to Slovakla so they themselves mlght rule without oppos!tlon. But these gentleman are grossty mistaken. The idea of Slovak independence cannot be ltilled and sllenced even by the liquidatlon of the representatlves of Slovak independence. They still can mlslead and deceive the western world for a Ume, but they cannot decelve the Slovak nation any more. If Dr. Osuský wants to have a correct appraisal about the mlnd of the Slovak natlon, Jet h!m come to the meet!ngs of Slovak emigrants in Canada or In the USA, or Jet him visit the European DP camps. Th!s pollcy of Lettrich's people, alas, cannot be called anything but bllnd. Are these people really so non-critlcal that they cannot see the!r own m!stakes and errors? It seems that mora Ii ty and responslb!llty have been excluded completely trom thelr policy. People who created or helped to prepare the bloodiest regime In our hl story, do such people want to return again as Jlberators? Their consclence 1s probably so dead to the reproac·h es and crímes which the natlon shall one time put before them because they are concerned only wlth thelr careers and the regalning of their Jost propertles. Or do they think that their crimes shall not be subject to crltlclsm and judgment? Where crimes have been committed, there must be sought the crim!nal. The people who conducted the politlcs of the Slovak Republlc were placed on tria! by them after 1945, and they certainly did not cause the nation any such suffering as !t 1s golng through slnce 1945. To give these people to the nation as llberators would be as paradoxlcal as if, after conv!ctlng tbe innocent Rudolph Beran, Beneš would have become the leader of tbe Czech Agrarlan Party. These are welghty facts, and very weighty from the standpoint of history and polltics. We present them to Dr. Osuský to conslder whether he wants to Identity himself wlth Lettrlch's polltlcs and represent bis followers before the world and the natlon. It depends entlrely on hlm whether he sball succumb to these people or whether he shall let the decislon in hls own hands. We remlnd that Slovak history is belng made even in emlgration. And there are only two possiblllties: on the side of Š.túr and Hlinka, that is on the slde or tbose who belleved in the Independent future of the Slovak nat!on, �64 SLOVAKIA or on tbe opposlte side - on t he side of the enemies of Slovak inde• pendence. To deny a nat.ion lts right to independence means to deny it even the right of individuality. lťs something llke when Lettricb and Slávik speak aibout democracy, but protest that an opportunlty be given the Slovaks to declde by a democratic expression of will whether tbey want to live in their own state or wlth tbe Czechs In a Czechoslovak Republic. It is clear proof that they fear the will of the nation and want to force their own conceptlon on the nation. Woe, however, to the politician, wbo is afraid of the expression of bis own natlon! The Czechoslovaks often say wishfully that the West wlll not recognize the right of the Slovaks to independence. To this we can only remark thait here the wish is the father of the thought. U all Slovaks today would stand on the correot Slov.ak side and not in the servlces of aliens, this silly question would not have to be brought up at all, because Slovak independence is above all else a matter ot life and death wlth the Slovaks. The Slovaks do not threaten any one wlth it; and it is not an expression of some form ot imperlalism, but an expression of natural rlght. And the Slovaks shall see thls right recognized and respected just because it is natural and democratic and !s, therefore in line with the 1'rinciples expressed in the A tlantic Chaflter by President Roosevel,t and Winston Churchill, as well as in the interest of a unlted Europe, wh ere every nation, large and small, is supposed to be united into a European associatlon as an independent unit. Only a policy which will guarantee all nations equal freedom shall bring Euro))e the long awaited just and lasting peace and weltare. The Slovaks attained autonomy October 6, 1938, witbout the help of people ot the Lettricb type and just so will they attain even the renewal ot their democratic independence. We are thlnklng realist!cally and we are aware of the fact that we are a small nation. But even a small nation has a rlght to live and to live in such an arrangement which best serves its interests. In 1918 we said that our Magyar marriage was unsuccessful and we had to part; and in 1938 we said the same thing about our Czechoslovak marriage. What was natu11al always prevailed. A natural right by which we want to convince the world about the thlnking of the Slovaks is also the plebiscite. Slávik and Lettrich are against a plebiscite, that is against the democratic rig,h t of the Slovaks to determine their own future. It now depends on Dr. Stephen Osuský whether he shall join the one or tbe other side. The Slovaks shall reach their goal, but it depends on Dr. Osuský whether they shall do so with bis help or without lt. • • • W H O SAID IT? WHO SAID IT ? "No polltical party In Slovak•, has taken as sharp a stand against bolshevism as our party. W e are convinced that the antl-communlst movement must be suported b y the whole of Europe, the entlre cultural and Chrlstlan world. At the Ume the Red Army invaded Poland, we defended the Idea that Czecho• Slovakla must hurry to help the Poles wlth weapons In h and and f!ght agalnst bolshevlsm." - (Andrew Hlinka, SLOVÁK, 11-18-30). � 60 SLOVAKIA will see to it that Bentt Czechoslovaks are replaced only by Beneš Czechoslovaks ! Summarlly said, there is nothlng new In the Czechoslovak sky. We are not at all surprlsl•d by the behavlor of the hard-bolled adherents or Czechoslovak centraliem. But we are very mucb surprlsed with the Slovak servants renderlnr. them Jip servlce. Rudolph Fraštackf, a BeneA Czechoslovak, recently rťturned from a European trip and told trlends that among the most recent Slovak escapees he dld not !Ind a slngle one who stands for Cze1.hoslovakism. Slnce these !atest escapees interpret the sentiments ot 1.he Slovaks at horne, we can safely say that in Slovakia, regardless of thelr reli gious or previous political divisiona, the Slovaks almoat to ,1 man are againat the reatoration of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks are In a bllnd alley, because they dld not b elieve In slgns of the tlmes. Freedom 1s the watchword, the everlastlng h ope and the ultlmate goal <•f all nations of the earth - lncluding the S lovak nation. FOR DR. STEPHEN OSUSKY'S BENEFIT DR. PETER SKALENICKÝ The more new refugees arrive from Slovakia, so all the more and repeatedly do they confirm the fa<:t that our policy, based in our stand of Slovak independence, is correct. Even these new escapees, often former adberents of former CzechoslovQk political parties, confinn the fact that the Slovak nation not only yearns for lts own independence, but also tbat in Slovakia today no one believes tbat it will be possible to renew the Czechoslovak Republic. Nay, the people at horne do not b elieve tbat responsible people in exile can be found wbo would work against Slovak independence. It ls something natural. Certainly, a nation wh!cb once has had its own state and bas tasted of the advantages of its own independence will never surrender it, and it can be deprived of it only by force and violence. We can look upon tbe origln of the Slovak Republic in any manner that we will, but no one can deny, nor can any one erase from Slovak hlstory tbe actuallty that the Slovaks did have thelr own state from 1939 to 1945, that tbey did bave their own president and tbeir own government, and that Slovakia dirl _appear on the map of Europe as an Independent political unit. It is often said that the Slovak Republic was a satelllte state. Even under sucb circumstances, it was comparatively more than tbe Slovaks had during the first Czecboslovak Republic, or after 1945. 'ľbe president of Slovakla and the government always had more power tban the president of the Slovak National Council (Lettrich) and the commissars had after 1945. tbat ls during the period wben tbe Czecboslovak Republic was already_ supposed to he a federative state. And even thougb tbe cluration of the Slovak State falls into the perlod of war, Swiss newsmen told tbe world that the Slovak Republic was an oasis of consolidated peace and welfare. Tbat was because the Slovaks decided tbeir own affairs In tbelr country. The president of the Slovak IRepublic coulcl grant reprieves to those sen- �SLOVAKIA 61 tenced to death; and he g ranted it in all cases. It serves and it shall continue to serve to the honor of the Slovak President and the Slovak Republic for all times that during its duration no one was e:xecuted in Slovakia by Slovak authorities. But what can be said about the period after 1945? Let us take a concrete case, that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of Slovakia. The Slovak Democratic Party, supported by the Catholics in the 1946 elections because they bel!eved tbat, among other things, it would prevent the execution or the Slovak President, did not even have the power to save bis life. Even in that case it was Beneš who had to decide, and declde he did - as he always had done before against Slovakia, on the recommendation of the Czech ministers who again wanted to come to Slovakia as liberators. The perlod from the Banská Bystrica insurrection (August 1944) is and shall remain a sad chapter in Slovak history. Tbis debacle ls the joint property of tbe Communists and the Lettricb Democrats. In the name of the revolution against Naziism they liquidated Slovak independence; in the name of democracy they vied with each other in attesting loyalty to Stalin and the Soviet Union; and in the namt o( humanity tbey built gallows. Today tbe communlsts In Czecboslovakia celebrate this revolution not because it was democratic, but because it was communistic. ll is well, however, that tbe Lettrichites, too, without reservatlons c-laimed and stlll claim it as their own, because thereby before bistory they assume the responsibili,ty for lhe liquidalion of Slovak independence, for lbe mass graves wilb hundreds of corpses, for the bloody verdicts of the People's Courts, for the thousands of citizens who langulshed in jails for long months, nay even years, without belng given a hearing or a tria!, for the torture-chambers of the STB (Securlty l:'ollce), for confiscatlng the property of persons who were not even given a tria! in Court, [or tbe arbitrary looting of churches and schools, for the revengeful police investigations and terror in the whole nation. Tbose are the marks of the politics of the people's• democratic rulers of Slovakia, the symbols of the freedom of the gallows a ccording to which Slovak and world history shall know them. The politlcian might, perbaps, pass over these matters with a heavy sigh In the interest of some agreement, the judge, however, must call a crime a crime, and the historian must record [acts on the pages or history. Today Slovakia has new generations, trained in the spirit or independence - generations wbo are suffering in jails and concentration camps at home. Many of them already have fa!len, but from thelr blood ls bom a new [orce and a new determination for those llving who shall never desert their nation and shall never surrender the right to thelr own lndependence. And abroad, in emigration, Slovakia has hundreds of young people who studied there and thousands of others who are going tbrougb the valuable school of Life. Let them be wheresoever they may, they s hall never s urrender the right to Slovak independence. During twenty years of the Czechoslovak Republlc, Slovaks only in isolated cases rould go abroad to study. Today the people's-<lemocratic regime has afforded them this advantage: they had to flee their homeland before its terror. And the �SLOVAKIA ideals, the bearers of which are especially these young generations, prove to us clearly that thls 1s the cbaln of natural evolutlon of Slovak revolutiona.ry efforts from the tlme of Štúr down to our present limes. We know that Louls Štúr proclaimed Slovak independence al• ready in 1848. Tbe Slovak parliament only sanctioned th!s revolutíonary act of Štúr's in 1939 and thus real!zed what Štúr's generatlon did not have enough strengtb to effect. We are often mistaken by the outslde imperialistlc pressure wbicb hastened the politlcal development of Slovakia. This, bowever, cannot be taken as a denial of the matteľ. If that were so, then tbe nation at home would not yearn !or, and tbe overwhelming majority of Slovak exlles would not work for, Slovak independence. Every nation has a na,tural am.bition to create its own bistory in its own state and, represented by its own state. as an independent factor lt wants to contribule to t he increase ot the cultural values of all hu manity. Tbe Slovaks demand thelr independence because they are ·a natlon with t.heir own bisto ry, language and cult ure, and because they are com• manded to do so by charity to themselves and by a healthy mind. Why there is not a Single natlon in the world tbat would not want to be Independent. Enslavement of one's own nation can be tbe deslre or vengeful, self-seeking, mentally warped and confused lndlv!duals. Let us look upon the matter from whatever standpolnt, Czechoslovak• ism is and shall always remain an expression of nationa\ and persona! inferiority. Let it not be a surprise, then, if we turn our attentlon loday to Dr. Stephen Osuský, the foremost Slovak among a very small group ot people who sl!IJ hold to the Czechoslovak conceptlon. We do t h at because we want to believe that Mr. Osuský wil\ not lend bis name to lmpede t.he efforts of the Slovak nation. For some time now we are gettíng report.s that the political group of Dr. Lettrich wants to solve the present crlsis of the Czechoslovak foreign reslstance wlth the aid of tbe person of Dr. Osuský, who is supposed to become president of the Council ot Free Czechoslovak!a. Dr. Osuský is not famlliar with tbe Slovak politlcal sltuation at horne, because he bas been away from Slovakia for many years. And yet some people, wbo have become accustomed to serve the Czechs in the in terest of their persona) careers, want to use Dr. Osuský to decelve the western world by claiming that Slovaks are for th e Czechoslovak Republic. These people have already gone so far as to pian a Czecbo-Slovak federation w!th Dr. Stepben Osuský as its first president. They want to explolt the situatlon, because they are reck• oning with a strong pressure on Czech ex!led factors on account ot the problem of the Sudeten Germans whicb especially today, wben negotlatlons are in progress to conclude a peace treaty wlt-h western Germany, ls gaining polltlcal !mportance. It !s believed that Germany, as an im portant factor of lnternatlona!· politics wh!cb sball have extraordlnary slgnificance for the defense ot Europe, shall lnslst on t he exclusion from the ex!led governments, whlch shall arise in tlme, of all those wbo willingly cooperated with Moscow, wbo with their pol!cies Jed their nations into the present situation and are a!so responslble for the brutal expulsion of millions of Germans from thelr anclent homelands. �SLOVAKIA 63 Th!s concerns especially the Czech politicians in exile, who are the bearers of Beneš's old pol!cy, wh!ch always was pro-Soviet and as such evoked many politlcal contentions and dltferences in Europe. The Germans may not want to intervene In the polltlcal affalrs of centra! European nations, but it is natural that they will want to have the nationality questlons in this sector solved at last to the full satisfactlon of the indivídua! natlons. And Germany, as an important European factor, has the full rlght to present these questions to the lnternatlonal forum. Such a development is undoubtedly presupp0$ed even by some people of Lettrich's faction who want to get something for themselves out of the situation, and Dr. Osuský !s supposed to help them in this. The representati ves of sever al families, reallzing their weakness In the naiton, still want to take possession or Slovakla so that they could gain rule there wlth the help of the Czechs. Once in power, they flgure that they wlll be able to proclaim the representatives of the idea of Slovak lndependence as enemles of the Czechoslovak Republic and so prevent their return to Slovakla so they themselves mlght rule without oppos!tlon. But these gentleman are grossty mistaken. The idea of Slovak independence cannot be ltilled and sllenced even by the liquidatlon of the representatlves of Slovak independence. They still can mlslead and deceive the western world for a Ume, but they cannot decelve the Slovak nation any more. If Dr. Osuský wants to have a correct appraisal about the mlnd of the Slovak natlon, Jet h!m come to the meet!ngs of Slovak emigrants in Canada or In the USA, or Jet him visit the European DP camps. Th!s pollcy of Lettrich's people, alas, cannot be called anything but bllnd. Are these people really so non-critlcal that they cannot see the!r own m!stakes and errors? It seems that mora Ii ty and responslb!llty have been excluded completely trom thelr policy. People who created or helped to prepare the bloodiest regime In our hl story, do such people want to return again as Jlberators? Their consclence 1s probably so dead to the reproac·h es and crímes which the natlon shall one time put before them because they are concerned only wlth thelr careers and the regalning of their Jost propertles. Or do they think that their crimes shall not be subject to crltlclsm and judgment? Where crimes have been committed, there must be sought the crim!nal. The people who conducted the politlcs of the Slovak Republlc were placed on tria! by them after 1945, and they certainly did not cause the nation any such suffering as !t 1s golng through slnce 1945. To give these people to the nation as llberators would be as paradoxlcal as if, after conv!ctlng tbe innocent Rudolph Beran, Beneš would have become the leader of tbe Czech Agrarlan Party. These are welghty facts, and very weighty from the standpoint of history and polltics. We present them to Dr. Osuský to conslder whether he wants to Identity himself wlth Lettrlch's polltlcs and represent bis followers before the world and the natlon. It depends entlrely on hlm whether he sball succumb to these people or whether he shall let the decislon in hls own hands. We remlnd that Slovak history is belng made even in emlgration. And there are only two possiblllties: on the side of Š.túr and Hlinka, that is on the slde or tbose who belleved in the Independent future of the Slovak nat!on, �64 SLOVAKIA or on tbe opposlte side - on t he side of the enemies of Slovak inde• pendence. To deny a nat.ion lts right to independence means to deny it even the right of individuality. lťs something llke when Lettricb and Slávik speak aibout democracy, but protest that an opportunlty be given the Slovaks to declde by a democratic expression of will whether tbey want to live in their own state or wlth tbe Czechs In a Czechoslovak Republic. It is clear proof that they fear the will of the nation and want to force their own conceptlon on the nation. Woe, however, to the politician, wbo is afraid of the expression of bis own natlon! The Czechoslovaks often say wishfully that the West wlll not recognize the right of the Slovaks to independence. To this we can only remark thait here the wish is the father of the thought. U all Slovaks today would stand on the correot Slov.ak side and not in the servlces of aliens, this silly question would not have to be brought up at all, because Slovak independence is above all else a matter ot life and death wlth the Slovaks. The Slovaks do not threaten any one wlth it; and it is not an expression of some form ot imperlalism, but an expression of natural rlght. And the Slovaks shall see thls right recognized and respected just because it is natural and democratic and !s, therefore in line with the 1'rinciples expressed in the A tlantic Chaflter by President Roosevel,t and Winston Churchill, as well as in the interest of a unlted Europe, wh ere every nation, large and small, is supposed to be united into a European associatlon as an independent unit. Only a policy which will guarantee all nations equal freedom shall bring Euro))e the long awaited just and lasting peace and weltare. The Slovaks attained autonomy October 6, 1938, witbout the help of people ot the Lettricb type and just so will they attain even the renewal ot their democratic independence. We are thlnklng realist!cally and we are aware of the fact that we are a small nation. But even a small nation has a rlght to live and to live in such an arrangement which best serves its interests. In 1918 we said that our Magyar marriage was unsuccessful and we had to part; and in 1938 we said the same thing about our Czechoslovak marriage. What was natu11al always prevailed. A natural right by which we want to convince the world about the thlnking of the Slovaks is also the plebiscite. Slávik and Lettrich are against a plebiscite, that is against the democratic rig,h t of the Slovaks to determine their own future. It now depends on Dr. Stephen Osuský whether he shall join the one or tbe other side. The Slovaks shall reach their goal, but it depends on Dr. Osuský whether they shall do so with bis help or without lt. • • • W H O SAID IT? WHO SAID IT ? "No polltical party In Slovak•, has taken as sharp a stand against bolshevism as our party. W e are convinced that the antl-communlst movement must be suported b y the whole of Europe, the entlre cultural and Chrlstlan world. At the Ume the Red Army invaded Poland, we defended the Idea that Czecho• Slovakla must hurry to help the Poles wlth weapons In h and and f!ght agalnst bolshevlsm." - (Andrew Hlinka, SLOVÁK, 11-18-30). � 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 1952, Vol. 2 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 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> 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 will see to it that Bentt Czechoslovaks are replaced only by Beneš Czechoslovaks ! Summarlly said, there is nothlng new In the Czechoslovak sky. We are not at all surprlsl•d by the behavlor of the hard-bolled adherents or Czechoslovak centraliem. But we are very mucb surprlsed with the Slovak servants renderlnr. them Jip servlce. Rudolph Fraštackf, a BeneA Czechoslovak, recently rťturned from a European trip and told trlends that among the most recent Slovak escapees he dld not !Ind a slngle one who stands for Cze1.hoslovakism. Slnce these !atest escapees interpret the sentiments ot 1.he Slovaks at horne, we can safely say that in Slovakia, regardless of thelr reli gious or previous political divisiona, the Slovaks almoat to ,1 man are againat the reatoration of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks are In a bllnd alley, because they dld not b elieve In slgns of the tlmes. Freedom 1s the watchword, the everlastlng h ope and the ultlmate goal <•f all nations of the earth - lncluding the S lovak nation. FOR DR. STEPHEN OSUSKY'S BENEFIT DR. PETER SKALENICKÝ The more new refugees arrive from Slovakia, so all the more and repeatedly do they confirm the fa<:t that our policy, based in our stand of Slovak independence, is correct. Even these new escapees, often former adberents of former CzechoslovQk political parties, confinn the fact that the Slovak nation not only yearns for lts own independence, but also tbat in Slovakia today no one believes tbat it will be possible to renew the Czechoslovak Republic. Nay, the people at horne do not b elieve tbat responsible people in exile can be found wbo would work against Slovak independence. It ls something natural. Certainly, a nation wh!cb once has had its own state and bas tasted of the advantages of its own independence will never surrender it, and it can be deprived of it only by force and violence. We can look upon tbe origln of the Slovak Republic in any manner that we will, but no one can deny, nor can any one erase from Slovak hlstory tbe actuallty that the Slovaks did have thelr own state from 1939 to 1945, that tbey did bave their own president and tbeir own government, and that Slovakia dirl _appear on the map of Europe as an Independent political unit. It is often said that the Slovak Republic was a satelllte state. Even under sucb circumstances, it was comparatively more than tbe Slovaks had during the first Czecboslovak Republic, or after 1945. 'ľbe president of Slovakla and the government always had more power tban the president of the Slovak National Council (Lettrich) and the commissars had after 1945. tbat ls during the period wben tbe Czecboslovak Republic was already_ supposed to he a federative state. And even thougb tbe cluration of the Slovak State falls into the perlod of war, Swiss newsmen told tbe world that the Slovak Republic was an oasis of consolidated peace and welfare. Tbat was because the Slovaks decided tbeir own affairs In tbelr country. The president of the Slovak IRepublic coulcl grant reprieves to those sen- SLOVAKIA 61 tenced to death; and he g ranted it in all cases. It serves and it shall continue to serve to the honor of the Slovak President and the Slovak Republic for all times that during its duration no one was e:xecuted in Slovakia by Slovak authorities. But what can be said about the period after 1945? Let us take a concrete case, that of Dr. Joseph Tiso, President of Slovakia. The Slovak Democratic Party, supported by the Catholics in the 1946 elections because they bel!eved tbat, among other things, it would prevent the execution or the Slovak President, did not even have the power to save bis life. Even in that case it was Beneš who had to decide, and declde he did - as he always had done before against Slovakia, on the recommendation of the Czech ministers who again wanted to come to Slovakia as liberators. The perlod from the Banská Bystrica insurrection (August 1944) is and shall remain a sad chapter in Slovak history. Tbis debacle ls the joint property of tbe Communists and the Lettricb Democrats. In the name of the revolution against Naziism they liquidated Slovak independence; in the name of democracy they vied with each other in attesting loyalty to Stalin and the Soviet Union; and in the namt o( humanity tbey built gallows. Today tbe communlsts In Czecboslovakia celebrate this revolution not because it was democratic, but because it was communistic. ll is well, however, that tbe Lettrichites, too, without reservatlons c-laimed and stlll claim it as their own, because thereby before bistory they assume the responsibili,ty for lhe liquidalion of Slovak independence, for lbe mass graves wilb hundreds of corpses, for the bloody verdicts of the People's Courts, for the thousands of citizens who langulshed in jails for long months, nay even years, without belng given a hearing or a tria!, for the torture-chambers of the STB (Securlty l:'ollce), for confiscatlng the property of persons who were not even given a tria! in Court, [or tbe arbitrary looting of churches and schools, for the revengeful police investigations and terror in the whole nation. Tbose are the marks of the politics of the people's• democratic rulers of Slovakia, the symbols of the freedom of the gallows a ccording to which Slovak and world history shall know them. The politlcian might, perbaps, pass over these matters with a heavy sigh In the interest of some agreement, the judge, however, must call a crime a crime, and the historian must record [acts on the pages or history. Today Slovakia has new generations, trained in the spirit or independence - generations wbo are suffering in jails and concentration camps at home. Many of them already have fa!len, but from thelr blood ls bom a new [orce and a new determination for those llving who shall never desert their nation and shall never surrender the right to thelr own lndependence. And abroad, in emigration, Slovakia has hundreds of young people who studied there and thousands of others who are going tbrougb the valuable school of Life. Let them be wheresoever they may, they s hall never s urrender the right to Slovak independence. During twenty years of the Czechoslovak Republlc, Slovaks only in isolated cases rould go abroad to study. Today the people's-<lemocratic regime has afforded them this advantage: they had to flee their homeland before its terror. And the SLOVAKIA ideals, the bearers of which are especially these young generations, prove to us clearly that thls 1s the cbaln of natural evolutlon of Slovak revolutiona.ry efforts from the tlme of Štúr down to our present limes. We know that Louls Štúr proclaimed Slovak independence al• ready in 1848. Tbe Slovak parliament only sanctioned th!s revolutíonary act of Štúr's in 1939 and thus real!zed what Štúr's generatlon did not have enough strengtb to effect. We are often mistaken by the outslde imperialistlc pressure wbicb hastened the politlcal development of Slovakia. This, bowever, cannot be taken as a denial of the matteľ. If that were so, then tbe nation at home would not yearn !or, and tbe overwhelming majority of Slovak exlles would not work for, Slovak independence. Every nation has a na,tural am.bition to create its own bistory in its own state and, represented by its own state. as an independent factor lt wants to contribule to t he increase ot the cultural values of all hu manity. Tbe Slovaks demand thelr independence because they are ·a natlon with t.heir own bisto ry, language and cult ure, and because they are com• manded to do so by charity to themselves and by a healthy mind. Why there is not a Single natlon in the world tbat would not want to be Independent. Enslavement of one's own nation can be tbe deslre or vengeful, self-seeking, mentally warped and confused lndlv!duals. Let us look upon the matter from whatever standpolnt, Czechoslovak• ism is and shall always remain an expression of nationa\ and persona! inferiority. Let it not be a surprise, then, if we turn our attentlon loday to Dr. Stephen Osuský, the foremost Slovak among a very small group ot people who sl!IJ hold to the Czechoslovak conceptlon. We do t h at because we want to believe that Mr. Osuský wil\ not lend bis name to lmpede t.he efforts of the Slovak nation. For some time now we are gettíng report.s that the political group of Dr. Lettrich wants to solve the present crlsis of the Czechoslovak foreign reslstance wlth the aid of tbe person of Dr. Osuský, who is supposed to become president of the Council ot Free Czechoslovak!a. Dr. Osuský is not famlliar with tbe Slovak politlcal sltuation at horne, because he bas been away from Slovakia for many years. And yet some people, wbo have become accustomed to serve the Czechs in the in terest of their persona) careers, want to use Dr. Osuský to decelve the western world by claiming that Slovaks are for th e Czechoslovak Republic. These people have already gone so far as to pian a Czecbo-Slovak federation w!th Dr. Stepben Osuský as its first president. They want to explolt the situatlon, because they are reck• oning with a strong pressure on Czech ex!led factors on account ot the problem of the Sudeten Germans whicb especially today, wben negotlatlons are in progress to conclude a peace treaty wlt-h western Germany, ls gaining polltlcal !mportance. It !s believed that Germany, as an im portant factor of lnternatlona!· politics wh!cb sball have extraordlnary slgnificance for the defense ot Europe, shall lnslst on t he exclusion from the ex!led governments, whlch shall arise in tlme, of all those wbo willingly cooperated with Moscow, wbo with their pol!cies Jed their nations into the present situation and are a!so responslble for the brutal expulsion of millions of Germans from thelr anclent homelands. SLOVAKIA 63 Th!s concerns especially the Czech politicians in exile, who are the bearers of Beneš's old pol!cy, wh!ch always was pro-Soviet and as such evoked many politlcal contentions and dltferences in Europe. The Germans may not want to intervene In the polltlcal affalrs of centra! European nations, but it is natural that they will want to have the nationality questlons in this sector solved at last to the full satisfactlon of the indivídua! natlons. And Germany, as an important European factor, has the full rlght to present these questions to the lnternatlonal forum. Such a development is undoubtedly presupp0$ed even by some people of Lettrich's faction who want to get something for themselves out of the situation, and Dr. Osuský !s supposed to help them in this. The representati ves of sever al families, reallzing their weakness In the naiton, still want to take possession or Slovakla so that they could gain rule there wlth the help of the Czechs. Once in power, they flgure that they wlll be able to proclaim the representatives of the idea of Slovak lndependence as enemles of the Czechoslovak Republic and so prevent their return to Slovakla so they themselves mlght rule without oppos!tlon. But these gentleman are grossty mistaken. The idea of Slovak independence cannot be ltilled and sllenced even by the liquidatlon of the representatlves of Slovak independence. They still can mlslead and deceive the western world for a Ume, but they cannot decelve the Slovak nation any more. If Dr. Osuský wants to have a correct appraisal about the mlnd of the Slovak natlon, Jet h!m come to the meet!ngs of Slovak emigrants in Canada or In the USA, or Jet him visit the European DP camps. Th!s pollcy of Lettrich's people, alas, cannot be called anything but bllnd. Are these people really so non-critlcal that they cannot see the!r own m!stakes and errors? It seems that mora Ii ty and responslb!llty have been excluded completely trom thelr policy. People who created or helped to prepare the bloodiest regime In our hl story, do such people want to return again as Jlberators? Their consclence 1s probably so dead to the reproac·h es and crímes which the natlon shall one time put before them because they are concerned only wlth thelr careers and the regalning of their Jost propertles. Or do they think that their crimes shall not be subject to crltlclsm and judgment? Where crimes have been committed, there must be sought the crim!nal. The people who conducted the politlcs of the Slovak Republlc were placed on tria! by them after 1945, and they certainly did not cause the nation any such suffering as !t 1s golng through slnce 1945. To give these people to the nation as llberators would be as paradoxlcal as if, after conv!ctlng tbe innocent Rudolph Beran, Beneš would have become the leader of tbe Czech Agrarlan Party. These are welghty facts, and very weighty from the standpoint of history and polltics. We present them to Dr. Osuský to conslder whether he wants to Identity himself wlth Lettrlch's polltlcs and represent bis followers before the world and the natlon. It depends entlrely on hlm whether he sball succumb to these people or whether he shall let the decislon in hls own hands. We remlnd that Slovak history is belng made even in emlgration. And there are only two possiblllties: on the side of Š.túr and Hlinka, that is on the slde or tbose who belleved in the Independent future of the Slovak nat!on, 64 SLOVAKIA or on tbe opposlte side - on t he side of the enemies of Slovak inde• pendence. To deny a nat.ion lts right to independence means to deny it even the right of individuality. lťs something llke when Lettricb and Slávik speak aibout democracy, but protest that an opportunlty be given the Slovaks to declde by a democratic expression of will whether tbey want to live in their own state or wlth tbe Czechs In a Czechoslovak Republic. It is clear proof that they fear the will of the nation and want to force their own conceptlon on the nation. Woe, however, to the politician, wbo is afraid of the expression of bis own natlon! The Czechoslovaks often say wishfully that the West wlll not recognize the right of the Slovaks to independence. To this we can only remark thait here the wish is the father of the thought. U all Slovaks today would stand on the correot Slov.ak side and not in the servlces of aliens, this silly question would not have to be brought up at all, because Slovak independence is above all else a matter ot life and death wlth the Slovaks. The Slovaks do not threaten any one wlth it; and it is not an expression of some form ot imperlalism, but an expression of natural rlght. And the Slovaks shall see thls right recognized and respected just because it is natural and democratic and !s, therefore in line with the 1'rinciples expressed in the A tlantic Chaflter by President Roosevel,t and Winston Churchill, as well as in the interest of a unlted Europe, wh ere every nation, large and small, is supposed to be united into a European associatlon as an independent unit. Only a policy which will guarantee all nations equal freedom shall bring Euro))e the long awaited just and lasting peace and weltare. The Slovaks attained autonomy October 6, 1938, witbout the help of people ot the Lettricb type and just so will they attain even the renewal ot their democratic independence. We are thlnklng realist!cally and we are aware of the fact that we are a small nation. But even a small nation has a rlght to live and to live in such an arrangement which best serves its interests. In 1918 we said that our Magyar marriage was unsuccessful and we had to part; and in 1938 we said the same thing about our Czechoslovak marriage. What was natu11al always prevailed. A natural right by which we want to convince the world about the thlnking of the Slovaks is also the plebiscite. Slávik and Lettrich are against a plebiscite, that is against the democratic rig,h t of the Slovaks to determine their own future. It now depends on Dr. Stephen Osuský whether he shall join the one or tbe other side. The Slovaks shall reach their goal, but it depends on Dr. Osuský whether they shall do so with bis help or without lt. • • • W H O SAID IT? WHO SAID IT ? "No polltical party In Slovak•, has taken as sharp a stand against bolshevism as our party. W e are convinced that the antl-communlst movement must be suported b y the whole of Europe, the entlre cultural and Chrlstlan world. At the Ume the Red Army invaded Poland, we defended the Idea that Czecho• Slovakla must hurry to help the Poles wlth weapons In h and and f!ght agalnst bolshevlsm." - (Andrew Hlinka, SLOVÁK, 11-18-30).  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 For Dr. Stephen Osusky's Benefit Description An account of the resource Dr. Peter Skalenický Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3), March 1952 pp. 60-64 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Skalenický, Peter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1952 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/2c7203cd9c73f297254992ac57ba7ddf.pdf 6f6fec972c221a50376932ac111481cd PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA THE LEGACY OF THE GREAT MORAVIAN STATE OF OUR ANCESTORS: THE SLOVANIC CIIUOOH AND SLOVANIC LITERATURE JOSEPH SKULTETY In 862, (i. e., 1101 years ago) there came to Emperor Mic:hael in Constantinople messengers fi'om the region of the Middle Danube, the Germano-Slovanic frontier, and said to him: "By the grace of God we are in good health, and there come to us Christian teachers from Italy, Greece and Germany, teaching us various things. But we are Sloveni .•. " The words "but we are Sloveni" were meant to convey the thought that they desire to have teachers in the ChrisDr. Joseph Skultety's book "Nehante l!.ud M6j" (Do Not Slander My .People) was pulblished in 1928. iln it the aiuthor successfully refuted three prevalent fallacies, all of ;which tended to vilify the Slovak people and distort Slovak history. Professor Sku1tety's book was translated into English by Cl. D. Koretf and published by the F'irst Catholic Slovak Union, Middletown, Pa., in 1930, under the title of "Sketches From ·S lovak History." The first chapter, relating to Great Moravia and the Slovak Apostles ,SIS. Cyril and Method•i us, caretully and thoroughly corrected to correspond with the Slovak original, is presented here. - P. A. Hrobak tian doctrine "who would teach us in our own language, a language intelligible to us," and they added: "Send us such, 0 Lord." 'I\hey were the messengers from our Slovak ancestors, from their ruler Rastislav. The words they addressed to Emperor Micihael are quoted in the biography ("Zitie") "By of Apostle Methodius, and the opening sentence histothis the grace of God we are in good heallth" gives ric document a coloring of antiquity. It proves that Slovaks said this in Corurtantinople. 1 At that time, 862, there already stood in our Nitra a Christian church for more than thirty years, the first in the whole of ibhe western Slovanic world. But since then Rastislav had bad experiences. The missionaries cam~ mainly from the Germans, our western neighbors, a,n d the worst of it was not that his nation did not understand �36 SLOVAKIA them and thus Christianity only slowly took root: Rastislav dreaded most that the Germans would want to subjugate politica'1ly whomever they converted to Christ.2 For that reason he asked for teachers from the East and sent his messenger to Constantinople. From thence he obtained extraordinary, great men - real apostles - in the persons of the brothers Constantine and Methodius. They founded in Rastislav's nation the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature. And from the Slovanic worship and Slovanic literature, thus founded, a great thing emanated for the Slovanic peoples .. . Great conf1.11Sion arose among the Slavists over the question what kind of Slovans (Slavs) had constituted Rastislav's and Sviitopluk's Great Moravia, although Dobrovsky, the founder of · Slovanic philology, as early as in 1825 categorically stated that the real Great Moravia was the present-day Slovakia, 3 and Safarik in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti," in 1837, placed the Sfovaks, in the second half of the ninth century, · not only between . the Ca11pathian Mountains and the Danube, (as far as Mt. Matra and Vacov) and along the Morava River, but also on the other bank of the Danube, all the way up to Blatno. 4 This was appropria,tely. elucidated by V. Jagic who gave direction · to the fourth generation of Slavists. In his great work on the origin of the Church Slovanic language,5 expounding the ethnographic character of ancient Moravia, the Moravia of Rastislav and Svatopluk, J agic wrote: "In her language Moravia is even today Czech only in her western half - her eastern half is connected with the Slovaks, and these Slovaks even now are living in northwestern Hungary . . . In ancient Moravia, if her frontiers extended to the Danube, they must have spoken a language in the ninth century which was in its su1bstantial outlines identical with the present-day Slovak language (as in Moravia and Upper Hungary). This Slovak language could them have been more widespread even in Moravia than it is today, and in Hungary could have extended as far as the Danube." In his article on Slovanic languages,6 Jagic called the present-day Slovak dialects the real descendants of · the �SLOVAKIA 37 language of ancient Moravia. To his explanation we can add the evidence we have in the name "Rastislav'. That name - that beloved name - puts a special Slovak stamp on Great Moravia. As we know from Slovanic grammars, there are two groups of words which the Slovaks have in common with the South-Slavs, but not with the Czech and Poles, to whom as western Slovans they otherwise belong linguistically. To one of these two groups (raz = to the Czech roz; razga = to the Czech rozha; razen = to the Czech rozen; raky1a = to the Czech rokyta; razst.ep, raztoka, and others) belongs also the word rasf (in t:Jhe Czech rosti) and words derived from it. Together with the Czechs and the Poles, the Russians also use "o". Now, in contemporaneous or old records in general, the name Rastislav is Rastislav everywhere, and only exceptionally, by some error, Rostislav; in contemporaneous records, in German annals, he is called consistently Rastic (an abbreviated form of the name). That means the German neighbors heard that name witll an "a,,, and sounding thus, it proves that either in Moravia, in all of Moravia, a language was spoken whose phonetics was like the phonetics of the language beneath the Tatra Mountains, that is, present-day language of central Slovakia, or else the princely family, who reared Rastiislav, sprang from Slovaks, who settled on this side of the Morava River. But even so, if Ra•s tislav was a native of this side of the Morava river, they still would have called him tlheir own way Rostislav on the other, the western side. And that they did not call him thus, that the name "Rastislav,, resounded even in Western Moravia, that is ,proved by the form "Rastic" preserved in a11 the contemporaneous German records. 7 The country of Rastislav, even in the extreme West, was Slovak. 8 In the southeast, as we already know from Safarik,9 and as topographic names indicate, Sloyak settlements extended to Mt. Matra. In :the East they originally reached probably to the river Topfa, whose name comes from the Slovenes (Sloveni), the ancestors of the present..day Bulgarians. But if these people from the territory of the Tisa crossed beyond the lower Danube in the seventh �38 SLOVAKIA century, the Slovak "Sloveni" expanded in the East even beyond the Topfa river. Here and in the territory beyond Uzhorod, occupied by Russians since the twelfth century, the names of settlements are in significant number of Slovak origin. And from Mt. iMatra to Vacov, bey<»).d the Danube from Budin up to Vysehrad and Ostrihom, there also are ancient Slovak settlements. 10 Indeed, Slovak settlements could have extended even farther South, all the way to Blatno. Pdbina, driven from Nitra, even though enjoying Gemian favor, hardly could have become a ruler here as a foreigner. Apostle Metihodius, appointed by Rome, was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia since 873, from which we ~n also judge that beyond the De.nube, in Pannonia, there lived the same kind of people as above the Danube, beneath the Carpathians and along the Morava River. Even Sa!fari:k called attention to the names of prominent people who were present in 850 at the blessing of Pribina's church at Blatno Castle. Jagic explained those names of the "Pannonian Sloveni" and arrived at the conclusion that from among fifteen almost half were western Slovanic. Now, if these names were western Slovanic, then they were Slovak - no other western Slovans could have lived near Blatno. The State of our Slovak ancestors, which already in Mojmir's days up to 846 had been built wisely and cou~ageously, was already a power in Rastislav's time. The Germans were then pushing down the Danube, as they never did afterwards, and Great Moravia, the young Slovanic State, heroically barred their way. True enough, their aggression only increased thereby. King Louis, called the German, a grandson of Charlema;gne, in 855, immediately after his accession, invaded Moravia with a great military force in order to rid himself of a danger which was growing there for his realm. But 'here the very resistance was so great that Louis - as a contemporaneous record mentions - decided rather to leave his opponent in peace than to expose his whole army to a catastrophe. He did not dare to attack the firm position of Rastislav and merely devastated the neighborhood. The attack of the Moravians on the German encampments was repulsed, but the departure of the Germans resembled a flight. Rastislav pursued Louis, the German, �SLOVAKIA 39 invaded his territory and devastated it far and wide. Liberated Moravia - says Safarik attained complete independence and became the 1baven of refuge of all Slovans whQ were either discontented with or oppressed by the Franks (Germans), and even of the Germans themselves who had come into some conflict with the government of King Louis. His sons, too, Karlmann and Louis, Junior, looked to Rastislav for support in quarrels with their father. In the annals of the Fuld Monastery of 869, there is a record which mentions Rastislav's castle, in all probability Devin, as "the mighty fortress with which not even one of the most ancient ca,n compa:re." 11 And under Svatopluk, after Rastislav, Great Moravia represented a still greater military power. The defeat of the Gel'!IIlans in 870, beneath Devin, was horrible. 'Ilheir great airmy perished in the battle; very few saved themselves by flight. There were very few families in Bavaria, Austria and Carinthia (Corutania., who did not mourn the loss of some of their members. Ka.rrlmann quickly ordered the gathering of all the captured Moravians, whom he kept in various places of his country so that he could exehange them for his own men who were held prisoners by Svaitopluk. Well, he got only one half-dead man back, the renowned hero Ratbod. Any German who had not fled from the battlefield remained there dead. This battle has been compared with that which the Roman gei,.eraJ V arus lost in the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 A. D., and Svatopluk was compared with the German Armin (Herman). But we also have Palacky's version of that battle. With keen perception, Palacky stated that in history there is also difference between these two battles. The first was described for us by Tacitus, about the other we know ft-om the chronicle of the monk of Fuld. 12 Later is his reign Svatopluk completely stopped the flood of Germans down the Danube towards the East. In German annals a record is preserved stating that when he went against Arnulf in 884, his army was seen in one place to pass all day, from morning until evening. Svitopluk already then had extended his sovereignty to the North over the Czech land, where the first ·historic Czech �40 SLOVAKIA prince, Bofivoj, ruled, and over the Polish Slovans along the Upper Vistula (Visla); in the South his sovereignty extended even farther, fwr beyond the frontiers of Slovak territory. It seemed then that the Slovanic people would unite under his rule. I shall not quote Saifarik, Palacky or any other Slovanic historian; it will suffice to cite from Pauler as to the past. In his book "A magyar nemmt tortenet.e s:rent lstvanig," awarded the Grand Prize of the Magyar Academy in 1900, Pauler says: "'In Atelkuz the Magyars were much nearer to their present homeland than they had been in Lebedia. From Seret, from Baku to Mairosvasarhelyi the distance is only some twenty geographic miles. And here - certainly by way of the most natural road through the valley of the Dniester, tJhen up the Stryj, through Verek Pass - they could look into the land extending from the Carpathians to the South where just then great battles were raging. The Slovans living along the Morava River, on the left bank of the Danube, under powerful ·a nd courageous rulers, had fo:nned a country worthy of consideration. They began to be baptized already in the first half of the ninth century, but in reality they were confirmed in the Ohristian faith only by Constantine, the philosopher, and his brother Methodius from the year 863. "From the very beginning of the ninth century, from the time of Charlemagne, there were, so to say, continuous wars between the Slovans and the reahn of the Franks, from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, now here, now there. The Slovans had penetrated wedge-like deeper and deeper between the Germanic tribes since the sixth century, and the reaction of the Franks was forcefµL In the ninth century the Germans, attacking everywhere, endeavored to make vassals of their Slovanic neighbors alon,g the Saale River, as well as on the frontiers of the Czech Mountains, or beyond the Danube. With the Siovans a!bove the Middle Danube, Svatopluk founded such a realm to which the Czech land in Bohemia, the countries around the sources of the Vistula, and in the South, besides the valleys of the Morava, Vah and Nitra. - that nucleus of the realm were subjected, and his power extended from the River �SLOVAKIA 41 Hron over the whole territory between the Danu:be and the Tisa Rivers, down to Sriem and up to the Ca,rpathians ... "Eastern FTankland, that conglomeration of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians, was ruled since 887 by the handsome and brave Arnulf, the illegitimate son of Karlmann and the girandson of Louis the German, who but a few years previously - in 883 and 884 - as prince of Carinthia had felt the weight of Svatopluk's power and had helplessly looked on as he (Svatopluk) bad cruelly and mercilessly raivaged Pannonia, and even now, as king, he did not know what to do with him. "In July, 892, Arnulf took to the sword and with an army of Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians and attacked Moravia. The Magyar horde, which was just then passing through, joined him ( - hired by Arnulf ! - note of this author) and ravaged Svatopluk's country for four weeks; but then the Germans and Ma.rgyars turned homeward (with bleeding heads - note of this author) and Svatopluk's power, not even shaken, remained as it had been heretofore" .13 In German chronicles and in contemporaneous annals, Svatopluk is called the ",powerful," the "dread of his neighbors," "the wisest," "the most deceitful," man of his nation; "a wolf," and "a blood-thh'sty malcontent." The calumnies of enemies, of course, are not to be taken Hterally. To his German neighbors Svatopluk was "a wolf," and "blood-thirsty," because the wounds caused by his sword hurt. But those were wounds which they sustained mostly when they ventured where they had no dght to go. And then history judges differently than contemporaries do. I could cite from the excellent work of Alfons Huber, 14 an Austro-German, quotations similar to those in the Magyar book of Pauler a:Qout the deeds of the nation of Mojmir, Rastislav and Svatopluk in the second half of t:he ninth century. To found such a state, a Slovanic State on the Middle Danube ast that time - in the second half of the ninth century - certainly was a great accomplishment; history wil!l never cease speaking of it. Indeed, there were indications that a center was originating ·h ere around which a significant part of the Slovans would unite. But a young �42 SLOVAKIA state, in order to become firm, to consolidate, needs favorable circumstances. History deduces even the beginnings of Rome had favorable and fortunate conditions. Our Slovak ancestors, at the end of tile ninth century, were not so fortunate. The Germanic world still lived in a condition of ferment - to have it as a neigU11bor was not good. It would yield, retreat, only under duress, as during the· lifetime of Svatopluk. After Svatoplu:k's death, the nomadic Magyars came to be another neighbor on the other side of the Danube and to tlle Tisa River. Under such circumstances, aflter the first weakening caused by some internal, domestic strife, a young organization is apt to fare ba~y. The trou:ble here was the disunity of the sons of Svatopluk, which was flamed by their German neighbors, and Great Moravia perished. 'Dhe Magyars came to the Danube in 896, two years after Svatopluk's death, and Mojmir II, Svatopluk's successor, in 900 still petitioned for and obtained from Rome two bishops and one archbishop, thus he was still organizing the Church. In 902, with his sword he still proved to his Trans-Danubian neighbors that he was a son of Svatopluk.15 Not long rufterwards, however, he was no more. It is not even known what became of him whither he went. Great Moravia perished. 16 The state of affairs on the Middle Danube in the ninth century is explained in Anton Budilovic's book, published in 1'886, on the occasion of the millenial memorial of the death of Met!hodius: "'l'he Huns and the Avars cleaned the lands of the Middle Danube considerably of the Thraco-Illyrian, Celto--Roman and Germanic nations, but, under the successors of Charlemagne, German colonization again turned to these blessed lands and . covered with its net not only Upper but also Lower Pannonia and the western aft-valleys of Moravia. The antlike activity of the German colonist there was supported by the quite mature politicail and ecclesiastical organization of the Germany of that time. Supporting the German colonist on the one side was the German soldier, margrave, duke, the king, the emperor; on the other side, the German priest, monk, bishop, arch!bishop. What could the Slovans of these lands, divided into branches, scattered, not united by anything, put up against such forces? The federative union of two or three �SLOVAKIA 43 tribes, the muscular force of the homeguards, 1:Jhe accidenta:l geniality of the chief and the eµthusiam of national hatred, aroused by violence? This could onJy be temporary . . . A lasting and successful struggle is only possible where there exists a certain balance of forces and equality of weapons, bow against bow, system against system, fore~ ful, profound ideas against other ideas. Can there be any talk of balance of forces of one or two Slovanic nations with the whole German race, of an alliance of a few patriarchal tribes with a great and organized empire? Could even the most genial leaders of the western Slovanic peoples at that time repel the onslaught of a whole system of cultural ideas in which were also included the heritage of the ancient world and the refreshing Cll'ITent of Christianity? . . . The best answer to these questions is presented by the fate of the Baltic Slavs. There they lacked neither ta:lented military leaders, nor a fiery hatred of the Germans, nonetheless these Slavs perished and their lands became the center of the later renovated empire of the Hohenstaufens." The closing words of Budilovic are that the same fate would have overtaiken the Slovans of Great Moravia had not their Rastislav, aroused by a penetrating foresight, obtained such apostles as were the brothers of Salonica (Solun), Cyril and Methodius. 17 Yes, as already mentioned, the state of affairs was difficult for our Slovak ancestors. Nonetheless, their State creation lasted almost one hundred years, and from the very beginning inscribed itself appropriately into history. Palacky, in his "Dejiny" (!history) presents the foundations which Rastislav and Svatopluk built with their nation as the nucleus around which all the Slovanic tribes would have been attracted gradually; from it they would have received Christianity; if not new political constitutions, at least a national and new European culture, arts and industry, unity of language, an alphabet and literature. As under the influence of Rome, the monarchy of the Franks matured in the West, similarly a great Slovanic empire would have grown up with the help of the spirit of Byzantium, and Eastern Europe of a thousand years ago would have assumed a shape different from that which it in reality assumed. 18 �44 SLOVAKIA Palacky spoke as if carried away in a rhetorical rapture; but it can be stated even with the coolest mind that great things were lost with the collapse of Great !Moravia. ~en at that, the Slovanic Ohurch,founded for our Slovak ancestors, with the Slovanic alphabet and Slovanic literature, became the foundation on which the great race of Slovanic peoples developed. When especially in the West only three, or really only two languages (Greek and Latin) were considered feasible for Christian ecclesiastic life, the Holy Scriptures and worshi,p, the brothers Cyril and Methodius began their mission with the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the Slovanic language. At the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, when, as a result of the Russo-Turkish war, the Balkan Slovans were rid of the hard fate of five hundred years duration, and among all the Slovans flowed especially cordial feelings, the Russian literary historian Alexander Pypin called attention to the Pan-Slovanic significance of what the great apostles Cyril and Methodius had accomplished among our Slovak ancestors. And he added that their work is an heritage and an ideal of Slovanic unification 19 True enoug,ll, the neighboring Germans at once raised on alarm that Constantine :md Methodius were installing Slovanic worship and translating the Holy Scriptures in Rastislav's land. Our apostles deemed it necessary for that reason to journey to Rome as early as 867. There they submitted their cause in such a manner that Pope Adrian solemnly blessed the Slovanic books. Before the coming to Moravia of the brothers, only · Constatine had been ordained to priesthood; the Pope ordered also Methodius and their Slovak disciples, whom they had brought along to Rome, to be ordained, and in the leading cathedrals of Rome they sang the liturgy in the Slovanic language. It became necessary for the apostles to remain a longer time in Rome. Constantine, physicaUy frail, became ill, joined a monastic order and assumed the name Cyril. While going about as missionary among the Kaza.rs near the Black Sea, Cyril had uncovered in Kherson the remains of St. Olemenrt, who had died a martyr, and these restored remains he now brought to Rome. Thus it hap- �SLOVAKIA 45 pened, that when he died . on February 14, 869, he was buried in the church of that same St. Clement. The dying Cyril touchingly implored his ·b rother to persevere in the important Slovak mission. Methodius, of course, persevered with the greatest zeal. From 873 he was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia. When the German bishop did not cease inciting against the Slovanic worship, it again became necessary to journey to Rome in 880. And in this trial too, he was victorious. Pope John VIII, wrote in a Bull sent to Svatopluk ("glorioso principi ~fentopulcho"): "The Slovank script, whldh the late phi~osopher Constantine devised, that in it may duly resound the praise of God, is lawfully confirmed; and we decree that in that language the glory and the acts of · our Lord p1rist be related. For not only in three, but in all languages are we exhorted by the holy author (King David) to praise the Lord . . . The apostles too, permeated with the Holy Ghost, spoke in all languages about the greatness of God . . . He who created the three · principal languages Hebrew, Greek, and Latin - created also the others to His honor and glory ...." What great events! Thus is documented that in the Church the Slovanic language was placed in the same rank with Greek and Latin. Already in the ninth century! ... And all this emanated from our Slovak ancestors! As long as there will be souls capable of becoming enthused for sublime things, so long will the memory of the Slovanic apostles Cyril and Methodius remain ~evered, and there will be always found people who will know that the Slovanic Church had been instituted for our Slovak ancestors, and that it all emanated from the mind of their great ruler [Rastislav. The Slovak State of the ninth century did not survive, it perished in maelstrom of the world, but the Slovanic world has a great heritage from it. With the development of science, particularly Slovanic philology, this event of world history will become more lucid :with every passing year. When the work of the Slovanic apostles and the struggle of Great Moravia with the Germanic world will be recalled, talk of C~atho-Damtbian and Pannonian Slovans will cease, and the Sloveni-Slovaks will be definitely mentioned. When it is already so clear �46 SLOVAKIA that in the ninth century the inhabitants of present-day Moravia were only Slova.ks, the nation of Rastislav and Svatopluk will not be called "Moravians and Slovaks" (as in the "Slovanske Staro'Litnosti" of Sa.fa.rik), but consistent. ly and definitely "Slovaks." The ,b iographies ("Zitia") of our apostles, which remained in the Church-iSlovanic language will cease to be called "Pannonian" legends when it will be esta·b lished that the great missionaries whom Rastislav had appointed were only in Pannonia on their journey to Rome, after an activity of four years in Moravia and Slovakia; then again Methodius 1Was there alone, before he could get home, to Devin or Nitra, on his return journey from Rome. (Thus in 867, when stopping above Blatno, to visit Kocel', it was surely only because he was the son of Pribina, formerly of Nitra.) Then will also cease the confusing of our county with the Czech land since the Czechs participated in the formation of the Slovanic Church and literature only after .t he baiptism of Borivoj. Not even the legend that Methodius converted the Bulgarian (Czar) Boris to Christ .b y painting for him a ,picture of the Last Judgment will mislead us any longer; of the two brothers :&om Salonica neither the one, nor the other, labored among any other Slovamic nations. They labored only among the Sloveni-Slovaks. Their teaching reached the Bulgars only through their disciples :£rom Great Moravia after Methodius was no longer among the living. Most recently, this matter was excellently illuminated by the Russian emigrant, the Slovanic philologist Valerij Pogorielov of the university of Bratislava, in his study "About the na.ti.onaJ.ity of the apostles of Slavdom."20 The Slovanic script - as devised by apostle Constantine-C yril after he and his brother Methodius already had the authority for the mission to Rastislarv's nation, and the grammar of this script founded in the Church-Slova nic books - is such an accomplishme nt that Cyril is being admired as a linguistic phenomenom. Nonetheless, recently in science both brothers were generally considered native Greeks. Silenced were also the doubters, into whose heads could not penetrate the fact ,t hat one who was not born a Slovan could hardly grasp in such a manner and sense the charac- �SLOVAKIA 47 ter of the Slovanic language, as we see in the work of St. Cyril. What did Pogorielov do? He began to examine the Slovanic translations of the Holy Scriptures made from the Greek to check whether the brothers from Salonica were as expert i? Greek as they had been in the Slovanic lenguage. He found that in the Church-Slovanic Bible texts there were errors which could not have been made by a translat.or whose mother-language had been Greek. Pogorielov came to the conclusion that the holy brothers from Salonica (Solun) could not have been Greeks - they were Slovans. At the same time he very aptly notes that, allowing such a solution of the question, we will also comprehend that energy, that zeal and self-sacrifice which they displayed in the services of the Slovanic cause. We will understand their impartiality in the dispute between Byzantium and Rome. Would real Greeks have gone to Rome to seek protection for their Slovanic activity? It is a:lso interesting how Pogorielov explains the relation of the Sloveni-Slovaks to the work of the holy apostles. When after the death of Methodius the Slovanic church books were taken from Moravia to Bulgaria, they proved to be altogether intelligible there. The Bulgarian literati began to correct the language of the books, e.g., instead of nedag (at present nedu.h) they put bolezn; instead o(f prositi they wrote moliti; instead of nvot - zizn; instead of otrok - sluga; instead of godina - cas, etc. That is, in the Church texts the Slovaks words (Slovak in the present-day sense) were replaced by Bulgarian words. And Pogorielov does not stop there, but goes farther. He explains how western Slovanic or Slovaik words had gotten into the work of the natives of Salonica that is, South Slovans. Goraoo, one of the first disciples of Cyril and Methodius was considered a SloV3Jk already by Safarik. In regard to Gorazd, Pogorielov· quotes the words21 with which the dying Methodius (in 885) appointed him his successor to the seat of the archbishopric: "This is a free man of your country22 ," that is Gorazd, "a man of your own country," was not a Southern Slovan, as had been the apostles them- �48 SLOVAKIA selves, the brothers from Salonica, but a western Slovan, that is, a son of the country - as Pogorielov says emphatically - where Methodius himself had worked and preached and of which he was archbishop. The Slovakisms in the Slovanic text of the Holy Scriptures are the work of Gorazd ; "to his pen also belongs the translation of all the works from Latin into the Slovanic lan:g:uage." Pogorielov calls St. Gorazd the third apostle of the Slovanic peoples. Referring also to the great Slavist Jagic, who ex;plained in 1900 and in 1913 that in ancient Moravia in the ninth century "substantially the same language was spoken as is today's Slovak," Pogorielov agrees that "it was the Slovaik language, and the country was Slovakia, and this means that St. Gorazd really was a man of the Slovak country - that he was a Slovak23 • In the introduction to his study, written and published in Bratisla,va, Pogorielov remarks that the holy Slovak apostles, Cyril and Methodius, used to walk in this vicinity, therefore, the words of the great ·b ard of the Slovanic world, Jan Kollar, can be rightfully repeated. "Stand still, foot! Sacred are the places wherever thou waJkest !" 24• To which I add: Aye, aye, Devin ! ! ! ... About a person wh·o accomplished great things during his lifetime, people say after his death: •~He died, but his memory shall remain." Greater Moravia has also passed away, has :perished, but her legacy is such that she will be remembered. "Here took place in the ninth century," says a Russian historian, "events not only of Pan-Slovanic, but ailso, it can be said, of universal significance : an important attempt at a political unification of the Slovans the Great Moravian political union - famed itself by the most memorable, infinitely fertile activity of the Slovanic Apostles in Moravia. Here were laid the foundations for the national church and national Slovanic Christian education, here were formed the plans and the direction of the entire future of the whole subsequent historic development of the Slova.nic world, it.s world role and its relation to Romano-Oennanic Europe, to the West, and to the Asiatic guestion. The Christianization of the masses of people and their manner of life, bringing them to the Eastern Church, the foundation of Church-Slovanic litera,- �SLOVAKIA 49 ture and education in the Slovanic South, among the Bulgars and the Serbs, and in the East among the Russians, and partly also among the other western Slovans, was only the continuation of that work which Cyril and Methodius had initiated and which could survive, alas, only a short time in the Middle Danubian countries. From here, from Great Moravia, flowed a copious stream of Slovanic Church literature and Slovanic ritual, of a common Church language and together with it also of national consciousness in all directions - to the ·v arious kin: to the North to the Poles; to the West to the Czechs; to the South to the Slovenes, the Serbo-Croats, and Bulgars (to the latter directly through the disciples of Methodius, who had been expelled from Moravia after his death); and lastly to the East, to Russia . . ." 25 "The fruits of the independent spiritual development, based on a national Church and literature, founded by the Slovanic apostles" - further says Constantine Grot "took root in the Slovanic South and East, where there was not such a ha.rd national struggle as on the Middle Danube." And he calls attention to the fact that it w~s at that time that the Germanic world returned with elemental force to these lands, which its tri·b es had occupied once before, and for that reason it was much harder for the Carpatho-Danubian Slovans to maintain themselves against such pressure. And just then the Magyars also arrived . . . Indeed, even during the life of Svatopluk, soon after the death of Methodius (885), the Slovanic Church had gone over from us to the South~lovans, thence to the Eastern (IS lovans) and there helped to create the great Russian nation out of the many tribes. ""The legacy of the brothers of .Salonica" - as correctly e:,cpressed by Daniel Laucek - "prepared among the Russians national unity by means of Church unity." 26 The Czech ruler, Prince Borivoj, was baptized by Methedius at the court of Svatopluk; with Boriivoj's successors Slovanic literature took root in the Czech country and also got to the Poles; but here too like with the Slovaks and Czechs, 'because they were neighbors of the German world, the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature did not sumve among the ·P oles. It is true, in the Church terminology of us all, Slovaks, Czechs, and Poles, to this �50 SLOVAKIA day traces of the language have been presented (for instance even the most important word uHospodin" ), the language which the holy apostles Cyril and Methodius had introduced into our ecclesiastic life. And it is worth mentioning, that of all the Slovans, the teachings of the 'Slovan apostles did not reach - neither during their lifetime, nor later through their disciples - a single tribe of the Baltic and Polabian Slovans, and of all the Slovans just these latter perished in the religious a;nd existential struggle which they waged with the Germans. When Emperor Michael in Constantin ople had learned from the Slovak delegation what was at stake, what kind of aipostles R!astislav desired, he at once decided to entrust this task to Constantin e, the philosopher , who had rlistingttished himself in rupostolic wor.k before, at first alone and later with his brother Methodius. The messengers said to the Emperor: "We are Sloveni -," i. e., they desired teachers of the Christian faith whom they could understand. The brothers Constantin e and Methodius, as natives of Salonica (Thessalon ica) where suited even language-wise for the mission among the Slovans: they knew Slovanic. ·Emperor Michael, having summoned them, told the brothers: "You are from Salonica, and all Salonicans spewk pure Slovruk ("'sloviensky) 27 • The brothers, however, did not want to go empty-hand ed to Rastislav's nation, and Constantine, having learned fr()lffi the messengers that the Sloveni-Slovaiks did not ha,ve their own script, in the first ·p lace contemplat ed over a suitable script. In the words of the legend, God revealed the Slovanic script to the meditating, contemplat ing, worried and praying Constantine. Such a tradition maJkes him so much dearer to us. And indeed it is such an achievemen t that we can be proud of it. Constantin e proceeded from the Greek script, but Slovanic sounds, especially in the ninth century, greatly varied with the Greek, therefore new letters, new characters were needed. And Constantin e placed it on such a basis that the more lndo-Europ ean linguistics develops, the more admira:ble becomes his creation28 • Even today, if doubt arises in any Slovanic language over the correct spelling of some word, informatio n is sought in Cyril's orthograiph y. And even in this respect �SLOVAKIA 51 can we Slovaks ha,ve the great satisfaction that, without our Rastislav, he (Cyril) would not have had the opportunity to assert his phenomenal talent. Had not the Slovak messengers come to Constantinople, what more could have Constantine accomplished there? At first he had been used in Constantinople to bring to reason the iconoclasts, then to convert to Christ the Mohamedan Sara,zens and the pagan Khruzars: had not the Slovak messengers appeared there, Constantine, in all likelihood, would have continued in that activity, or he would have remained in the monastery into which he had retired for a life of tranquility. People of phenomenal mental gifts need a field for their activity. Our Rastislaiv will also be remembered in the world-historic work of Cyril. In 1886, when the Slovanic peoples celebraited the millenium of the death of Methodius, a Russian historian asked: "What was the Slovanic world prior to Cyril and Methodius?" and answered: "Scattered over the vast spaces of middle Europe, Russia and the Balkan Peninsular among foreign and hostile nations, although a race gifted by nature with beautiful spiritual endowments, the Slovan r ace represented a torn, disjointed mass of different tribes without any consciousness of racial relationship . . ." The brothers from Salonica appear on the stage of Slovanic history in the middle of the ninth century, "strong in spirit and profoundly permeated with the consciousness of their sacred calling, namely, to furnish the Slovans with Christian enlightenment," and in a comparatively short time thereafter there is an entirely difforent life among the Slovans29 • The Russian philologist Alexej Sachmatov explained that the Russian race in the ninth century was disintegrating into a multitude of tribes. The tribes among themselves remained in substance closely related, but lived separately; for that reason they differed in morals and in customs and had their individual dialects. Had they lived longer without any connecting mediums, complete individualization would have sprung up among them and a multitude of conflicting dialects would have developed. But owing to the events of the tenth centucy an organization of state was created among the Russian tribes which united them in a political, �52 SLOVAKIA cultural and religious unit. In the eleventh century the body of the state, created by Vladimir and his descendants, became stabilized: it consisted of all Russian lands with the exception of Galicia and Polocko, which were differently situated geographically. In the twelfth century the dialects of these latter already had their typical peculiarities30 • Thus, Sachmatov attributed to the unifying ,p ower of the state this great thing that a great nation was created out of Russian tribes. J agic, of course, also acknowledged the importance of the political factor in the creation of linguistic unity, but, not agreeing completely with Sachmatov's explanation, he wrote that "in Russia, in the securance and preservation of unity, the main credit belongs not so much to its political power as to the great cultural and linguistic unifying effect of the Church and the uniform Church-Slovanic Ianguage" 31 • In his great work of 1900 and 1913 Jagic also mentioned Ulfilas, who translated the Holy Scriptures into the language of the Goths already in the fourth century. True enough, that W'.as five hundred yea/I'S earlier; and yet - says Jagic -what a difference there is between Ulfilas and the Slovanic apostles! The work of Ulfilas was for a narrow circle, the Goths alone, with whom it also went into emincition; the work of Cyril and Methodius extended from Moravia and Pannonia, "from the heart of western Slovanic peoples," first to the South, to the Croatians and Serbs, thence to the Bulgarians, and afterwards the Slovanic Church brought also the great Russian nation into the fold of Christianity. The work of Ulfilas perished; in the language ~ suiting from the work of the Slovanic apostles over one hundred million people serve God32 • 1 At this point, I cannot refrain f_r:om mentioning two more names. When our apostles journeyed to Rome in 867, they sojourned in Blatno, in the residential ca.stle in '1.'lransDanubia, where Pribina's son Kocer ruled. Pribina had caused the already mentioned church in Nitra to be built-the first Christian church in the whole western Slovanic world; but to unite a nation and fonn a country, a state, was only possible by dissolving the power of the tribal rulers. Mojmir I , predecessor of Ra.stislav, drove Pdbina out of Nitra for that �SLOVAKIA 53 reason. Pribina procured a fief in Tranus-Danubia from Louis the German and selected a residence in the castle above Blatno (Mosaburg), and there he <:qntinued in what he had initiated in Nitra - the building of churches. That country had more such churches from that era. His son and successor, Kocer, continued in this spirit: he built churches and spread Christianity. Nonetheless, Kocef was somewhat in a quandary when the missionaries from the court of Devin came une~ectedly to him. The rulers of Devin had greatly wronged his father! What were people from there looking for in Blatno? But the apostles Constantine and Metbodius needed only t.o show him the Slovanic script and the Slovanic books, and tbey were dear and welcome t.o Kocef. He felt great joy. He became very fond of Slovanic books, studied from them, and appointed fifty disciples to the apostles. He entertained the distinguished guests for some time and then escorted them with great honor on :their journey to Venetia, that is to Rome. But let us not forget even Zemezizeii. The journey to Rome of the apostle Methodius in 880, so important as far as the substance of the matter is concerned, is given a national coloring in the person of Methodius's escort, the Slovak Zemezizeii. On the basis of what he found about him in historical sources, Jan Holly, in his epic (Svatopluk), placed Zemezizen as one of his important characters. In council Zemezizen distinguishes himself with a penetrating mind and determination, in battles the earth seems to shake wherever he appears. Thus the poet, but we imagine that in reality he was an extraordinary man. To all appearances, Zemezizeii is still his pagan name; he was very likely baptized an adult and therefore could journey, as his ruler's confidant on such an important mission to Rome, to the pope, with apostle Methodius, that educated, refined Byzantian ! He is also mentioned in the ipope's letter, even though it was found difficult in Rome to pronounce his name. (The letter has: Semisisnus, or rather the dative form Semisisno.) REFERENCE NOTES 1. 'The Life on Oonsta.ntme (lat:er Cyril) ("Zltie Konstantfna") and the Lite of Methodius ("z.ttie !Metoda") are preserved in the Old·SloTIU1ic Church la.nguage. Apos~ Methodius surnved his brother Cyril �54 SLOVAKIA b7 sixteen yea.re. In Slavl!stic science The Life of Constantine is considered the work of Met,hodiu,s, and The Life of Mebhodius the work of one ot their SloV'81k disciples. The sentence "By bhe grace of God we 8Are in good health" in the speech of the messenger,a to Constallltinople is very interesting. On meeting one another Slovaks bhus speak a;bout heaMih. Neibher a ~rman, nor any person of the ot•h er western nations would say it in this way. In the Liife of Methodius (Chaa>t. V) it is tra.n.& l:ated into Latin: "bene vale mus" - we aire well." In the Magyar language "hogy szolgal az egesueg ?" and similar expressions are from the Slovak language. 2 Today the Gel"ma,n,s themselves admit much of tbhait nature. " .. . . mit dem deutchen Priester kam auch der deutche Colonl,st .. . so da.sz von nun a.n Chrlrstlamlsierung und Germa.nisierung Hand lin Hand gerum" (cf. Karl Schober: Die Deutchen in Nieder und Ober-Oesterreich, Sal?Jburg, Steyermark, Kii.rn,then und Krain, iP- 15) . 3. " . . . die heutige Sl1>wakey in Oberungern ist das elgentllche Gross•Mahren ... " - he w.l"ote in a letter (in 1&25) to J. S. Bandrtke (Corresponde111Ce of Joseph Dobrovsky, •N, p. 163). 4. Slovanske Staroiltnostl, pp. 794, 7!Y.i, 822. 5. En~ehungsgeachichte der klrchenalavischen Sprache, Ber 1 in, 1913, p. 19 (First edition VleDIIla, 1900). 6. Die slawischen, Sprachen (Die Kult11,r der Gegeuwart, I. IX 1908, Berlin und LeLl)21g). 7. For instance, in &55: "R~ Hlu!lovlcus in Sclavo Marahenses contra Raallizen duoem eorem s,l,bi rebellantem parum IJI"OSpere ducto exercitu"-i( Ruodolfua Fu Idens, p. 369). Ibidem, p. 370: "Quo per fugam lapso et ad Raatizen se conferente.'' - In 869 " ... in illam ineffabllem Rastizl munltdonem et omnl_bus antiqulssimls dlssimilem ... " (Annalea Fuldenses, Pertz, I, 381.) In 870 " .. . ZuentJJ,baJJ.d, nepos Rastizi ... " (Annales Fuldenses, 882.) 8. Svii.toplu,k's predecessor is called Rastic ia.lso ·b y the Slovak monk Chrabr, and about him wie know that he wrote during the time "when there still lived people wlho had SEEN the apostles Cyril and Method ius." 9. Slovanske Starofitnostl , p . 804 . 10. Vacov, Budin, Vysehrad, Osrtrlhom, are Slovak, western Slovanlc names, a,s iare Devin, Ba,zin, -Budatfn. Beyond Budin was TeUn (as in the Czech 1land)-'the Ger-mans living there since the thirteenth century call it Tetlng, just as Bazin ia ito them Bosling, Hodonflll-Goding, in Lower AulStrla Modlin-Modllmg, a.nd many ,others. Vacov i,s derived from the same proper name as in the Czeoh land Is Va.c; Ostrihom is what in the Czech land ds Stfehom (the "o" in Its prefix has the saime origin oo in Oriava, or Im. the Zvolen Ortuty, and the ~arls Ordzovany ) ... We must deduce the close rel11.tionshlp ·b etween the Czeohs and the Slovakls by such ,topographic nMnes, but not by a "cultural union," of which there could have been ·b ut very little lbetween us owing to our separated states and dltter81lt geog:raJJ)hical locatrl.on. Let u,s but examine our culture-words, Wlhwt dissimilarity they present to us. The Slovaks call ink "atrament," the Czeohs "inkoust;" or, what is "t!abak" (tobacco) to the Czechs is "dohan" to the Slovaks. (This means that -smok!:ng reached the Slovaks, a.s It did the Yugoslovan-s, 'by way of the Orient, throug,h the Turu; .to bhe Czechs and the Germans, however, i t came from America via. Spain). 'J1he Slovak names of places (Kaza, Ka.zinec, Tetin, Bwbisar-in Zem-pliin-Pra:ha (In Novohrad) contra.vert �SLOVAKIA 55 also the inventions ot Kosma& in regard to the daughters of K:rok, Ka2a, Teta, Li,bus,a, and about the founding of Prague (Praha). 11. " ... in .fil.la.m ineftabilem Rastizi munitionem et omnibus antiquissimis di1JBimilam ... " 1·2. J.<iramtdsek Palacky: •D ejiny naroda ceskeho, I, 11876, p. 147. We •Slovaiks, however, caai supplement even Pa.lacky's statement; we have a. poetic na:rra.tion of tlhe g,reat battle beneath Devin. Jan Holly's great epic .p oem in 12 cantos, named after its prinoipa.1 hero "Svii.• topluk," presents it. As Tacitus's descri,p tion •there, so Jaai Holly's description here :118 gTand. (Talk-en from history the work of such a poet as is Jan Holly ha,s aaso its historic value.) 13. IP- 26, etc. 14. Geschichte Osten-elchs, I. 16. Acording ,t o all, though sparse reports, Moj,mir <b~me the heir not on[y o! his father'<S realm, bull a1so of his a:bHLties a,s a &ta.te:sman. However . . . for the successor of Svii.topluk even that fact was fatai that he calIIle after such a predecessor ... (V. Novotn:9': Ce-ek6 Dejiny, p. 421.) 16. Mention of the battle of Bratislava in 907-wihich the Bavaria.n,s together with Mojmir LI are supposed to have lost a.gadnst the Magyars -appeared only in ~e sixteen-till oentu,ry with Avenitinus and bas been reoe;n,tly !!"ejected even by Magyar historiaai,s. In ipresent da.ys, after the World War, a. r6CO!I"d was foUllld among German -s ouroes, con.fir-m ing the ,statements of Ave.ntinus, but it will hardily throw more light on the subject. Mter 907, more than one hundred years ·pa.s&ed 8llld still the Ma,g:y<a!rs did not appear on this (Uhe Slovak) side of the Da.nulbe. Not until after 1025, after the death of iBoleslav .t he Brave of Poland, that is, tow,a,rd11 the end of the reign of St. Stephen, they bega,n gra.dua,Hyand only gradually-to ~pa,nd a.nd settle dO'W'Il. Konrad Schti.nema.nn (Die Deutschen In Ungarn bis zum 12. Jahrhundert, Berll!Il u . Le1pzig, 1923) also states that the Magyar-s occupied Pan.nonia only slow,l y and gradually so that Uhe Ge:r,ma,ns who ha.d lived there had opportunity to wi-th<Lraw without haste to :their fO'I"Iller settle• ments. - About this question it is neccessary to have constantly in mind tha.t the Ma.gya.rs ca.me ,t o ,tjhe Danube as nomads, a.nd a nomad, if he ·tasrries anywhere, •m ust not stir up his closest neighbors against ·himself. (By compa!I"ison, I do not wwnt to offend the Magyars by the sdmile, 1but ,t he Gyipsies, living on the outskirts of our towns and vil•1 ages ,say even today: uNo 001e streals <:lose by.") Besides, the Magyars came here-as we wllll see faTther on-while in flight. They came with a !frightful ,experience. y.rhile they had wandered from Atelkuz beyond the Dainube, thked by the Greek Emperor agai,nst the Bulgars, the neighboring Pechenegs a.tta.okied their defenseless settlements in Aitelku2: and 'killed <tlheir children, women, and aged. After their return from the Danube, terrified ·b y the dreadful happenings at Atelkuz, they pa.eked whatever :they sti-11 could a.nd took to flight tn a westerly direction. They stopped only when they reached the territoo-y between the Tisa. BIIld the Middle Dwnube, in Pa.nmonia. After sudh an experi• ence ,t hey could venture trom the Danube, from Pannonda, on predatory expeditio.n-s Jnto Italy and Germany, but with theiT moat :proximate neighbors they VeTY likely endeavored to Uve in peace. AJbout their 'kind of lite, we have the mown remonstrance of tftle Germ81Il bishops in 900 which contailns grave accusations against the Slova.ns (probably of Pam-nonia), that they a,ssl1Sted the Maigyars. As a. matter of fact, the �56 SLOVAKIA Magyars, w~o ha.d come trom the eastern s,teppes scarcely ha,d 8/IlY great desire to venture across, to the lett bank of the Danube. The nomaJd avoids mounta.iais. He needs to see far, fair all around himself, and in the mountains, whether on the rigM or on the left, in front or behind, there is always a possibility of danger. For that reason it is not vecy lpr()baible thait the Magyars, after :tlheir airrival on the Datnulbe -as eaJ1ly as 907 - would have ventured into a grea,t action agalnist Mojmir II. They begaJR-a.s now even Magyair history admits- ,t o occupy the territories on the left ban,k of the Danube gra.dually, in the eleventh century, toward,s ,t he end o! the reign of St. Stephen. 17. Metodievskij jubilejnyj sbornik, Varsava, 18S5, p. 79, etc. 18. Dejiny narodu ceak~ho, I, 1876, p . 223. 19. A. N. Py,pin: lstorija siavianskich literatur, I, rp. 35. 20. "O n.arodnoati apoitolov Slavianswa, in Bratislava, a publication of Sal.arik's Learned Society, No. 2, 1927 . .21. Zitie av. Metoda, Chapter XVII. 22. "Se ~ t vasej~ zemlj~ -s vobod ,m ~i ... " (Zitie av. Metoda, Chapt. XWI.) 23. In confirmation Pogorielov further shows how in· the CyrilloMethodic text the negative "no" (NIE) and its opposite "yes" (A(,,'0) is expressed. T~e Czechs '88.Y ANO; 1lhe Poles TAK; the Russians and BulglllI'B DA; the Serbs and Croats JEST; only the Slovak language has the ,same word we read in the Gospel of Matthew V, 37: " b~di ~ slovo va§e ej, ej i nl ni. Or (Mat. XXI, 16) when the Pharisees &1sked Chrfst: Slysisi Ii ~to sii glago!:j~t. Jlsu,s ze ~ im: ej. (In the Kralice Bible thf,s reads: jiate, Jiate nikoli, nikoli; and the second: oviem. ln Slova,k, in ,t he Tr.nava edition of Richard Osvald: ano, ano, nle, nie, and in chapter XXl--<>viem. Instea.d of ,t he full sounding "HEJ," the Slovam..ic Church text has "EJ''---ithere being no letter "h" in the Cyrilllc's sor1a>t, It is true 1'n the 9th century the Slovakia still pronou.nced "G" instead of the pre• sent-day "H." But ,then, this attimna.tive word could o:nly begin mith the vowel "E," otherwise Gora.zd would ha.ve scarcely omitte'Cl its "G." ln behalf or the Slovak ca.use it is advisa,ble to add that in the Old-Sllovanic Bible tert this "EJ" (HEJ) is such a mark, such a charac,t eristic of present-day central SlovaJc, as is the letter "A" in the name of our Rastisla.v. And thus the one and the other is a.n hi'9toruc document about the Slova.ks-about the nationality of Great Moravia. Tha.t is, in ,t he 9'tlh century, aind in all of present-day Moraivia a.n.d In all of wesrern Slovakia substantially the ,same la.nguage wae spoken as we have it today along the Middle Vall, lower Orava, near Turiec, Hron, l1>el', a,nd in Upper Nitra. (Against such documents, it wm not be possible to risk the opinion thait "the core of the alovalk dta.lectical region is not the central group, ·b ut the western." (M. W. in his note on "Stare Slovensko, ,p . 284). 24. "Stoj. ndho ! Posvatna. mis ta jsou, kamkoll kralis ! " 25. K. J. Grot: Karpato-dunajakija zemli v sudbach slavianatva, 1905, p . 18. 26. D. ,z. Lautek: Sv. Cyril a Method, apoitolovla alovanakf, 18&6, p. 70. - See also V. Jaglc: Archlv fur alaviache Phllologie, XX, p. 27. 27. "Vy bo jesta Sol-un•lantna, da Solunia.ne vsi ~f.sto aiovenaky be- sMujit." - Zitle Metoda, Chapter V. 28. "Die Gros,ze des Werkes ha.t ma.n frllber lraum recht e~flnden konnen, aber gerade in der heutigen Sprachwissenscha.ft . . . musz �SLOVAKIA 57 der Grammati:ker Konsita.nUn Bewu~derung erregen." - A. Leskien : Grammatik der altbulgari&chen (altkirchen-slavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1919, p. XXI. 29. Konsta,ntl.n Grot: Metodijevskij jubilejnij sborntk, Varsa.va, 1885, p , 5. 30. Russkij filologiceskij Viestnik, 1894, 3, p. 1. 31. Archiv fur slavische Philologre, XX, p . 28 32. Entstehungsgeschichtle der kirchenslavischen Sprache, 1913, pp. 2, 3. SS. CYRIL AN.D METHODIU'S � SLOVAKIA THE LEGACY OF THE GREAT MORAVIAN STATE OF OUR ANCESTORS: THE SLOVANIC CIIUOOH AND SLOVANIC LITERATURE JOSEPH SKULTETY In 862, (i. e., 1101 years ago) there came to Emperor Mic:hael in Constantinople messengers fi'om the region of the Middle Danube, the Germano-Slovanic frontier, and said to him: "By the grace of God we are in good health, and there come to us Christian teachers from Italy, Greece and Germany, teaching us various things. But we are Sloveni .•. " The words "but we are Sloveni" were meant to convey the thought that they desire to have teachers in the ChrisDr. Joseph Skultety's book "Nehante l!.ud M6j" (Do Not Slander My .People) was pulblished in 1928. iln it the aiuthor successfully refuted three prevalent fallacies, all of ;which tended to vilify the Slovak people and distort Slovak history. Professor Sku1tety's book was translated into English by Cl. D. Koretf and published by the F'irst Catholic Slovak Union, Middletown, Pa., in 1930, under the title of "Sketches From ·S lovak History." The first chapter, relating to Great Moravia and the Slovak Apostles ,SIS. Cyril and Method•i us, caretully and thoroughly corrected to correspond with the Slovak original, is presented here. - P. A. Hrobak tian doctrine "who would teach us in our own language, a language intelligible to us," and they added: "Send us such, 0 Lord." 'I\hey were the messengers from our Slovak ancestors, from their ruler Rastislav. The words they addressed to Emperor Micihael are quoted in the biography ("Zitie") "By of Apostle Methodius, and the opening sentence histothis the grace of God we are in good heallth" gives ric document a coloring of antiquity. It proves that Slovaks said this in Corurtantinople. 1 At that time, 862, there already stood in our Nitra a Christian church for more than thirty years, the first in the whole of ibhe western Slovanic world. But since then Rastislav had bad experiences. The missionaries cam~ mainly from the Germans, our western neighbors, a,n d the worst of it was not that his nation did not understand �36 SLOVAKIA them and thus Christianity only slowly took root: Rastislav dreaded most that the Germans would want to subjugate politica'1ly whomever they converted to Christ.2 For that reason he asked for teachers from the East and sent his messenger to Constantinople. From thence he obtained extraordinary, great men - real apostles - in the persons of the brothers Constantine and Methodius. They founded in Rastislav's nation the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature. And from the Slovanic worship and Slovanic literature, thus founded, a great thing emanated for the Slovanic peoples .. . Great conf1.11Sion arose among the Slavists over the question what kind of Slovans (Slavs) had constituted Rastislav's and Sviitopluk's Great Moravia, although Dobrovsky, the founder of · Slovanic philology, as early as in 1825 categorically stated that the real Great Moravia was the present-day Slovakia, 3 and Safarik in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti," in 1837, placed the Sfovaks, in the second half of the ninth century, · not only between . the Ca11pathian Mountains and the Danube, (as far as Mt. Matra and Vacov) and along the Morava River, but also on the other bank of the Danube, all the way up to Blatno. 4 This was appropria,tely. elucidated by V. Jagic who gave direction · to the fourth generation of Slavists. In his great work on the origin of the Church Slovanic language,5 expounding the ethnographic character of ancient Moravia, the Moravia of Rastislav and Svatopluk, J agic wrote: "In her language Moravia is even today Czech only in her western half - her eastern half is connected with the Slovaks, and these Slovaks even now are living in northwestern Hungary . . . In ancient Moravia, if her frontiers extended to the Danube, they must have spoken a language in the ninth century which was in its su1bstantial outlines identical with the present-day Slovak language (as in Moravia and Upper Hungary). This Slovak language could them have been more widespread even in Moravia than it is today, and in Hungary could have extended as far as the Danube." In his article on Slovanic languages,6 Jagic called the present-day Slovak dialects the real descendants of · the �SLOVAKIA 37 language of ancient Moravia. To his explanation we can add the evidence we have in the name "Rastislav'. That name - that beloved name - puts a special Slovak stamp on Great Moravia. As we know from Slovanic grammars, there are two groups of words which the Slovaks have in common with the South-Slavs, but not with the Czech and Poles, to whom as western Slovans they otherwise belong linguistically. To one of these two groups (raz = to the Czech roz; razga = to the Czech rozha; razen = to the Czech rozen; raky1a = to the Czech rokyta; razst.ep, raztoka, and others) belongs also the word rasf (in t:Jhe Czech rosti) and words derived from it. Together with the Czechs and the Poles, the Russians also use "o". Now, in contemporaneous or old records in general, the name Rastislav is Rastislav everywhere, and only exceptionally, by some error, Rostislav; in contemporaneous records, in German annals, he is called consistently Rastic (an abbreviated form of the name). That means the German neighbors heard that name witll an "a,,, and sounding thus, it proves that either in Moravia, in all of Moravia, a language was spoken whose phonetics was like the phonetics of the language beneath the Tatra Mountains, that is, present-day language of central Slovakia, or else the princely family, who reared Rastiislav, sprang from Slovaks, who settled on this side of the Morava River. But even so, if Ra•s tislav was a native of this side of the Morava river, they still would have called him tlheir own way Rostislav on the other, the western side. And that they did not call him thus, that the name "Rastislav,, resounded even in Western Moravia, that is ,proved by the form "Rastic" preserved in a11 the contemporaneous German records. 7 The country of Rastislav, even in the extreme West, was Slovak. 8 In the southeast, as we already know from Safarik,9 and as topographic names indicate, Sloyak settlements extended to Mt. Matra. In :the East they originally reached probably to the river Topfa, whose name comes from the Slovenes (Sloveni), the ancestors of the present..day Bulgarians. But if these people from the territory of the Tisa crossed beyond the lower Danube in the seventh �38 SLOVAKIA century, the Slovak "Sloveni" expanded in the East even beyond the Topfa river. Here and in the territory beyond Uzhorod, occupied by Russians since the twelfth century, the names of settlements are in significant number of Slovak origin. And from Mt. iMatra to Vacov, bey<»).d the Danube from Budin up to Vysehrad and Ostrihom, there also are ancient Slovak settlements. 10 Indeed, Slovak settlements could have extended even farther South, all the way to Blatno. Pdbina, driven from Nitra, even though enjoying Gemian favor, hardly could have become a ruler here as a foreigner. Apostle Metihodius, appointed by Rome, was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia since 873, from which we ~n also judge that beyond the De.nube, in Pannonia, there lived the same kind of people as above the Danube, beneath the Carpathians and along the Morava River. Even Sa!fari:k called attention to the names of prominent people who were present in 850 at the blessing of Pribina's church at Blatno Castle. Jagic explained those names of the "Pannonian Sloveni" and arrived at the conclusion that from among fifteen almost half were western Slovanic. Now, if these names were western Slovanic, then they were Slovak - no other western Slovans could have lived near Blatno. The State of our Slovak ancestors, which already in Mojmir's days up to 846 had been built wisely and cou~ageously, was already a power in Rastislav's time. The Germans were then pushing down the Danube, as they never did afterwards, and Great Moravia, the young Slovanic State, heroically barred their way. True enough, their aggression only increased thereby. King Louis, called the German, a grandson of Charlema;gne, in 855, immediately after his accession, invaded Moravia with a great military force in order to rid himself of a danger which was growing there for his realm. But 'here the very resistance was so great that Louis - as a contemporaneous record mentions - decided rather to leave his opponent in peace than to expose his whole army to a catastrophe. He did not dare to attack the firm position of Rastislav and merely devastated the neighborhood. The attack of the Moravians on the German encampments was repulsed, but the departure of the Germans resembled a flight. Rastislav pursued Louis, the German, �SLOVAKIA 39 invaded his territory and devastated it far and wide. Liberated Moravia - says Safarik attained complete independence and became the 1baven of refuge of all Slovans whQ were either discontented with or oppressed by the Franks (Germans), and even of the Germans themselves who had come into some conflict with the government of King Louis. His sons, too, Karlmann and Louis, Junior, looked to Rastislav for support in quarrels with their father. In the annals of the Fuld Monastery of 869, there is a record which mentions Rastislav's castle, in all probability Devin, as "the mighty fortress with which not even one of the most ancient ca,n compa:re." 11 And under Svatopluk, after Rastislav, Great Moravia represented a still greater military power. The defeat of the Gel'!IIlans in 870, beneath Devin, was horrible. 'Ilheir great airmy perished in the battle; very few saved themselves by flight. There were very few families in Bavaria, Austria and Carinthia (Corutania., who did not mourn the loss of some of their members. Ka.rrlmann quickly ordered the gathering of all the captured Moravians, whom he kept in various places of his country so that he could exehange them for his own men who were held prisoners by Svaitopluk. Well, he got only one half-dead man back, the renowned hero Ratbod. Any German who had not fled from the battlefield remained there dead. This battle has been compared with that which the Roman gei,.eraJ V arus lost in the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 A. D., and Svatopluk was compared with the German Armin (Herman). But we also have Palacky's version of that battle. With keen perception, Palacky stated that in history there is also difference between these two battles. The first was described for us by Tacitus, about the other we know ft-om the chronicle of the monk of Fuld. 12 Later is his reign Svatopluk completely stopped the flood of Germans down the Danube towards the East. In German annals a record is preserved stating that when he went against Arnulf in 884, his army was seen in one place to pass all day, from morning until evening. Svitopluk already then had extended his sovereignty to the North over the Czech land, where the first ·historic Czech �40 SLOVAKIA prince, Bofivoj, ruled, and over the Polish Slovans along the Upper Vistula (Visla); in the South his sovereignty extended even farther, fwr beyond the frontiers of Slovak territory. It seemed then that the Slovanic people would unite under his rule. I shall not quote Saifarik, Palacky or any other Slovanic historian; it will suffice to cite from Pauler as to the past. In his book "A magyar nemmt tortenet.e s:rent lstvanig," awarded the Grand Prize of the Magyar Academy in 1900, Pauler says: "'In Atelkuz the Magyars were much nearer to their present homeland than they had been in Lebedia. From Seret, from Baku to Mairosvasarhelyi the distance is only some twenty geographic miles. And here - certainly by way of the most natural road through the valley of the Dniester, tJhen up the Stryj, through Verek Pass - they could look into the land extending from the Carpathians to the South where just then great battles were raging. The Slovans living along the Morava River, on the left bank of the Danube, under powerful ·a nd courageous rulers, had fo:nned a country worthy of consideration. They began to be baptized already in the first half of the ninth century, but in reality they were confirmed in the Ohristian faith only by Constantine, the philosopher, and his brother Methodius from the year 863. "From the very beginning of the ninth century, from the time of Charlemagne, there were, so to say, continuous wars between the Slovans and the reahn of the Franks, from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, now here, now there. The Slovans had penetrated wedge-like deeper and deeper between the Germanic tribes since the sixth century, and the reaction of the Franks was forcefµL In the ninth century the Germans, attacking everywhere, endeavored to make vassals of their Slovanic neighbors alon,g the Saale River, as well as on the frontiers of the Czech Mountains, or beyond the Danube. With the Siovans a!bove the Middle Danube, Svatopluk founded such a realm to which the Czech land in Bohemia, the countries around the sources of the Vistula, and in the South, besides the valleys of the Morava, Vah and Nitra. - that nucleus of the realm were subjected, and his power extended from the River �SLOVAKIA 41 Hron over the whole territory between the Danu:be and the Tisa Rivers, down to Sriem and up to the Ca,rpathians ... "Eastern FTankland, that conglomeration of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians, was ruled since 887 by the handsome and brave Arnulf, the illegitimate son of Karlmann and the girandson of Louis the German, who but a few years previously - in 883 and 884 - as prince of Carinthia had felt the weight of Svatopluk's power and had helplessly looked on as he (Svatopluk) bad cruelly and mercilessly raivaged Pannonia, and even now, as king, he did not know what to do with him. "In July, 892, Arnulf took to the sword and with an army of Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians and attacked Moravia. The Magyar horde, which was just then passing through, joined him ( - hired by Arnulf ! - note of this author) and ravaged Svatopluk's country for four weeks; but then the Germans and Ma.rgyars turned homeward (with bleeding heads - note of this author) and Svatopluk's power, not even shaken, remained as it had been heretofore" .13 In German chronicles and in contemporaneous annals, Svatopluk is called the ",powerful," the "dread of his neighbors," "the wisest," "the most deceitful," man of his nation; "a wolf," and "a blood-thh'sty malcontent." The calumnies of enemies, of course, are not to be taken Hterally. To his German neighbors Svatopluk was "a wolf," and "blood-thirsty," because the wounds caused by his sword hurt. But those were wounds which they sustained mostly when they ventured where they had no dght to go. And then history judges differently than contemporaries do. I could cite from the excellent work of Alfons Huber, 14 an Austro-German, quotations similar to those in the Magyar book of Pauler a:Qout the deeds of the nation of Mojmir, Rastislav and Svatopluk in the second half of t:he ninth century. To found such a state, a Slovanic State on the Middle Danube ast that time - in the second half of the ninth century - certainly was a great accomplishment; history wil!l never cease speaking of it. Indeed, there were indications that a center was originating ·h ere around which a significant part of the Slovans would unite. But a young �42 SLOVAKIA state, in order to become firm, to consolidate, needs favorable circumstances. History deduces even the beginnings of Rome had favorable and fortunate conditions. Our Slovak ancestors, at the end of tile ninth century, were not so fortunate. The Germanic world still lived in a condition of ferment - to have it as a neigU11bor was not good. It would yield, retreat, only under duress, as during the· lifetime of Svatopluk. After Svatoplu:k's death, the nomadic Magyars came to be another neighbor on the other side of the Danube and to tlle Tisa River. Under such circumstances, aflter the first weakening caused by some internal, domestic strife, a young organization is apt to fare ba~y. The trou:ble here was the disunity of the sons of Svatopluk, which was flamed by their German neighbors, and Great Moravia perished. 'Dhe Magyars came to the Danube in 896, two years after Svatopluk's death, and Mojmir II, Svatopluk's successor, in 900 still petitioned for and obtained from Rome two bishops and one archbishop, thus he was still organizing the Church. In 902, with his sword he still proved to his Trans-Danubian neighbors that he was a son of Svatopluk.15 Not long rufterwards, however, he was no more. It is not even known what became of him whither he went. Great Moravia perished. 16 The state of affairs on the Middle Danube in the ninth century is explained in Anton Budilovic's book, published in 1'886, on the occasion of the millenial memorial of the death of Met!hodius: "'l'he Huns and the Avars cleaned the lands of the Middle Danube considerably of the Thraco-Illyrian, Celto--Roman and Germanic nations, but, under the successors of Charlemagne, German colonization again turned to these blessed lands and . covered with its net not only Upper but also Lower Pannonia and the western aft-valleys of Moravia. The antlike activity of the German colonist there was supported by the quite mature politicail and ecclesiastical organization of the Germany of that time. Supporting the German colonist on the one side was the German soldier, margrave, duke, the king, the emperor; on the other side, the German priest, monk, bishop, arch!bishop. What could the Slovans of these lands, divided into branches, scattered, not united by anything, put up against such forces? The federative union of two or three �SLOVAKIA 43 tribes, the muscular force of the homeguards, 1:Jhe accidenta:l geniality of the chief and the eµthusiam of national hatred, aroused by violence? This could onJy be temporary . . . A lasting and successful struggle is only possible where there exists a certain balance of forces and equality of weapons, bow against bow, system against system, fore~ ful, profound ideas against other ideas. Can there be any talk of balance of forces of one or two Slovanic nations with the whole German race, of an alliance of a few patriarchal tribes with a great and organized empire? Could even the most genial leaders of the western Slovanic peoples at that time repel the onslaught of a whole system of cultural ideas in which were also included the heritage of the ancient world and the refreshing Cll'ITent of Christianity? . . . The best answer to these questions is presented by the fate of the Baltic Slavs. There they lacked neither ta:lented military leaders, nor a fiery hatred of the Germans, nonetheless these Slavs perished and their lands became the center of the later renovated empire of the Hohenstaufens." The closing words of Budilovic are that the same fate would have overtaiken the Slovans of Great Moravia had not their Rastislav, aroused by a penetrating foresight, obtained such apostles as were the brothers of Salonica (Solun), Cyril and Methodius. 17 Yes, as already mentioned, the state of affairs was difficult for our Slovak ancestors. Nonetheless, their State creation lasted almost one hundred years, and from the very beginning inscribed itself appropriately into history. Palacky, in his "Dejiny" (!history) presents the foundations which Rastislav and Svatopluk built with their nation as the nucleus around which all the Slovanic tribes would have been attracted gradually; from it they would have received Christianity; if not new political constitutions, at least a national and new European culture, arts and industry, unity of language, an alphabet and literature. As under the influence of Rome, the monarchy of the Franks matured in the West, similarly a great Slovanic empire would have grown up with the help of the spirit of Byzantium, and Eastern Europe of a thousand years ago would have assumed a shape different from that which it in reality assumed. 18 �44 SLOVAKIA Palacky spoke as if carried away in a rhetorical rapture; but it can be stated even with the coolest mind that great things were lost with the collapse of Great !Moravia. ~en at that, the Slovanic Ohurch,founded for our Slovak ancestors, with the Slovanic alphabet and Slovanic literature, became the foundation on which the great race of Slovanic peoples developed. When especially in the West only three, or really only two languages (Greek and Latin) were considered feasible for Christian ecclesiastic life, the Holy Scriptures and worshi,p, the brothers Cyril and Methodius began their mission with the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the Slovanic language. At the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, when, as a result of the Russo-Turkish war, the Balkan Slovans were rid of the hard fate of five hundred years duration, and among all the Slovans flowed especially cordial feelings, the Russian literary historian Alexander Pypin called attention to the Pan-Slovanic significance of what the great apostles Cyril and Methodius had accomplished among our Slovak ancestors. And he added that their work is an heritage and an ideal of Slovanic unification 19 True enoug,ll, the neighboring Germans at once raised on alarm that Constantine :md Methodius were installing Slovanic worship and translating the Holy Scriptures in Rastislav's land. Our apostles deemed it necessary for that reason to journey to Rome as early as 867. There they submitted their cause in such a manner that Pope Adrian solemnly blessed the Slovanic books. Before the coming to Moravia of the brothers, only · Constatine had been ordained to priesthood; the Pope ordered also Methodius and their Slovak disciples, whom they had brought along to Rome, to be ordained, and in the leading cathedrals of Rome they sang the liturgy in the Slovanic language. It became necessary for the apostles to remain a longer time in Rome. Constantine, physicaUy frail, became ill, joined a monastic order and assumed the name Cyril. While going about as missionary among the Kaza.rs near the Black Sea, Cyril had uncovered in Kherson the remains of St. Olemenrt, who had died a martyr, and these restored remains he now brought to Rome. Thus it hap- �SLOVAKIA 45 pened, that when he died . on February 14, 869, he was buried in the church of that same St. Clement. The dying Cyril touchingly implored his ·b rother to persevere in the important Slovak mission. Methodius, of course, persevered with the greatest zeal. From 873 he was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia. When the German bishop did not cease inciting against the Slovanic worship, it again became necessary to journey to Rome in 880. And in this trial too, he was victorious. Pope John VIII, wrote in a Bull sent to Svatopluk ("glorioso principi ~fentopulcho"): "The Slovank script, whldh the late phi~osopher Constantine devised, that in it may duly resound the praise of God, is lawfully confirmed; and we decree that in that language the glory and the acts of · our Lord p1rist be related. For not only in three, but in all languages are we exhorted by the holy author (King David) to praise the Lord . . . The apostles too, permeated with the Holy Ghost, spoke in all languages about the greatness of God . . . He who created the three · principal languages Hebrew, Greek, and Latin - created also the others to His honor and glory ...." What great events! Thus is documented that in the Church the Slovanic language was placed in the same rank with Greek and Latin. Already in the ninth century! ... And all this emanated from our Slovak ancestors! As long as there will be souls capable of becoming enthused for sublime things, so long will the memory of the Slovanic apostles Cyril and Methodius remain ~evered, and there will be always found people who will know that the Slovanic Church had been instituted for our Slovak ancestors, and that it all emanated from the mind of their great ruler [Rastislav. The Slovak State of the ninth century did not survive, it perished in maelstrom of the world, but the Slovanic world has a great heritage from it. With the development of science, particularly Slovanic philology, this event of world history will become more lucid :with every passing year. When the work of the Slovanic apostles and the struggle of Great Moravia with the Germanic world will be recalled, talk of C~atho-Damtbian and Pannonian Slovans will cease, and the Sloveni-Slovaks will be definitely mentioned. When it is already so clear �46 SLOVAKIA that in the ninth century the inhabitants of present-day Moravia were only Slova.ks, the nation of Rastislav and Svatopluk will not be called "Moravians and Slovaks" (as in the "Slovanske Staro'Litnosti" of Sa.fa.rik), but consistent. ly and definitely "Slovaks." The ,b iographies ("Zitia") of our apostles, which remained in the Church-iSlovanic language will cease to be called "Pannonian" legends when it will be esta·b lished that the great missionaries whom Rastislav had appointed were only in Pannonia on their journey to Rome, after an activity of four years in Moravia and Slovakia; then again Methodius 1Was there alone, before he could get home, to Devin or Nitra, on his return journey from Rome. (Thus in 867, when stopping above Blatno, to visit Kocel', it was surely only because he was the son of Pribina, formerly of Nitra.) Then will also cease the confusing of our county with the Czech land since the Czechs participated in the formation of the Slovanic Church and literature only after .t he baiptism of Borivoj. Not even the legend that Methodius converted the Bulgarian (Czar) Boris to Christ .b y painting for him a ,picture of the Last Judgment will mislead us any longer; of the two brothers :&om Salonica neither the one, nor the other, labored among any other Slovamic nations. They labored only among the Sloveni-Slovaks. Their teaching reached the Bulgars only through their disciples :£rom Great Moravia after Methodius was no longer among the living. Most recently, this matter was excellently illuminated by the Russian emigrant, the Slovanic philologist Valerij Pogorielov of the university of Bratislava, in his study "About the na.ti.onaJ.ity of the apostles of Slavdom."20 The Slovanic script - as devised by apostle Constantine-C yril after he and his brother Methodius already had the authority for the mission to Rastislarv's nation, and the grammar of this script founded in the Church-Slova nic books - is such an accomplishme nt that Cyril is being admired as a linguistic phenomenom. Nonetheless, recently in science both brothers were generally considered native Greeks. Silenced were also the doubters, into whose heads could not penetrate the fact ,t hat one who was not born a Slovan could hardly grasp in such a manner and sense the charac- �SLOVAKIA 47 ter of the Slovanic language, as we see in the work of St. Cyril. What did Pogorielov do? He began to examine the Slovanic translations of the Holy Scriptures made from the Greek to check whether the brothers from Salonica were as expert i? Greek as they had been in the Slovanic lenguage. He found that in the Church-Slovanic Bible texts there were errors which could not have been made by a translat.or whose mother-language had been Greek. Pogorielov came to the conclusion that the holy brothers from Salonica (Solun) could not have been Greeks - they were Slovans. At the same time he very aptly notes that, allowing such a solution of the question, we will also comprehend that energy, that zeal and self-sacrifice which they displayed in the services of the Slovanic cause. We will understand their impartiality in the dispute between Byzantium and Rome. Would real Greeks have gone to Rome to seek protection for their Slovanic activity? It is a:lso interesting how Pogorielov explains the relation of the Sloveni-Slovaks to the work of the holy apostles. When after the death of Methodius the Slovanic church books were taken from Moravia to Bulgaria, they proved to be altogether intelligible there. The Bulgarian literati began to correct the language of the books, e.g., instead of nedag (at present nedu.h) they put bolezn; instead o(f prositi they wrote moliti; instead of nvot - zizn; instead of otrok - sluga; instead of godina - cas, etc. That is, in the Church texts the Slovaks words (Slovak in the present-day sense) were replaced by Bulgarian words. And Pogorielov does not stop there, but goes farther. He explains how western Slovanic or Slovaik words had gotten into the work of the natives of Salonica that is, South Slovans. Goraoo, one of the first disciples of Cyril and Methodius was considered a SloV3Jk already by Safarik. In regard to Gorazd, Pogorielov· quotes the words21 with which the dying Methodius (in 885) appointed him his successor to the seat of the archbishopric: "This is a free man of your country22 ," that is Gorazd, "a man of your own country," was not a Southern Slovan, as had been the apostles them- �48 SLOVAKIA selves, the brothers from Salonica, but a western Slovan, that is, a son of the country - as Pogorielov says emphatically - where Methodius himself had worked and preached and of which he was archbishop. The Slovakisms in the Slovanic text of the Holy Scriptures are the work of Gorazd ; "to his pen also belongs the translation of all the works from Latin into the Slovanic lan:g:uage." Pogorielov calls St. Gorazd the third apostle of the Slovanic peoples. Referring also to the great Slavist Jagic, who ex;plained in 1900 and in 1913 that in ancient Moravia in the ninth century "substantially the same language was spoken as is today's Slovak," Pogorielov agrees that "it was the Slovaik language, and the country was Slovakia, and this means that St. Gorazd really was a man of the Slovak country - that he was a Slovak23 • In the introduction to his study, written and published in Bratisla,va, Pogorielov remarks that the holy Slovak apostles, Cyril and Methodius, used to walk in this vicinity, therefore, the words of the great ·b ard of the Slovanic world, Jan Kollar, can be rightfully repeated. "Stand still, foot! Sacred are the places wherever thou waJkest !" 24• To which I add: Aye, aye, Devin ! ! ! ... About a person wh·o accomplished great things during his lifetime, people say after his death: •~He died, but his memory shall remain." Greater Moravia has also passed away, has :perished, but her legacy is such that she will be remembered. "Here took place in the ninth century," says a Russian historian, "events not only of Pan-Slovanic, but ailso, it can be said, of universal significance : an important attempt at a political unification of the Slovans the Great Moravian political union - famed itself by the most memorable, infinitely fertile activity of the Slovanic Apostles in Moravia. Here were laid the foundations for the national church and national Slovanic Christian education, here were formed the plans and the direction of the entire future of the whole subsequent historic development of the Slova.nic world, it.s world role and its relation to Romano-Oennanic Europe, to the West, and to the Asiatic guestion. The Christianization of the masses of people and their manner of life, bringing them to the Eastern Church, the foundation of Church-Slovanic litera,- �SLOVAKIA 49 ture and education in the Slovanic South, among the Bulgars and the Serbs, and in the East among the Russians, and partly also among the other western Slovans, was only the continuation of that work which Cyril and Methodius had initiated and which could survive, alas, only a short time in the Middle Danubian countries. From here, from Great Moravia, flowed a copious stream of Slovanic Church literature and Slovanic ritual, of a common Church language and together with it also of national consciousness in all directions - to the ·v arious kin: to the North to the Poles; to the West to the Czechs; to the South to the Slovenes, the Serbo-Croats, and Bulgars (to the latter directly through the disciples of Methodius, who had been expelled from Moravia after his death); and lastly to the East, to Russia . . ." 25 "The fruits of the independent spiritual development, based on a national Church and literature, founded by the Slovanic apostles" - further says Constantine Grot "took root in the Slovanic South and East, where there was not such a ha.rd national struggle as on the Middle Danube." And he calls attention to the fact that it w~s at that time that the Germanic world returned with elemental force to these lands, which its tri·b es had occupied once before, and for that reason it was much harder for the Carpatho-Danubian Slovans to maintain themselves against such pressure. And just then the Magyars also arrived . . . Indeed, even during the life of Svatopluk, soon after the death of Methodius (885), the Slovanic Church had gone over from us to the South~lovans, thence to the Eastern (IS lovans) and there helped to create the great Russian nation out of the many tribes. ""The legacy of the brothers of .Salonica" - as correctly e:,cpressed by Daniel Laucek - "prepared among the Russians national unity by means of Church unity." 26 The Czech ruler, Prince Borivoj, was baptized by Methedius at the court of Svatopluk; with Boriivoj's successors Slovanic literature took root in the Czech country and also got to the Poles; but here too like with the Slovaks and Czechs, 'because they were neighbors of the German world, the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature did not sumve among the ·P oles. It is true, in the Church terminology of us all, Slovaks, Czechs, and Poles, to this �50 SLOVAKIA day traces of the language have been presented (for instance even the most important word uHospodin" ), the language which the holy apostles Cyril and Methodius had introduced into our ecclesiastic life. And it is worth mentioning, that of all the Slovans, the teachings of the 'Slovan apostles did not reach - neither during their lifetime, nor later through their disciples - a single tribe of the Baltic and Polabian Slovans, and of all the Slovans just these latter perished in the religious a;nd existential struggle which they waged with the Germans. When Emperor Michael in Constantin ople had learned from the Slovak delegation what was at stake, what kind of aipostles R!astislav desired, he at once decided to entrust this task to Constantin e, the philosopher , who had rlistingttished himself in rupostolic wor.k before, at first alone and later with his brother Methodius. The messengers said to the Emperor: "We are Sloveni -," i. e., they desired teachers of the Christian faith whom they could understand. The brothers Constantin e and Methodius, as natives of Salonica (Thessalon ica) where suited even language-wise for the mission among the Slovans: they knew Slovanic. ·Emperor Michael, having summoned them, told the brothers: "You are from Salonica, and all Salonicans spewk pure Slovruk ("'sloviensky) 27 • The brothers, however, did not want to go empty-hand ed to Rastislav's nation, and Constantine, having learned fr()lffi the messengers that the Sloveni-Slovaiks did not ha,ve their own script, in the first ·p lace contemplat ed over a suitable script. In the words of the legend, God revealed the Slovanic script to the meditating, contemplat ing, worried and praying Constantine. Such a tradition maJkes him so much dearer to us. And indeed it is such an achievemen t that we can be proud of it. Constantin e proceeded from the Greek script, but Slovanic sounds, especially in the ninth century, greatly varied with the Greek, therefore new letters, new characters were needed. And Constantin e placed it on such a basis that the more lndo-Europ ean linguistics develops, the more admira:ble becomes his creation28 • Even today, if doubt arises in any Slovanic language over the correct spelling of some word, informatio n is sought in Cyril's orthograiph y. And even in this respect �SLOVAKIA 51 can we Slovaks ha,ve the great satisfaction that, without our Rastislav, he (Cyril) would not have had the opportunity to assert his phenomenal talent. Had not the Slovak messengers come to Constantinople, what more could have Constantine accomplished there? At first he had been used in Constantinople to bring to reason the iconoclasts, then to convert to Christ the Mohamedan Sara,zens and the pagan Khruzars: had not the Slovak messengers appeared there, Constantine, in all likelihood, would have continued in that activity, or he would have remained in the monastery into which he had retired for a life of tranquility. People of phenomenal mental gifts need a field for their activity. Our Rastislaiv will also be remembered in the world-historic work of Cyril. In 1886, when the Slovanic peoples celebraited the millenium of the death of Methodius, a Russian historian asked: "What was the Slovanic world prior to Cyril and Methodius?" and answered: "Scattered over the vast spaces of middle Europe, Russia and the Balkan Peninsular among foreign and hostile nations, although a race gifted by nature with beautiful spiritual endowments, the Slovan r ace represented a torn, disjointed mass of different tribes without any consciousness of racial relationship . . ." The brothers from Salonica appear on the stage of Slovanic history in the middle of the ninth century, "strong in spirit and profoundly permeated with the consciousness of their sacred calling, namely, to furnish the Slovans with Christian enlightenment," and in a comparatively short time thereafter there is an entirely difforent life among the Slovans29 • The Russian philologist Alexej Sachmatov explained that the Russian race in the ninth century was disintegrating into a multitude of tribes. The tribes among themselves remained in substance closely related, but lived separately; for that reason they differed in morals and in customs and had their individual dialects. Had they lived longer without any connecting mediums, complete individualization would have sprung up among them and a multitude of conflicting dialects would have developed. But owing to the events of the tenth centucy an organization of state was created among the Russian tribes which united them in a political, �52 SLOVAKIA cultural and religious unit. In the eleventh century the body of the state, created by Vladimir and his descendants, became stabilized: it consisted of all Russian lands with the exception of Galicia and Polocko, which were differently situated geographically. In the twelfth century the dialects of these latter already had their typical peculiarities30 • Thus, Sachmatov attributed to the unifying ,p ower of the state this great thing that a great nation was created out of Russian tribes. J agic, of course, also acknowledged the importance of the political factor in the creation of linguistic unity, but, not agreeing completely with Sachmatov's explanation, he wrote that "in Russia, in the securance and preservation of unity, the main credit belongs not so much to its political power as to the great cultural and linguistic unifying effect of the Church and the uniform Church-Slovanic Ianguage" 31 • In his great work of 1900 and 1913 Jagic also mentioned Ulfilas, who translated the Holy Scriptures into the language of the Goths already in the fourth century. True enough, that W'.as five hundred yea/I'S earlier; and yet - says Jagic -what a difference there is between Ulfilas and the Slovanic apostles! The work of Ulfilas was for a narrow circle, the Goths alone, with whom it also went into emincition; the work of Cyril and Methodius extended from Moravia and Pannonia, "from the heart of western Slovanic peoples," first to the South, to the Croatians and Serbs, thence to the Bulgarians, and afterwards the Slovanic Church brought also the great Russian nation into the fold of Christianity. The work of Ulfilas perished; in the language ~ suiting from the work of the Slovanic apostles over one hundred million people serve God32 • 1 At this point, I cannot refrain f_r:om mentioning two more names. When our apostles journeyed to Rome in 867, they sojourned in Blatno, in the residential ca.stle in '1.'lransDanubia, where Pribina's son Kocer ruled. Pribina had caused the already mentioned church in Nitra to be built-the first Christian church in the whole western Slovanic world; but to unite a nation and fonn a country, a state, was only possible by dissolving the power of the tribal rulers. Mojmir I , predecessor of Ra.stislav, drove Pdbina out of Nitra for that �SLOVAKIA 53 reason. Pribina procured a fief in Tranus-Danubia from Louis the German and selected a residence in the castle above Blatno (Mosaburg), and there he <:qntinued in what he had initiated in Nitra - the building of churches. That country had more such churches from that era. His son and successor, Kocer, continued in this spirit: he built churches and spread Christianity. Nonetheless, Kocef was somewhat in a quandary when the missionaries from the court of Devin came une~ectedly to him. The rulers of Devin had greatly wronged his father! What were people from there looking for in Blatno? But the apostles Constantine and Metbodius needed only t.o show him the Slovanic script and the Slovanic books, and tbey were dear and welcome t.o Kocef. He felt great joy. He became very fond of Slovanic books, studied from them, and appointed fifty disciples to the apostles. He entertained the distinguished guests for some time and then escorted them with great honor on :their journey to Venetia, that is to Rome. But let us not forget even Zemezizeii. The journey to Rome of the apostle Methodius in 880, so important as far as the substance of the matter is concerned, is given a national coloring in the person of Methodius's escort, the Slovak Zemezizeii. On the basis of what he found about him in historical sources, Jan Holly, in his epic (Svatopluk), placed Zemezizen as one of his important characters. In council Zemezizen distinguishes himself with a penetrating mind and determination, in battles the earth seems to shake wherever he appears. Thus the poet, but we imagine that in reality he was an extraordinary man. To all appearances, Zemezizeii is still his pagan name; he was very likely baptized an adult and therefore could journey, as his ruler's confidant on such an important mission to Rome, to the pope, with apostle Methodius, that educated, refined Byzantian ! He is also mentioned in the ipope's letter, even though it was found difficult in Rome to pronounce his name. (The letter has: Semisisnus, or rather the dative form Semisisno.) REFERENCE NOTES 1. 'The Life on Oonsta.ntme (lat:er Cyril) ("Zltie Konstantfna") and the Lite of Methodius ("z.ttie !Metoda") are preserved in the Old·SloTIU1ic Church la.nguage. Apos~ Methodius surnved his brother Cyril �54 SLOVAKIA b7 sixteen yea.re. In Slavl!stic science The Life of Constantine is considered the work of Met,hodiu,s, and The Life of Mebhodius the work of one ot their SloV'81k disciples. The sentence "By bhe grace of God we 8Are in good health" in the speech of the messenger,a to Constallltinople is very interesting. On meeting one another Slovaks bhus speak a;bout heaMih. Neibher a ~rman, nor any person of the ot•h er western nations would say it in this way. In the Liife of Methodius (Chaa>t. V) it is tra.n.& l:ated into Latin: "bene vale mus" - we aire well." In the Magyar language "hogy szolgal az egesueg ?" and similar expressions are from the Slovak language. 2 Today the Gel"ma,n,s themselves admit much of tbhait nature. " .. . . mit dem deutchen Priester kam auch der deutche Colonl,st .. . so da.sz von nun a.n Chrlrstlamlsierung und Germa.nisierung Hand lin Hand gerum" (cf. Karl Schober: Die Deutchen in Nieder und Ober-Oesterreich, Sal?Jburg, Steyermark, Kii.rn,then und Krain, iP- 15) . 3. " . . . die heutige Sl1>wakey in Oberungern ist das elgentllche Gross•Mahren ... " - he w.l"ote in a letter (in 1&25) to J. S. Bandrtke (Corresponde111Ce of Joseph Dobrovsky, •N, p. 163). 4. Slovanske Staroiltnostl, pp. 794, 7!Y.i, 822. 5. En~ehungsgeachichte der klrchenalavischen Sprache, Ber 1 in, 1913, p. 19 (First edition VleDIIla, 1900). 6. Die slawischen, Sprachen (Die Kult11,r der Gegeuwart, I. IX 1908, Berlin und LeLl)21g). 7. For instance, in &55: "R~ Hlu!lovlcus in Sclavo Marahenses contra Raallizen duoem eorem s,l,bi rebellantem parum IJI"OSpere ducto exercitu"-i( Ruodolfua Fu Idens, p. 369). Ibidem, p. 370: "Quo per fugam lapso et ad Raatizen se conferente.'' - In 869 " ... in illam ineffabllem Rastizl munltdonem et omnl_bus antiqulssimls dlssimilem ... " (Annalea Fuldenses, Pertz, I, 381.) In 870 " .. . ZuentJJ,baJJ.d, nepos Rastizi ... " (Annales Fuldenses, 882.) 8. Svii.toplu,k's predecessor is called Rastic ia.lso ·b y the Slovak monk Chrabr, and about him wie know that he wrote during the time "when there still lived people wlho had SEEN the apostles Cyril and Method ius." 9. Slovanske Starofitnostl , p . 804 . 10. Vacov, Budin, Vysehrad, Osrtrlhom, are Slovak, western Slovanlc names, a,s iare Devin, Ba,zin, -Budatfn. Beyond Budin was TeUn (as in the Czech 1land)-'the Ger-mans living there since the thirteenth century call it Tetlng, just as Bazin ia ito them Bosling, Hodonflll-Goding, in Lower AulStrla Modlin-Modllmg, a.nd many ,others. Vacov i,s derived from the same proper name as in the Czeoh land Is Va.c; Ostrihom is what in the Czech land ds Stfehom (the "o" in Its prefix has the saime origin oo in Oriava, or Im. the Zvolen Ortuty, and the ~arls Ordzovany ) ... We must deduce the close rel11.tionshlp ·b etween the Czeohs and the Slovakls by such ,topographic nMnes, but not by a "cultural union," of which there could have been ·b ut very little lbetween us owing to our separated states and dltter81lt geog:raJJ)hical locatrl.on. Let u,s but examine our culture-words, Wlhwt dissimilarity they present to us. The Slovaks call ink "atrament," the Czeohs "inkoust;" or, what is "t!abak" (tobacco) to the Czechs is "dohan" to the Slovaks. (This means that -smok!:ng reached the Slovaks, a.s It did the Yugoslovan-s, 'by way of the Orient, throug,h the Turu; .to bhe Czechs and the Germans, however, i t came from America via. Spain). 'J1he Slovak names of places (Kaza, Ka.zinec, Tetin, Bwbisar-in Zem-pliin-Pra:ha (In Novohrad) contra.vert �SLOVAKIA 55 also the inventions ot Kosma& in regard to the daughters of K:rok, Ka2a, Teta, Li,bus,a, and about the founding of Prague (Praha). 11. " ... in .fil.la.m ineftabilem Rastizi munitionem et omnibus antiquissimis di1JBimilam ... " 1·2. J.<iramtdsek Palacky: •D ejiny naroda ceskeho, I, 11876, p. 147. We •Slovaiks, however, caai supplement even Pa.lacky's statement; we have a. poetic na:rra.tion of tlhe g,reat battle beneath Devin. Jan Holly's great epic .p oem in 12 cantos, named after its prinoipa.1 hero "Svii.• topluk," presents it. As Tacitus's descri,p tion •there, so Jaai Holly's description here :118 gTand. (Talk-en from history the work of such a poet as is Jan Holly ha,s aaso its historic value.) 13. IP- 26, etc. 14. Geschichte Osten-elchs, I. 16. Acording ,t o all, though sparse reports, Moj,mir <b~me the heir not on[y o! his father'<S realm, bull a1so of his a:bHLties a,s a &ta.te:sman. However . . . for the successor of Svii.topluk even that fact was fatai that he calIIle after such a predecessor ... (V. Novotn:9': Ce-ek6 Dejiny, p. 421.) 16. Mention of the battle of Bratislava in 907-wihich the Bavaria.n,s together with Mojmir LI are supposed to have lost a.gadnst the Magyars -appeared only in ~e sixteen-till oentu,ry with Avenitinus and bas been reoe;n,tly !!"ejected even by Magyar historiaai,s. In ipresent da.ys, after the World War, a. r6CO!I"d was foUllld among German -s ouroes, con.fir-m ing the ,statements of Ave.ntinus, but it will hardily throw more light on the subject. Mter 907, more than one hundred years ·pa.s&ed 8llld still the Ma,g:y<a!rs did not appear on this (Uhe Slovak) side of the Da.nulbe. Not until after 1025, after the death of iBoleslav .t he Brave of Poland, that is, tow,a,rd11 the end of the reign of St. Stephen, they bega,n gra.dua,Hyand only gradually-to ~pa,nd a.nd settle dO'W'Il. Konrad Schti.nema.nn (Die Deutschen In Ungarn bis zum 12. Jahrhundert, Berll!Il u . Le1pzig, 1923) also states that the Magyar-s occupied Pan.nonia only slow,l y and gradually so that Uhe Ge:r,ma,ns who ha.d lived there had opportunity to wi-th<Lraw without haste to :their fO'I"Iller settle• ments. - About this question it is neccessary to have constantly in mind tha.t the Ma.gya.rs ca.me ,t o ,tjhe Danube as nomads, a.nd a nomad, if he ·tasrries anywhere, •m ust not stir up his closest neighbors against ·himself. (By compa!I"ison, I do not wwnt to offend the Magyars by the sdmile, 1but ,t he Gyipsies, living on the outskirts of our towns and vil•1 ages ,say even today: uNo 001e streals <:lose by.") Besides, the Magyars came here-as we wllll see faTther on-while in flight. They came with a !frightful ,experience. y.rhile they had wandered from Atelkuz beyond the Dainube, thked by the Greek Emperor agai,nst the Bulgars, the neighboring Pechenegs a.tta.okied their defenseless settlements in Aitelku2: and 'killed <tlheir children, women, and aged. After their return from the Danube, terrified ·b y the dreadful happenings at Atelkuz, they pa.eked whatever :they sti-11 could a.nd took to flight tn a westerly direction. They stopped only when they reached the territoo-y between the Tisa. BIIld the Middle Dwnube, in Pa.nmonia. After sudh an experi• ence ,t hey could venture trom the Danube, from Pannonda, on predatory expeditio.n-s Jnto Italy and Germany, but with theiT moat :proximate neighbors they VeTY likely endeavored to Uve in peace. AJbout their 'kind of lite, we have the mown remonstrance of tftle Germ81Il bishops in 900 which contailns grave accusations against the Slova.ns (probably of Pam-nonia), that they a,ssl1Sted the Maigyars. As a. matter of fact, the �56 SLOVAKIA Magyars, w~o ha.d come trom the eastern s,teppes scarcely ha,d 8/IlY great desire to venture across, to the lett bank of the Danube. The nomaJd avoids mounta.iais. He needs to see far, fair all around himself, and in the mountains, whether on the rigM or on the left, in front or behind, there is always a possibility of danger. For that reason it is not vecy lpr()baible thait the Magyars, after :tlheir airrival on the Datnulbe -as eaJ1ly as 907 - would have ventured into a grea,t action agalnist Mojmir II. They begaJR-a.s now even Magyair history admits- ,t o occupy the territories on the left ban,k of the Danube gra.dually, in the eleventh century, toward,s ,t he end o! the reign of St. Stephen. 17. Metodievskij jubilejnyj sbornik, Varsava, 18S5, p. 79, etc. 18. Dejiny narodu ceak~ho, I, 1876, p . 223. 19. A. N. Py,pin: lstorija siavianskich literatur, I, rp. 35. 20. "O n.arodnoati apoitolov Slavianswa, in Bratislava, a publication of Sal.arik's Learned Society, No. 2, 1927 . .21. Zitie av. Metoda, Chapter XVII. 22. "Se ~ t vasej~ zemlj~ -s vobod ,m ~i ... " (Zitie av. Metoda, Chapt. XWI.) 23. In confirmation Pogorielov further shows how in· the CyrilloMethodic text the negative "no" (NIE) and its opposite "yes" (A(,,'0) is expressed. T~e Czechs '88.Y ANO; 1lhe Poles TAK; the Russians and BulglllI'B DA; the Serbs and Croats JEST; only the Slovak language has the ,same word we read in the Gospel of Matthew V, 37: " b~di ~ slovo va§e ej, ej i nl ni. Or (Mat. XXI, 16) when the Pharisees &1sked Chrfst: Slysisi Ii ~to sii glago!:j~t. Jlsu,s ze ~ im: ej. (In the Kralice Bible thf,s reads: jiate, Jiate nikoli, nikoli; and the second: oviem. ln Slova,k, in ,t he Tr.nava edition of Richard Osvald: ano, ano, nle, nie, and in chapter XXl--<>viem. Instea.d of ,t he full sounding "HEJ," the Slovam..ic Church text has "EJ''---ithere being no letter "h" in the Cyrilllc's sor1a>t, It is true 1'n the 9th century the Slovakia still pronou.nced "G" instead of the pre• sent-day "H." But ,then, this attimna.tive word could o:nly begin mith the vowel "E," otherwise Gora.zd would ha.ve scarcely omitte'Cl its "G." ln behalf or the Slovak ca.use it is advisa,ble to add that in the Old-Sllovanic Bible tert this "EJ" (HEJ) is such a mark, such a charac,t eristic of present-day central SlovaJc, as is the letter "A" in the name of our Rastisla.v. And thus the one and the other is a.n hi'9toruc document about the Slova.ks-about the nationality of Great Moravia. Tha.t is, in ,t he 9'tlh century, aind in all of present-day Moraivia a.n.d In all of wesrern Slovakia substantially the ,same la.nguage wae spoken as we have it today along the Middle Vall, lower Orava, near Turiec, Hron, l1>el', a,nd in Upper Nitra. (Against such documents, it wm not be possible to risk the opinion thait "the core of the alovalk dta.lectical region is not the central group, ·b ut the western." (M. W. in his note on "Stare Slovensko, ,p . 284). 24. "Stoj. ndho ! Posvatna. mis ta jsou, kamkoll kralis ! " 25. K. J. Grot: Karpato-dunajakija zemli v sudbach slavianatva, 1905, p . 18. 26. D. ,z. Lautek: Sv. Cyril a Method, apoitolovla alovanakf, 18&6, p. 70. - See also V. Jaglc: Archlv fur alaviache Phllologie, XX, p. 27. 27. "Vy bo jesta Sol-un•lantna, da Solunia.ne vsi ~f.sto aiovenaky be- sMujit." - Zitle Metoda, Chapter V. 28. "Die Gros,ze des Werkes ha.t ma.n frllber lraum recht e~flnden konnen, aber gerade in der heutigen Sprachwissenscha.ft . . . musz �SLOVAKIA 57 der Grammati:ker Konsita.nUn Bewu~derung erregen." - A. Leskien : Grammatik der altbulgari&chen (altkirchen-slavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1919, p. XXI. 29. Konsta,ntl.n Grot: Metodijevskij jubilejnij sborntk, Varsa.va, 1885, p , 5. 30. Russkij filologiceskij Viestnik, 1894, 3, p. 1. 31. Archiv fur slavische Philologre, XX, p . 28 32. Entstehungsgeschichtle der kirchenslavischen Sprache, 1913, pp. 2, 3. SS. CYRIL AN.D METHODIU'S � 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 1963, Vol. 13 Description An account of the resource Issue 1 (No. 36), March 1963. 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 1963 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 THE LEGACY OF THE GREAT MORAVIAN STATE OF OUR ANCESTORS: THE SLOVANIC CIIUOOH AND SLOVANIC LITERATURE JOSEPH SKULTETY In 862, (i. e., 1101 years ago) there came to Emperor Mic:hael in Constantinople messengers fi'om the region of the Middle Danube, the Germano-Slovanic frontier, and said to him: "By the grace of God we are in good health, and there come to us Christian teachers from Italy, Greece and Germany, teaching us various things. But we are Sloveni .•. " The words "but we are Sloveni" were meant to convey the thought that they desire to have teachers in the ChrisDr. Joseph Skultety's book "Nehante l!.ud M6j" (Do Not Slander My .People) was pulblished in 1928. iln it the aiuthor successfully refuted three prevalent fallacies, all of ;which tended to vilify the Slovak people and distort Slovak history. Professor Sku1tety's book was translated into English by Cl. D. Koretf and published by the F'irst Catholic Slovak Union, Middletown, Pa., in 1930, under the title of "Sketches From ·S lovak History." The first chapter, relating to Great Moravia and the Slovak Apostles ,SIS. Cyril and Method•i us, caretully and thoroughly corrected to correspond with the Slovak original, is presented here. - P. A. Hrobak tian doctrine "who would teach us in our own language, a language intelligible to us," and they added: "Send us such, 0 Lord." 'I\hey were the messengers from our Slovak ancestors, from their ruler Rastislav. The words they addressed to Emperor Micihael are quoted in the biography ("Zitie") "By of Apostle Methodius, and the opening sentence histothis the grace of God we are in good heallth" gives ric document a coloring of antiquity. It proves that Slovaks said this in Corurtantinople. 1 At that time, 862, there already stood in our Nitra a Christian church for more than thirty years, the first in the whole of ibhe western Slovanic world. But since then Rastislav had bad experiences. The missionaries cam~ mainly from the Germans, our western neighbors, a,n d the worst of it was not that his nation did not understand 36 SLOVAKIA them and thus Christianity only slowly took root: Rastislav dreaded most that the Germans would want to subjugate politica'1ly whomever they converted to Christ.2 For that reason he asked for teachers from the East and sent his messenger to Constantinople. From thence he obtained extraordinary, great men - real apostles - in the persons of the brothers Constantine and Methodius. They founded in Rastislav's nation the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature. And from the Slovanic worship and Slovanic literature, thus founded, a great thing emanated for the Slovanic peoples .. . Great conf1.11Sion arose among the Slavists over the question what kind of Slovans (Slavs) had constituted Rastislav's and Sviitopluk's Great Moravia, although Dobrovsky, the founder of · Slovanic philology, as early as in 1825 categorically stated that the real Great Moravia was the present-day Slovakia, 3 and Safarik in his "Slovanske Starozitnosti," in 1837, placed the Sfovaks, in the second half of the ninth century, · not only between . the Ca11pathian Mountains and the Danube, (as far as Mt. Matra and Vacov) and along the Morava River, but also on the other bank of the Danube, all the way up to Blatno. 4 This was appropria,tely. elucidated by V. Jagic who gave direction · to the fourth generation of Slavists. In his great work on the origin of the Church Slovanic language,5 expounding the ethnographic character of ancient Moravia, the Moravia of Rastislav and Svatopluk, J agic wrote: "In her language Moravia is even today Czech only in her western half - her eastern half is connected with the Slovaks, and these Slovaks even now are living in northwestern Hungary . . . In ancient Moravia, if her frontiers extended to the Danube, they must have spoken a language in the ninth century which was in its su1bstantial outlines identical with the present-day Slovak language (as in Moravia and Upper Hungary). This Slovak language could them have been more widespread even in Moravia than it is today, and in Hungary could have extended as far as the Danube." In his article on Slovanic languages,6 Jagic called the present-day Slovak dialects the real descendants of · the SLOVAKIA 37 language of ancient Moravia. To his explanation we can add the evidence we have in the name "Rastislav'. That name - that beloved name - puts a special Slovak stamp on Great Moravia. As we know from Slovanic grammars, there are two groups of words which the Slovaks have in common with the South-Slavs, but not with the Czech and Poles, to whom as western Slovans they otherwise belong linguistically. To one of these two groups (raz = to the Czech roz; razga = to the Czech rozha; razen = to the Czech rozen; raky1a = to the Czech rokyta; razst.ep, raztoka, and others) belongs also the word rasf (in t:Jhe Czech rosti) and words derived from it. Together with the Czechs and the Poles, the Russians also use "o". Now, in contemporaneous or old records in general, the name Rastislav is Rastislav everywhere, and only exceptionally, by some error, Rostislav; in contemporaneous records, in German annals, he is called consistently Rastic (an abbreviated form of the name). That means the German neighbors heard that name witll an "a,,, and sounding thus, it proves that either in Moravia, in all of Moravia, a language was spoken whose phonetics was like the phonetics of the language beneath the Tatra Mountains, that is, present-day language of central Slovakia, or else the princely family, who reared Rastiislav, sprang from Slovaks, who settled on this side of the Morava River. But even so, if Ra•s tislav was a native of this side of the Morava river, they still would have called him tlheir own way Rostislav on the other, the western side. And that they did not call him thus, that the name "Rastislav,, resounded even in Western Moravia, that is ,proved by the form "Rastic" preserved in a11 the contemporaneous German records. 7 The country of Rastislav, even in the extreme West, was Slovak. 8 In the southeast, as we already know from Safarik,9 and as topographic names indicate, Sloyak settlements extended to Mt. Matra. In :the East they originally reached probably to the river Topfa, whose name comes from the Slovenes (Sloveni), the ancestors of the present..day Bulgarians. But if these people from the territory of the Tisa crossed beyond the lower Danube in the seventh 38 SLOVAKIA century, the Slovak "Sloveni" expanded in the East even beyond the Topfa river. Here and in the territory beyond Uzhorod, occupied by Russians since the twelfth century, the names of settlements are in significant number of Slovak origin. And from Mt. iMatra to Vacov, bey<»).d the Danube from Budin up to Vysehrad and Ostrihom, there also are ancient Slovak settlements. 10 Indeed, Slovak settlements could have extended even farther South, all the way to Blatno. Pdbina, driven from Nitra, even though enjoying Gemian favor, hardly could have become a ruler here as a foreigner. Apostle Metihodius, appointed by Rome, was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia since 873, from which we ~n also judge that beyond the De.nube, in Pannonia, there lived the same kind of people as above the Danube, beneath the Carpathians and along the Morava River. Even Sa!fari:k called attention to the names of prominent people who were present in 850 at the blessing of Pribina's church at Blatno Castle. Jagic explained those names of the "Pannonian Sloveni" and arrived at the conclusion that from among fifteen almost half were western Slovanic. Now, if these names were western Slovanic, then they were Slovak - no other western Slovans could have lived near Blatno. The State of our Slovak ancestors, which already in Mojmir's days up to 846 had been built wisely and cou~ageously, was already a power in Rastislav's time. The Germans were then pushing down the Danube, as they never did afterwards, and Great Moravia, the young Slovanic State, heroically barred their way. True enough, their aggression only increased thereby. King Louis, called the German, a grandson of Charlema;gne, in 855, immediately after his accession, invaded Moravia with a great military force in order to rid himself of a danger which was growing there for his realm. But 'here the very resistance was so great that Louis - as a contemporaneous record mentions - decided rather to leave his opponent in peace than to expose his whole army to a catastrophe. He did not dare to attack the firm position of Rastislav and merely devastated the neighborhood. The attack of the Moravians on the German encampments was repulsed, but the departure of the Germans resembled a flight. Rastislav pursued Louis, the German, SLOVAKIA 39 invaded his territory and devastated it far and wide. Liberated Moravia - says Safarik attained complete independence and became the 1baven of refuge of all Slovans whQ were either discontented with or oppressed by the Franks (Germans), and even of the Germans themselves who had come into some conflict with the government of King Louis. His sons, too, Karlmann and Louis, Junior, looked to Rastislav for support in quarrels with their father. In the annals of the Fuld Monastery of 869, there is a record which mentions Rastislav's castle, in all probability Devin, as "the mighty fortress with which not even one of the most ancient ca,n compa:re." 11 And under Svatopluk, after Rastislav, Great Moravia represented a still greater military power. The defeat of the Gel'!IIlans in 870, beneath Devin, was horrible. 'Ilheir great airmy perished in the battle; very few saved themselves by flight. There were very few families in Bavaria, Austria and Carinthia (Corutania., who did not mourn the loss of some of their members. Ka.rrlmann quickly ordered the gathering of all the captured Moravians, whom he kept in various places of his country so that he could exehange them for his own men who were held prisoners by Svaitopluk. Well, he got only one half-dead man back, the renowned hero Ratbod. Any German who had not fled from the battlefield remained there dead. This battle has been compared with that which the Roman gei,.eraJ V arus lost in the Teutoburg Forest in the year 9 A. D., and Svatopluk was compared with the German Armin (Herman). But we also have Palacky's version of that battle. With keen perception, Palacky stated that in history there is also difference between these two battles. The first was described for us by Tacitus, about the other we know ft-om the chronicle of the monk of Fuld. 12 Later is his reign Svatopluk completely stopped the flood of Germans down the Danube towards the East. In German annals a record is preserved stating that when he went against Arnulf in 884, his army was seen in one place to pass all day, from morning until evening. Svitopluk already then had extended his sovereignty to the North over the Czech land, where the first ·historic Czech 40 SLOVAKIA prince, Bofivoj, ruled, and over the Polish Slovans along the Upper Vistula (Visla); in the South his sovereignty extended even farther, fwr beyond the frontiers of Slovak territory. It seemed then that the Slovanic people would unite under his rule. I shall not quote Saifarik, Palacky or any other Slovanic historian; it will suffice to cite from Pauler as to the past. In his book "A magyar nemmt tortenet.e s:rent lstvanig," awarded the Grand Prize of the Magyar Academy in 1900, Pauler says: "'In Atelkuz the Magyars were much nearer to their present homeland than they had been in Lebedia. From Seret, from Baku to Mairosvasarhelyi the distance is only some twenty geographic miles. And here - certainly by way of the most natural road through the valley of the Dniester, tJhen up the Stryj, through Verek Pass - they could look into the land extending from the Carpathians to the South where just then great battles were raging. The Slovans living along the Morava River, on the left bank of the Danube, under powerful ·a nd courageous rulers, had fo:nned a country worthy of consideration. They began to be baptized already in the first half of the ninth century, but in reality they were confirmed in the Ohristian faith only by Constantine, the philosopher, and his brother Methodius from the year 863. "From the very beginning of the ninth century, from the time of Charlemagne, there were, so to say, continuous wars between the Slovans and the reahn of the Franks, from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, now here, now there. The Slovans had penetrated wedge-like deeper and deeper between the Germanic tribes since the sixth century, and the reaction of the Franks was forcefµL In the ninth century the Germans, attacking everywhere, endeavored to make vassals of their Slovanic neighbors alon,g the Saale River, as well as on the frontiers of the Czech Mountains, or beyond the Danube. With the Siovans a!bove the Middle Danube, Svatopluk founded such a realm to which the Czech land in Bohemia, the countries around the sources of the Vistula, and in the South, besides the valleys of the Morava, Vah and Nitra. - that nucleus of the realm were subjected, and his power extended from the River SLOVAKIA 41 Hron over the whole territory between the Danu:be and the Tisa Rivers, down to Sriem and up to the Ca,rpathians ... "Eastern FTankland, that conglomeration of Saxons, Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians, was ruled since 887 by the handsome and brave Arnulf, the illegitimate son of Karlmann and the girandson of Louis the German, who but a few years previously - in 883 and 884 - as prince of Carinthia had felt the weight of Svatopluk's power and had helplessly looked on as he (Svatopluk) bad cruelly and mercilessly raivaged Pannonia, and even now, as king, he did not know what to do with him. "In July, 892, Arnulf took to the sword and with an army of Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians and attacked Moravia. The Magyar horde, which was just then passing through, joined him ( - hired by Arnulf ! - note of this author) and ravaged Svatopluk's country for four weeks; but then the Germans and Ma.rgyars turned homeward (with bleeding heads - note of this author) and Svatopluk's power, not even shaken, remained as it had been heretofore" .13 In German chronicles and in contemporaneous annals, Svatopluk is called the ",powerful," the "dread of his neighbors," "the wisest," "the most deceitful," man of his nation; "a wolf," and "a blood-thh'sty malcontent." The calumnies of enemies, of course, are not to be taken Hterally. To his German neighbors Svatopluk was "a wolf," and "blood-thirsty," because the wounds caused by his sword hurt. But those were wounds which they sustained mostly when they ventured where they had no dght to go. And then history judges differently than contemporaries do. I could cite from the excellent work of Alfons Huber, 14 an Austro-German, quotations similar to those in the Magyar book of Pauler a:Qout the deeds of the nation of Mojmir, Rastislav and Svatopluk in the second half of t:he ninth century. To found such a state, a Slovanic State on the Middle Danube ast that time - in the second half of the ninth century - certainly was a great accomplishment; history wil!l never cease speaking of it. Indeed, there were indications that a center was originating ·h ere around which a significant part of the Slovans would unite. But a young 42 SLOVAKIA state, in order to become firm, to consolidate, needs favorable circumstances. History deduces even the beginnings of Rome had favorable and fortunate conditions. Our Slovak ancestors, at the end of tile ninth century, were not so fortunate. The Germanic world still lived in a condition of ferment - to have it as a neigU11bor was not good. It would yield, retreat, only under duress, as during the· lifetime of Svatopluk. After Svatoplu:k's death, the nomadic Magyars came to be another neighbor on the other side of the Danube and to tlle Tisa River. Under such circumstances, aflter the first weakening caused by some internal, domestic strife, a young organization is apt to fare ba~y. The trou:ble here was the disunity of the sons of Svatopluk, which was flamed by their German neighbors, and Great Moravia perished. 'Dhe Magyars came to the Danube in 896, two years after Svatopluk's death, and Mojmir II, Svatopluk's successor, in 900 still petitioned for and obtained from Rome two bishops and one archbishop, thus he was still organizing the Church. In 902, with his sword he still proved to his Trans-Danubian neighbors that he was a son of Svatopluk.15 Not long rufterwards, however, he was no more. It is not even known what became of him whither he went. Great Moravia perished. 16 The state of affairs on the Middle Danube in the ninth century is explained in Anton Budilovic's book, published in 1'886, on the occasion of the millenial memorial of the death of Met!hodius: "'l'he Huns and the Avars cleaned the lands of the Middle Danube considerably of the Thraco-Illyrian, Celto--Roman and Germanic nations, but, under the successors of Charlemagne, German colonization again turned to these blessed lands and . covered with its net not only Upper but also Lower Pannonia and the western aft-valleys of Moravia. The antlike activity of the German colonist there was supported by the quite mature politicail and ecclesiastical organization of the Germany of that time. Supporting the German colonist on the one side was the German soldier, margrave, duke, the king, the emperor; on the other side, the German priest, monk, bishop, arch!bishop. What could the Slovans of these lands, divided into branches, scattered, not united by anything, put up against such forces? The federative union of two or three SLOVAKIA 43 tribes, the muscular force of the homeguards, 1:Jhe accidenta:l geniality of the chief and the eµthusiam of national hatred, aroused by violence? This could onJy be temporary . . . A lasting and successful struggle is only possible where there exists a certain balance of forces and equality of weapons, bow against bow, system against system, fore~ ful, profound ideas against other ideas. Can there be any talk of balance of forces of one or two Slovanic nations with the whole German race, of an alliance of a few patriarchal tribes with a great and organized empire? Could even the most genial leaders of the western Slovanic peoples at that time repel the onslaught of a whole system of cultural ideas in which were also included the heritage of the ancient world and the refreshing Cll'ITent of Christianity? . . . The best answer to these questions is presented by the fate of the Baltic Slavs. There they lacked neither ta:lented military leaders, nor a fiery hatred of the Germans, nonetheless these Slavs perished and their lands became the center of the later renovated empire of the Hohenstaufens." The closing words of Budilovic are that the same fate would have overtaiken the Slovans of Great Moravia had not their Rastislav, aroused by a penetrating foresight, obtained such apostles as were the brothers of Salonica (Solun), Cyril and Methodius. 17 Yes, as already mentioned, the state of affairs was difficult for our Slovak ancestors. Nonetheless, their State creation lasted almost one hundred years, and from the very beginning inscribed itself appropriately into history. Palacky, in his "Dejiny" (!history) presents the foundations which Rastislav and Svatopluk built with their nation as the nucleus around which all the Slovanic tribes would have been attracted gradually; from it they would have received Christianity; if not new political constitutions, at least a national and new European culture, arts and industry, unity of language, an alphabet and literature. As under the influence of Rome, the monarchy of the Franks matured in the West, similarly a great Slovanic empire would have grown up with the help of the spirit of Byzantium, and Eastern Europe of a thousand years ago would have assumed a shape different from that which it in reality assumed. 18 44 SLOVAKIA Palacky spoke as if carried away in a rhetorical rapture; but it can be stated even with the coolest mind that great things were lost with the collapse of Great !Moravia. ~en at that, the Slovanic Ohurch,founded for our Slovak ancestors, with the Slovanic alphabet and Slovanic literature, became the foundation on which the great race of Slovanic peoples developed. When especially in the West only three, or really only two languages (Greek and Latin) were considered feasible for Christian ecclesiastic life, the Holy Scriptures and worshi,p, the brothers Cyril and Methodius began their mission with the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the Slovanic language. At the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, when, as a result of the Russo-Turkish war, the Balkan Slovans were rid of the hard fate of five hundred years duration, and among all the Slovans flowed especially cordial feelings, the Russian literary historian Alexander Pypin called attention to the Pan-Slovanic significance of what the great apostles Cyril and Methodius had accomplished among our Slovak ancestors. And he added that their work is an heritage and an ideal of Slovanic unification 19 True enoug,ll, the neighboring Germans at once raised on alarm that Constantine :md Methodius were installing Slovanic worship and translating the Holy Scriptures in Rastislav's land. Our apostles deemed it necessary for that reason to journey to Rome as early as 867. There they submitted their cause in such a manner that Pope Adrian solemnly blessed the Slovanic books. Before the coming to Moravia of the brothers, only · Constatine had been ordained to priesthood; the Pope ordered also Methodius and their Slovak disciples, whom they had brought along to Rome, to be ordained, and in the leading cathedrals of Rome they sang the liturgy in the Slovanic language. It became necessary for the apostles to remain a longer time in Rome. Constantine, physicaUy frail, became ill, joined a monastic order and assumed the name Cyril. While going about as missionary among the Kaza.rs near the Black Sea, Cyril had uncovered in Kherson the remains of St. Olemenrt, who had died a martyr, and these restored remains he now brought to Rome. Thus it hap- SLOVAKIA 45 pened, that when he died . on February 14, 869, he was buried in the church of that same St. Clement. The dying Cyril touchingly implored his ·b rother to persevere in the important Slovak mission. Methodius, of course, persevered with the greatest zeal. From 873 he was archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia. When the German bishop did not cease inciting against the Slovanic worship, it again became necessary to journey to Rome in 880. And in this trial too, he was victorious. Pope John VIII, wrote in a Bull sent to Svatopluk ("glorioso principi ~fentopulcho"): "The Slovank script, whldh the late phi~osopher Constantine devised, that in it may duly resound the praise of God, is lawfully confirmed; and we decree that in that language the glory and the acts of · our Lord p1rist be related. For not only in three, but in all languages are we exhorted by the holy author (King David) to praise the Lord . . . The apostles too, permeated with the Holy Ghost, spoke in all languages about the greatness of God . . . He who created the three · principal languages Hebrew, Greek, and Latin - created also the others to His honor and glory ...." What great events! Thus is documented that in the Church the Slovanic language was placed in the same rank with Greek and Latin. Already in the ninth century! ... And all this emanated from our Slovak ancestors! As long as there will be souls capable of becoming enthused for sublime things, so long will the memory of the Slovanic apostles Cyril and Methodius remain ~evered, and there will be always found people who will know that the Slovanic Church had been instituted for our Slovak ancestors, and that it all emanated from the mind of their great ruler [Rastislav. The Slovak State of the ninth century did not survive, it perished in maelstrom of the world, but the Slovanic world has a great heritage from it. With the development of science, particularly Slovanic philology, this event of world history will become more lucid :with every passing year. When the work of the Slovanic apostles and the struggle of Great Moravia with the Germanic world will be recalled, talk of C~atho-Damtbian and Pannonian Slovans will cease, and the Sloveni-Slovaks will be definitely mentioned. When it is already so clear 46 SLOVAKIA that in the ninth century the inhabitants of present-day Moravia were only Slova.ks, the nation of Rastislav and Svatopluk will not be called "Moravians and Slovaks" (as in the "Slovanske Staro'Litnosti" of Sa.fa.rik), but consistent. ly and definitely "Slovaks." The ,b iographies ("Zitia") of our apostles, which remained in the Church-iSlovanic language will cease to be called "Pannonian" legends when it will be esta·b lished that the great missionaries whom Rastislav had appointed were only in Pannonia on their journey to Rome, after an activity of four years in Moravia and Slovakia; then again Methodius 1Was there alone, before he could get home, to Devin or Nitra, on his return journey from Rome. (Thus in 867, when stopping above Blatno, to visit Kocel', it was surely only because he was the son of Pribina, formerly of Nitra.) Then will also cease the confusing of our county with the Czech land since the Czechs participated in the formation of the Slovanic Church and literature only after .t he baiptism of Borivoj. Not even the legend that Methodius converted the Bulgarian (Czar) Boris to Christ .b y painting for him a ,picture of the Last Judgment will mislead us any longer; of the two brothers :&om Salonica neither the one, nor the other, labored among any other Slovamic nations. They labored only among the Sloveni-Slovaks. Their teaching reached the Bulgars only through their disciples :£rom Great Moravia after Methodius was no longer among the living. Most recently, this matter was excellently illuminated by the Russian emigrant, the Slovanic philologist Valerij Pogorielov of the university of Bratislava, in his study "About the na.ti.onaJ.ity of the apostles of Slavdom."20 The Slovanic script - as devised by apostle Constantine-C yril after he and his brother Methodius already had the authority for the mission to Rastislarv's nation, and the grammar of this script founded in the Church-Slova nic books - is such an accomplishme nt that Cyril is being admired as a linguistic phenomenom. Nonetheless, recently in science both brothers were generally considered native Greeks. Silenced were also the doubters, into whose heads could not penetrate the fact ,t hat one who was not born a Slovan could hardly grasp in such a manner and sense the charac- SLOVAKIA 47 ter of the Slovanic language, as we see in the work of St. Cyril. What did Pogorielov do? He began to examine the Slovanic translations of the Holy Scriptures made from the Greek to check whether the brothers from Salonica were as expert i? Greek as they had been in the Slovanic lenguage. He found that in the Church-Slovanic Bible texts there were errors which could not have been made by a translat.or whose mother-language had been Greek. Pogorielov came to the conclusion that the holy brothers from Salonica (Solun) could not have been Greeks - they were Slovans. At the same time he very aptly notes that, allowing such a solution of the question, we will also comprehend that energy, that zeal and self-sacrifice which they displayed in the services of the Slovanic cause. We will understand their impartiality in the dispute between Byzantium and Rome. Would real Greeks have gone to Rome to seek protection for their Slovanic activity? It is a:lso interesting how Pogorielov explains the relation of the Sloveni-Slovaks to the work of the holy apostles. When after the death of Methodius the Slovanic church books were taken from Moravia to Bulgaria, they proved to be altogether intelligible there. The Bulgarian literati began to correct the language of the books, e.g., instead of nedag (at present nedu.h) they put bolezn; instead o(f prositi they wrote moliti; instead of nvot - zizn; instead of otrok - sluga; instead of godina - cas, etc. That is, in the Church texts the Slovaks words (Slovak in the present-day sense) were replaced by Bulgarian words. And Pogorielov does not stop there, but goes farther. He explains how western Slovanic or Slovaik words had gotten into the work of the natives of Salonica that is, South Slovans. Goraoo, one of the first disciples of Cyril and Methodius was considered a SloV3Jk already by Safarik. In regard to Gorazd, Pogorielov· quotes the words21 with which the dying Methodius (in 885) appointed him his successor to the seat of the archbishopric: "This is a free man of your country22 ," that is Gorazd, "a man of your own country," was not a Southern Slovan, as had been the apostles them- 48 SLOVAKIA selves, the brothers from Salonica, but a western Slovan, that is, a son of the country - as Pogorielov says emphatically - where Methodius himself had worked and preached and of which he was archbishop. The Slovakisms in the Slovanic text of the Holy Scriptures are the work of Gorazd ; "to his pen also belongs the translation of all the works from Latin into the Slovanic lan:g:uage." Pogorielov calls St. Gorazd the third apostle of the Slovanic peoples. Referring also to the great Slavist Jagic, who ex;plained in 1900 and in 1913 that in ancient Moravia in the ninth century "substantially the same language was spoken as is today's Slovak," Pogorielov agrees that "it was the Slovaik language, and the country was Slovakia, and this means that St. Gorazd really was a man of the Slovak country - that he was a Slovak23 • In the introduction to his study, written and published in Bratisla,va, Pogorielov remarks that the holy Slovak apostles, Cyril and Methodius, used to walk in this vicinity, therefore, the words of the great ·b ard of the Slovanic world, Jan Kollar, can be rightfully repeated. "Stand still, foot! Sacred are the places wherever thou waJkest !" 24• To which I add: Aye, aye, Devin ! ! ! ... About a person wh·o accomplished great things during his lifetime, people say after his death: •~He died, but his memory shall remain." Greater Moravia has also passed away, has :perished, but her legacy is such that she will be remembered. "Here took place in the ninth century," says a Russian historian, "events not only of Pan-Slovanic, but ailso, it can be said, of universal significance : an important attempt at a political unification of the Slovans the Great Moravian political union - famed itself by the most memorable, infinitely fertile activity of the Slovanic Apostles in Moravia. Here were laid the foundations for the national church and national Slovanic Christian education, here were formed the plans and the direction of the entire future of the whole subsequent historic development of the Slova.nic world, it.s world role and its relation to Romano-Oennanic Europe, to the West, and to the Asiatic guestion. The Christianization of the masses of people and their manner of life, bringing them to the Eastern Church, the foundation of Church-Slovanic litera,- SLOVAKIA 49 ture and education in the Slovanic South, among the Bulgars and the Serbs, and in the East among the Russians, and partly also among the other western Slovans, was only the continuation of that work which Cyril and Methodius had initiated and which could survive, alas, only a short time in the Middle Danubian countries. From here, from Great Moravia, flowed a copious stream of Slovanic Church literature and Slovanic ritual, of a common Church language and together with it also of national consciousness in all directions - to the ·v arious kin: to the North to the Poles; to the West to the Czechs; to the South to the Slovenes, the Serbo-Croats, and Bulgars (to the latter directly through the disciples of Methodius, who had been expelled from Moravia after his death); and lastly to the East, to Russia . . ." 25 "The fruits of the independent spiritual development, based on a national Church and literature, founded by the Slovanic apostles" - further says Constantine Grot "took root in the Slovanic South and East, where there was not such a ha.rd national struggle as on the Middle Danube." And he calls attention to the fact that it w~s at that time that the Germanic world returned with elemental force to these lands, which its tri·b es had occupied once before, and for that reason it was much harder for the Carpatho-Danubian Slovans to maintain themselves against such pressure. And just then the Magyars also arrived . . . Indeed, even during the life of Svatopluk, soon after the death of Methodius (885), the Slovanic Church had gone over from us to the South~lovans, thence to the Eastern (IS lovans) and there helped to create the great Russian nation out of the many tribes. ""The legacy of the brothers of .Salonica" - as correctly e:,cpressed by Daniel Laucek - "prepared among the Russians national unity by means of Church unity." 26 The Czech ruler, Prince Borivoj, was baptized by Methedius at the court of Svatopluk; with Boriivoj's successors Slovanic literature took root in the Czech country and also got to the Poles; but here too like with the Slovaks and Czechs, 'because they were neighbors of the German world, the Slovanic Church and Slovanic literature did not sumve among the ·P oles. It is true, in the Church terminology of us all, Slovaks, Czechs, and Poles, to this 50 SLOVAKIA day traces of the language have been presented (for instance even the most important word uHospodin" ), the language which the holy apostles Cyril and Methodius had introduced into our ecclesiastic life. And it is worth mentioning, that of all the Slovans, the teachings of the 'Slovan apostles did not reach - neither during their lifetime, nor later through their disciples - a single tribe of the Baltic and Polabian Slovans, and of all the Slovans just these latter perished in the religious a;nd existential struggle which they waged with the Germans. When Emperor Michael in Constantin ople had learned from the Slovak delegation what was at stake, what kind of aipostles R!astislav desired, he at once decided to entrust this task to Constantin e, the philosopher , who had rlistingttished himself in rupostolic wor.k before, at first alone and later with his brother Methodius. The messengers said to the Emperor: "We are Sloveni -," i. e., they desired teachers of the Christian faith whom they could understand. The brothers Constantin e and Methodius, as natives of Salonica (Thessalon ica) where suited even language-wise for the mission among the Slovans: they knew Slovanic. ·Emperor Michael, having summoned them, told the brothers: "You are from Salonica, and all Salonicans spewk pure Slovruk ("'sloviensky) 27 • The brothers, however, did not want to go empty-hand ed to Rastislav's nation, and Constantine, having learned fr()lffi the messengers that the Sloveni-Slovaiks did not ha,ve their own script, in the first ·p lace contemplat ed over a suitable script. In the words of the legend, God revealed the Slovanic script to the meditating, contemplat ing, worried and praying Constantine. Such a tradition maJkes him so much dearer to us. And indeed it is such an achievemen t that we can be proud of it. Constantin e proceeded from the Greek script, but Slovanic sounds, especially in the ninth century, greatly varied with the Greek, therefore new letters, new characters were needed. And Constantin e placed it on such a basis that the more lndo-Europ ean linguistics develops, the more admira:ble becomes his creation28 • Even today, if doubt arises in any Slovanic language over the correct spelling of some word, informatio n is sought in Cyril's orthograiph y. And even in this respect SLOVAKIA 51 can we Slovaks ha,ve the great satisfaction that, without our Rastislav, he (Cyril) would not have had the opportunity to assert his phenomenal talent. Had not the Slovak messengers come to Constantinople, what more could have Constantine accomplished there? At first he had been used in Constantinople to bring to reason the iconoclasts, then to convert to Christ the Mohamedan Sara,zens and the pagan Khruzars: had not the Slovak messengers appeared there, Constantine, in all likelihood, would have continued in that activity, or he would have remained in the monastery into which he had retired for a life of tranquility. People of phenomenal mental gifts need a field for their activity. Our Rastislaiv will also be remembered in the world-historic work of Cyril. In 1886, when the Slovanic peoples celebraited the millenium of the death of Methodius, a Russian historian asked: "What was the Slovanic world prior to Cyril and Methodius?" and answered: "Scattered over the vast spaces of middle Europe, Russia and the Balkan Peninsular among foreign and hostile nations, although a race gifted by nature with beautiful spiritual endowments, the Slovan r ace represented a torn, disjointed mass of different tribes without any consciousness of racial relationship . . ." The brothers from Salonica appear on the stage of Slovanic history in the middle of the ninth century, "strong in spirit and profoundly permeated with the consciousness of their sacred calling, namely, to furnish the Slovans with Christian enlightenment," and in a comparatively short time thereafter there is an entirely difforent life among the Slovans29 • The Russian philologist Alexej Sachmatov explained that the Russian race in the ninth century was disintegrating into a multitude of tribes. The tribes among themselves remained in substance closely related, but lived separately; for that reason they differed in morals and in customs and had their individual dialects. Had they lived longer without any connecting mediums, complete individualization would have sprung up among them and a multitude of conflicting dialects would have developed. But owing to the events of the tenth centucy an organization of state was created among the Russian tribes which united them in a political, 52 SLOVAKIA cultural and religious unit. In the eleventh century the body of the state, created by Vladimir and his descendants, became stabilized: it consisted of all Russian lands with the exception of Galicia and Polocko, which were differently situated geographically. In the twelfth century the dialects of these latter already had their typical peculiarities30 • Thus, Sachmatov attributed to the unifying ,p ower of the state this great thing that a great nation was created out of Russian tribes. J agic, of course, also acknowledged the importance of the political factor in the creation of linguistic unity, but, not agreeing completely with Sachmatov's explanation, he wrote that "in Russia, in the securance and preservation of unity, the main credit belongs not so much to its political power as to the great cultural and linguistic unifying effect of the Church and the uniform Church-Slovanic Ianguage" 31 • In his great work of 1900 and 1913 Jagic also mentioned Ulfilas, who translated the Holy Scriptures into the language of the Goths already in the fourth century. True enough, that W'.as five hundred yea/I'S earlier; and yet - says Jagic -what a difference there is between Ulfilas and the Slovanic apostles! The work of Ulfilas was for a narrow circle, the Goths alone, with whom it also went into emincition; the work of Cyril and Methodius extended from Moravia and Pannonia, "from the heart of western Slovanic peoples," first to the South, to the Croatians and Serbs, thence to the Bulgarians, and afterwards the Slovanic Church brought also the great Russian nation into the fold of Christianity. The work of Ulfilas perished; in the language ~ suiting from the work of the Slovanic apostles over one hundred million people serve God32 • 1 At this point, I cannot refrain f_r:om mentioning two more names. When our apostles journeyed to Rome in 867, they sojourned in Blatno, in the residential ca.stle in '1.'lransDanubia, where Pribina's son Kocer ruled. Pribina had caused the already mentioned church in Nitra to be built-the first Christian church in the whole western Slovanic world; but to unite a nation and fonn a country, a state, was only possible by dissolving the power of the tribal rulers. Mojmir I , predecessor of Ra.stislav, drove Pdbina out of Nitra for that SLOVAKIA 53 reason. Pribina procured a fief in Tranus-Danubia from Louis the German and selected a residence in the castle above Blatno (Mosaburg), and there he <:qntinued in what he had initiated in Nitra - the building of churches. That country had more such churches from that era. His son and successor, Kocer, continued in this spirit: he built churches and spread Christianity. Nonetheless, Kocef was somewhat in a quandary when the missionaries from the court of Devin came une~ectedly to him. The rulers of Devin had greatly wronged his father! What were people from there looking for in Blatno? But the apostles Constantine and Metbodius needed only t.o show him the Slovanic script and the Slovanic books, and tbey were dear and welcome t.o Kocef. He felt great joy. He became very fond of Slovanic books, studied from them, and appointed fifty disciples to the apostles. He entertained the distinguished guests for some time and then escorted them with great honor on :their journey to Venetia, that is to Rome. But let us not forget even Zemezizeii. The journey to Rome of the apostle Methodius in 880, so important as far as the substance of the matter is concerned, is given a national coloring in the person of Methodius's escort, the Slovak Zemezizeii. On the basis of what he found about him in historical sources, Jan Holly, in his epic (Svatopluk), placed Zemezizen as one of his important characters. In council Zemezizen distinguishes himself with a penetrating mind and determination, in battles the earth seems to shake wherever he appears. Thus the poet, but we imagine that in reality he was an extraordinary man. To all appearances, Zemezizeii is still his pagan name; he was very likely baptized an adult and therefore could journey, as his ruler's confidant on such an important mission to Rome, to the pope, with apostle Methodius, that educated, refined Byzantian ! He is also mentioned in the ipope's letter, even though it was found difficult in Rome to pronounce his name. (The letter has: Semisisnus, or rather the dative form Semisisno.) REFERENCE NOTES 1. 'The Life on Oonsta.ntme (lat:er Cyril) ("Zltie Konstantfna") and the Lite of Methodius ("z.ttie !Metoda") are preserved in the Old·SloTIU1ic Church la.nguage. Apos~ Methodius surnved his brother Cyril 54 SLOVAKIA b7 sixteen yea.re. In Slavl!stic science The Life of Constantine is considered the work of Met,hodiu,s, and The Life of Mebhodius the work of one ot their SloV'81k disciples. The sentence "By bhe grace of God we 8Are in good health" in the speech of the messenger,a to Constallltinople is very interesting. On meeting one another Slovaks bhus speak a;bout heaMih. Neibher a ~rman, nor any person of the ot•h er western nations would say it in this way. In the Liife of Methodius (Chaa>t. V) it is tra.n.& l:ated into Latin: "bene vale mus" - we aire well." In the Magyar language "hogy szolgal az egesueg ?" and similar expressions are from the Slovak language. 2 Today the Gel"ma,n,s themselves admit much of tbhait nature. " .. . . mit dem deutchen Priester kam auch der deutche Colonl,st .. . so da.sz von nun a.n Chrlrstlamlsierung und Germa.nisierung Hand lin Hand gerum" (cf. Karl Schober: Die Deutchen in Nieder und Ober-Oesterreich, Sal?Jburg, Steyermark, Kii.rn,then und Krain, iP- 15) . 3. " . . . die heutige Sl1>wakey in Oberungern ist das elgentllche Gross•Mahren ... " - he w.l"ote in a letter (in 1&25) to J. S. Bandrtke (Corresponde111Ce of Joseph Dobrovsky, •N, p. 163). 4. Slovanske Staroiltnostl, pp. 794, 7!Y.i, 822. 5. En~ehungsgeachichte der klrchenalavischen Sprache, Ber 1 in, 1913, p. 19 (First edition VleDIIla, 1900). 6. Die slawischen, Sprachen (Die Kult11,r der Gegeuwart, I. IX 1908, Berlin und LeLl)21g). 7. For instance, in &55: "R~ Hlu!lovlcus in Sclavo Marahenses contra Raallizen duoem eorem s,l,bi rebellantem parum IJI"OSpere ducto exercitu"-i( Ruodolfua Fu Idens, p. 369). Ibidem, p. 370: "Quo per fugam lapso et ad Raatizen se conferente.'' - In 869 " ... in illam ineffabllem Rastizl munltdonem et omnl_bus antiqulssimls dlssimilem ... " (Annalea Fuldenses, Pertz, I, 381.) In 870 " .. . ZuentJJ,baJJ.d, nepos Rastizi ... " (Annales Fuldenses, 882.) 8. Svii.toplu,k's predecessor is called Rastic ia.lso ·b y the Slovak monk Chrabr, and about him wie know that he wrote during the time "when there still lived people wlho had SEEN the apostles Cyril and Method ius." 9. Slovanske Starofitnostl , p . 804 . 10. Vacov, Budin, Vysehrad, Osrtrlhom, are Slovak, western Slovanlc names, a,s iare Devin, Ba,zin, -Budatfn. Beyond Budin was TeUn (as in the Czech 1land)-'the Ger-mans living there since the thirteenth century call it Tetlng, just as Bazin ia ito them Bosling, Hodonflll-Goding, in Lower AulStrla Modlin-Modllmg, a.nd many ,others. Vacov i,s derived from the same proper name as in the Czeoh land Is Va.c; Ostrihom is what in the Czech land ds Stfehom (the "o" in Its prefix has the saime origin oo in Oriava, or Im. the Zvolen Ortuty, and the ~arls Ordzovany ) ... We must deduce the close rel11.tionshlp ·b etween the Czeohs and the Slovakls by such ,topographic nMnes, but not by a "cultural union," of which there could have been ·b ut very little lbetween us owing to our separated states and dltter81lt geog:raJJ)hical locatrl.on. Let u,s but examine our culture-words, Wlhwt dissimilarity they present to us. The Slovaks call ink "atrament," the Czeohs "inkoust;" or, what is "t!abak" (tobacco) to the Czechs is "dohan" to the Slovaks. (This means that -smok!:ng reached the Slovaks, a.s It did the Yugoslovan-s, 'by way of the Orient, throug,h the Turu; .to bhe Czechs and the Germans, however, i t came from America via. Spain). 'J1he Slovak names of places (Kaza, Ka.zinec, Tetin, Bwbisar-in Zem-pliin-Pra:ha (In Novohrad) contra.vert SLOVAKIA 55 also the inventions ot Kosma& in regard to the daughters of K:rok, Ka2a, Teta, Li,bus,a, and about the founding of Prague (Praha). 11. " ... in .fil.la.m ineftabilem Rastizi munitionem et omnibus antiquissimis di1JBimilam ... " 1·2. J.<iramtdsek Palacky: •D ejiny naroda ceskeho, I, 11876, p. 147. We •Slovaiks, however, caai supplement even Pa.lacky's statement; we have a. poetic na:rra.tion of tlhe g,reat battle beneath Devin. Jan Holly's great epic .p oem in 12 cantos, named after its prinoipa.1 hero "Svii.• topluk," presents it. As Tacitus's descri,p tion •there, so Jaai Holly's description here :118 gTand. (Talk-en from history the work of such a poet as is Jan Holly ha,s aaso its historic value.) 13. IP- 26, etc. 14. Geschichte Osten-elchs, I. 16. Acording ,t o all, though sparse reports, Moj,mir <b~me the heir not on[y o! his father'<S realm, bull a1so of his a:bHLties a,s a &ta.te:sman. However . . . for the successor of Svii.topluk even that fact was fatai that he calIIle after such a predecessor ... (V. Novotn:9': Ce-ek6 Dejiny, p. 421.) 16. Mention of the battle of Bratislava in 907-wihich the Bavaria.n,s together with Mojmir LI are supposed to have lost a.gadnst the Magyars -appeared only in ~e sixteen-till oentu,ry with Avenitinus and bas been reoe;n,tly !!"ejected even by Magyar historiaai,s. In ipresent da.ys, after the World War, a. r6CO!I"d was foUllld among German -s ouroes, con.fir-m ing the ,statements of Ave.ntinus, but it will hardily throw more light on the subject. Mter 907, more than one hundred years ·pa.s&ed 8llld still the Ma,g:y<a!rs did not appear on this (Uhe Slovak) side of the Da.nulbe. Not until after 1025, after the death of iBoleslav .t he Brave of Poland, that is, tow,a,rd11 the end of the reign of St. Stephen, they bega,n gra.dua,Hyand only gradually-to ~pa,nd a.nd settle dO'W'Il. Konrad Schti.nema.nn (Die Deutschen In Ungarn bis zum 12. Jahrhundert, Berll!Il u . Le1pzig, 1923) also states that the Magyar-s occupied Pan.nonia only slow,l y and gradually so that Uhe Ge:r,ma,ns who ha.d lived there had opportunity to wi-th<Lraw without haste to :their fO'I"Iller settle• ments. - About this question it is neccessary to have constantly in mind tha.t the Ma.gya.rs ca.me ,t o ,tjhe Danube as nomads, a.nd a nomad, if he ·tasrries anywhere, •m ust not stir up his closest neighbors against ·himself. (By compa!I"ison, I do not wwnt to offend the Magyars by the sdmile, 1but ,t he Gyipsies, living on the outskirts of our towns and vil•1 ages ,say even today: uNo 001e streals <:lose by.") Besides, the Magyars came here-as we wllll see faTther on-while in flight. They came with a !frightful ,experience. y.rhile they had wandered from Atelkuz beyond the Dainube, thked by the Greek Emperor agai,nst the Bulgars, the neighboring Pechenegs a.tta.okied their defenseless settlements in Aitelku2: and 'killed <tlheir children, women, and aged. After their return from the Danube, terrified ·b y the dreadful happenings at Atelkuz, they pa.eked whatever :they sti-11 could a.nd took to flight tn a westerly direction. They stopped only when they reached the territoo-y between the Tisa. BIIld the Middle Dwnube, in Pa.nmonia. After sudh an experi• ence ,t hey could venture trom the Danube, from Pannonda, on predatory expeditio.n-s Jnto Italy and Germany, but with theiT moat :proximate neighbors they VeTY likely endeavored to Uve in peace. AJbout their 'kind of lite, we have the mown remonstrance of tftle Germ81Il bishops in 900 which contailns grave accusations against the Slova.ns (probably of Pam-nonia), that they a,ssl1Sted the Maigyars. As a. matter of fact, the 56 SLOVAKIA Magyars, w~o ha.d come trom the eastern s,teppes scarcely ha,d 8/IlY great desire to venture across, to the lett bank of the Danube. The nomaJd avoids mounta.iais. He needs to see far, fair all around himself, and in the mountains, whether on the rigM or on the left, in front or behind, there is always a possibility of danger. For that reason it is not vecy lpr()baible thait the Magyars, after :tlheir airrival on the Datnulbe -as eaJ1ly as 907 - would have ventured into a grea,t action agalnist Mojmir II. They begaJR-a.s now even Magyair history admits- ,t o occupy the territories on the left ban,k of the Danube gra.dually, in the eleventh century, toward,s ,t he end o! the reign of St. Stephen. 17. Metodievskij jubilejnyj sbornik, Varsava, 18S5, p. 79, etc. 18. Dejiny narodu ceak~ho, I, 1876, p . 223. 19. A. N. Py,pin: lstorija siavianskich literatur, I, rp. 35. 20. "O n.arodnoati apoitolov Slavianswa, in Bratislava, a publication of Sal.arik's Learned Society, No. 2, 1927 . .21. Zitie av. Metoda, Chapter XVII. 22. "Se ~ t vasej~ zemlj~ -s vobod ,m ~i ... " (Zitie av. Metoda, Chapt. XWI.) 23. In confirmation Pogorielov further shows how in· the CyrilloMethodic text the negative "no" (NIE) and its opposite "yes" (A(,,'0) is expressed. T~e Czechs '88.Y ANO; 1lhe Poles TAK; the Russians and BulglllI'B DA; the Serbs and Croats JEST; only the Slovak language has the ,same word we read in the Gospel of Matthew V, 37: " b~di ~ slovo va§e ej, ej i nl ni. Or (Mat. XXI, 16) when the Pharisees &1sked Chrfst: Slysisi Ii ~to sii glago!:j~t. Jlsu,s ze ~ im: ej. (In the Kralice Bible thf,s reads: jiate, Jiate nikoli, nikoli; and the second: oviem. ln Slova,k, in ,t he Tr.nava edition of Richard Osvald: ano, ano, nle, nie, and in chapter XXl--<>viem. Instea.d of ,t he full sounding "HEJ," the Slovam..ic Church text has "EJ''---ithere being no letter "h" in the Cyrilllc's sor1a>t, It is true 1'n the 9th century the Slovakia still pronou.nced "G" instead of the pre• sent-day "H." But ,then, this attimna.tive word could o:nly begin mith the vowel "E," otherwise Gora.zd would ha.ve scarcely omitte'Cl its "G." ln behalf or the Slovak ca.use it is advisa,ble to add that in the Old-Sllovanic Bible tert this "EJ" (HEJ) is such a mark, such a charac,t eristic of present-day central SlovaJc, as is the letter "A" in the name of our Rastisla.v. And thus the one and the other is a.n hi'9toruc document about the Slova.ks-about the nationality of Great Moravia. Tha.t is, in ,t he 9'tlh century, aind in all of present-day Moraivia a.n.d In all of wesrern Slovakia substantially the ,same la.nguage wae spoken as we have it today along the Middle Vall, lower Orava, near Turiec, Hron, l1>el', a,nd in Upper Nitra. (Against such documents, it wm not be possible to risk the opinion thait "the core of the alovalk dta.lectical region is not the central group, ·b ut the western." (M. W. in his note on "Stare Slovensko, ,p . 284). 24. "Stoj. ndho ! Posvatna. mis ta jsou, kamkoll kralis ! " 25. K. J. Grot: Karpato-dunajakija zemli v sudbach slavianatva, 1905, p . 18. 26. D. ,z. Lautek: Sv. Cyril a Method, apoitolovla alovanakf, 18&6, p. 70. - See also V. Jaglc: Archlv fur alaviache Phllologie, XX, p. 27. 27. "Vy bo jesta Sol-un•lantna, da Solunia.ne vsi ~f.sto aiovenaky be- sMujit." - Zitle Metoda, Chapter V. 28. "Die Gros,ze des Werkes ha.t ma.n frllber lraum recht e~flnden konnen, aber gerade in der heutigen Sprachwissenscha.ft . . . musz SLOVAKIA 57 der Grammati:ker Konsita.nUn Bewu~derung erregen." - A. Leskien : Grammatik der altbulgari&chen (altkirchen-slavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1919, p. XXI. 29. Konsta,ntl.n Grot: Metodijevskij jubilejnij sborntk, Varsa.va, 1885, p , 5. 30. Russkij filologiceskij Viestnik, 1894, 3, p. 1. 31. Archiv fur slavische Philologre, XX, p . 28 32. Entstehungsgeschichtle der kirchenslavischen Sprache, 1913, pp. 2, 3. SS. CYRIL AN.D METHODIU'S  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 Legacy of the Great Moravian State of Our Ancestors: The Slovanic Church and Slovanic Literature Description An account of the resource Joseph Škultéty Slovakia, Vol. 13, No. 1 (36), March 1963 pp. 35-57 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Škultéty, Joseph Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1963 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5c09054c2c8a653f3c653bd4cad00439.pdf 6ba3219f01480f8c2a8671bce204f0be PDF Text Text 54 S LOVAKIA and destruction of tbe Slovak people, just a s communism 1s dedicated to the destructlon of all libertles and tbe ens la vement of al! peoples. Tbe old quarrel between tbe Czecbs and the Slovaks must be liquldated In the interests of botb the Czecbs and tbe Slovak.s, and in tbe lnterests of tbe democratic world as well. J ustice and tbe right demand it. The Slovaks fought against communism long before the Czech s and many other natlons; and the Stalin Reds were well aware or that fact in 1945. That is why the independent state of Slo• vakia had to be destroyed after the war and the Reds put into power there. Beneš and bis followers helped Stalin and his agents in their infll.IIlous work, believing that they would not attempt the same thing in Bohemia and Moravla. They were dead wrong then. and they are just as wrong today wben they promote tbe cause of Czechoslovakism - t he handmaid of communism - in the United States and other democratic countries of tbe world. T he Slovaks are fighting communism and want to keep fighting it together with ALL nations and national groups, even includlng the Czechs, but not specif ica ll y and jo ínt ly only wi th the Czec hs. Tbeir reward for their fight against communism must not be tbe !oss of their national existence, tbe surrender of their inberent right to freedom and independence. And even exiled Beneš Czechs, former Czech colla borators witb the Reds now enjoying the freedom of America, s bould be able to understand and appreciate that today. • • • • THE SLOVA.KS DO NOT WANT CZECHOSLOVA.KIA OR. ANDREW SLOVAK (The autbor of tbis artlcle is considered one of the foremost Slovak socialists. Recently he quit the "Czechoslovak" ranks and joined the Slovak National Council Abroad, the organlzation of Slovak exlles whose chief alm is to see Slovakla free and independent after her liberation from communism and tbe Soviet spbere of intluence thTust upon her by the victors in 1945. The vlews expressed by Dr. Slovak, who formerly favored the "Czechoslovak" ideology of Dr. Beneš, clearly indicate that there has been a change in the thinking of Slovak socialists.) The year 1945 was a surprise to every Slovak of the "Czecho• slovak" orientation. S\ovakia did not welcome the re-creatlon of the Czechoslovak State with great enthusiasm as was heralded by the propaganda apparatus of Dr. Beneš. The truth !s that apathy re!gned in practlcally all strata of tbe inhabitants of Slovakia without re• gard to differences In political convictions. Another surprising fact was the economic prosperity of the Slo· vak 1Republic. Slovak national economlsts proved to the world, and to the prO'tectors trom the W est and the Rast, that Slovakia is a se\f. sufficient economic unit whlch can get along wlthout outslde help. I believe tbat this fact surprised even tbe greatest adversaries of the idea of Slovak statehood. Another argument whlch compels every Slovak to a ction is the statemenl of Prof. Dr. J aroslav Stránsky that a talented, young Czech national economist cannot validate hlmself for the sake of tbe Slovaks. �SLOVA.KU. 66 We do not want to restrict any one, but neltber do we wish to be restricted. The three actualities mentioned above mean much for every Intel• ligent Slovak. The f!rst factor means that the Slovak nation wishes to travel along its own Slovak road wlthout hatred and to live on friendly terms with all its neighbors - on the west with the Czechs, wlth the Poles on the north and with the Magyars on the south. The second fact surprised all o( us. Though we knew that Slo• vakia was rich in materials, nevertheless even the biggest optimista were s u rp,rlsed that it was so sel(-1:;ufricient. The third fact is really a memento for all of us. When Dr. Strán&ky mentioned that the Slovaks were to continue the role of the smaller, unwanted brother, he opened the eyes of all o( us. even though he did not lntend to. It is In the interest of all the nations of Centra! Europe that Slovakla should exlst as an Independent state unit, because the Slovak wishes to live in peace and contentment, as our poet has ex· pressed lt: " The Slovak sows on bis own and reaps only on hls own." H istory has proved that the poet was also rlght when he sald: " If it is the s word, swords have we too, and you know tbat we know how to use them." I thlnk it is necessary that memb ers of all nations of the Danub e Basin become aware of t he fact that the Slovaks are capable of taklng car e of themselves and that tbey want to Jive In peace and contentment, but independently. * WHO SAID IT ?: - * * "Th e treaty is a historic landmark In the relations between our two countries; lt is undoubtedly one of the foundation stones of security, prosperity, and strength of the Czechoslovak Repub lic. The treaty revealed ltself as one of the most lm• portant Instruments of a constructive European pollcy. . . . It 1s in• tended, not. only for the special needs of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, but it serves also, the common European interests on the basis of Britls h-Soviet-Amerlcan cooperatlon . . . . lt enables other natlons of Centra! Europe, partlcularly tbe Polisb natlon, to arrive at such a degree of cooperation with tbe neighboring Soviet power as dlstinguished the Soviet-Czecboslovak relatlonsbip - cooperation which is based upon the principle of mutual respect for their freedom and lndependence and also upon tbat of non-interference In tbe!r natlonal affairs . . . . The Czechoslovak-Soviet Pact is welcomed, first and foremost, by our nation, for in this w ay, the great expectatlon of our people receives its fulfillment .... The his toric merlts of the CzechoslO· vaklan treaty are due to President Deneš, who, a year ago, provided tbe lnltlative for the whole undertaklng, both by his general polit ical program, as well as by his concrete proposals, and who hlmself dlrected the particularly important negotiations. All of us, together wltb the whole nation, congratulate President Deneš on bis h!gbly s lgnlflcant and meritorious success and we are all slncerely gratifled by bis present offlclal vislt to the Soviet Union. wblcb wlll undoubtedly s trengtµen Czechoslovak-Sovlet frlendsblp." {Dr. Hubert Rlpka to tbe Czecholllovak State Councll. London, December 15, 1943). � 54 S LOVAKIA and destruction of tbe Slovak people, just a s communism 1s dedicated to the destructlon of all libertles and tbe ens la vement of al! peoples. Tbe old quarrel between tbe Czecbs and the Slovaks must be liquldated In the interests of botb the Czecbs and tbe Slovak.s, and in tbe lnterests of tbe democratic world as well. J ustice and tbe right demand it. The Slovaks fought against communism long before the Czech s and many other natlons; and the Stalin Reds were well aware or that fact in 1945. That is why the independent state of Slo• vakia had to be destroyed after the war and the Reds put into power there. Beneš and bis followers helped Stalin and his agents in their infll.IIlous work, believing that they would not attempt the same thing in Bohemia and Moravla. They were dead wrong then. and they are just as wrong today wben they promote tbe cause of Czechoslovakism - t he handmaid of communism - in the United States and other democratic countries of tbe world. T he Slovaks are fighting communism and want to keep fighting it together with ALL nations and national groups, even includlng the Czechs, but not specif ica ll y and jo ínt ly only wi th the Czec hs. Tbeir reward for their fight against communism must not be tbe !oss of their national existence, tbe surrender of their inberent right to freedom and independence. And even exiled Beneš Czechs, former Czech colla borators witb the Reds now enjoying the freedom of America, s bould be able to understand and appreciate that today. • • • • THE SLOVA.KS DO NOT WANT CZECHOSLOVA.KIA OR. ANDREW SLOVAK (The autbor of tbis artlcle is considered one of the foremost Slovak socialists. Recently he quit the "Czechoslovak" ranks and joined the Slovak National Council Abroad, the organlzation of Slovak exlles whose chief alm is to see Slovakla free and independent after her liberation from communism and tbe Soviet spbere of intluence thTust upon her by the victors in 1945. The vlews expressed by Dr. Slovak, who formerly favored the "Czechoslovak" ideology of Dr. Beneš, clearly indicate that there has been a change in the thinking of Slovak socialists.) The year 1945 was a surprise to every Slovak of the "Czecho• slovak" orientation. S\ovakia did not welcome the re-creatlon of the Czechoslovak State with great enthusiasm as was heralded by the propaganda apparatus of Dr. Beneš. The truth !s that apathy re!gned in practlcally all strata of tbe inhabitants of Slovakia without re• gard to differences In political convictions. Another surprising fact was the economic prosperity of the Slo· vak 1Republic. Slovak national economlsts proved to the world, and to the prO'tectors trom the W est and the Rast, that Slovakia is a se\f. sufficient economic unit whlch can get along wlthout outslde help. I believe tbat this fact surprised even tbe greatest adversaries of the idea of Slovak statehood. Another argument whlch compels every Slovak to a ction is the statemenl of Prof. Dr. J aroslav Stránsky that a talented, young Czech national economist cannot validate hlmself for the sake of tbe Slovaks. �SLOVA.KU. 66 We do not want to restrict any one, but neltber do we wish to be restricted. The three actualities mentioned above mean much for every Intel• ligent Slovak. The f!rst factor means that the Slovak nation wishes to travel along its own Slovak road wlthout hatred and to live on friendly terms with all its neighbors - on the west with the Czechs, wlth the Poles on the north and with the Magyars on the south. The second fact surprised all o( us. Though we knew that Slo• vakia was rich in materials, nevertheless even the biggest optimista were s u rp,rlsed that it was so sel(-1:;ufricient. The third fact is really a memento for all of us. When Dr. Strán&ky mentioned that the Slovaks were to continue the role of the smaller, unwanted brother, he opened the eyes of all o( us. even though he did not lntend to. It is In the interest of all the nations of Centra! Europe that Slovakla should exlst as an Independent state unit, because the Slovak wishes to live in peace and contentment, as our poet has ex· pressed lt: " The Slovak sows on bis own and reaps only on hls own." H istory has proved that the poet was also rlght when he sald: " If it is the s word, swords have we too, and you know tbat we know how to use them." I thlnk it is necessary that memb ers of all nations of the Danub e Basin become aware of t he fact that the Slovaks are capable of taklng car e of themselves and that tbey want to Jive In peace and contentment, but independently. * WHO SAID IT ?: - * * "Th e treaty is a historic landmark In the relations between our two countries; lt is undoubtedly one of the foundation stones of security, prosperity, and strength of the Czechoslovak Repub lic. The treaty revealed ltself as one of the most lm• portant Instruments of a constructive European pollcy. . . . It 1s in• tended, not. only for the special needs of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, but it serves also, the common European interests on the basis of Britls h-Soviet-Amerlcan cooperatlon . . . . lt enables other natlons of Centra! Europe, partlcularly tbe Polisb natlon, to arrive at such a degree of cooperation with tbe neighboring Soviet power as dlstinguished the Soviet-Czecboslovak relatlonsbip - cooperation which is based upon the principle of mutual respect for their freedom and lndependence and also upon tbat of non-interference In tbe!r natlonal affairs . . . . The Czechoslovak-Soviet Pact is welcomed, first and foremost, by our nation, for in this w ay, the great expectatlon of our people receives its fulfillment .... The his toric merlts of the CzechoslO· vaklan treaty are due to President Deneš, who, a year ago, provided tbe lnltlative for the whole undertaklng, both by his general polit ical program, as well as by his concrete proposals, and who hlmself dlrected the particularly important negotiations. All of us, together wltb the whole nation, congratulate President Deneš on bis h!gbly s lgnlflcant and meritorious success and we are all slncerely gratifled by bis present offlclal vislt to the Soviet Union. wblcb wlll undoubtedly s trengtµen Czechoslovak-Sovlet frlendsblp." {Dr. Hubert Rlpka to tbe Czecholllovak State Councll. London, December 15, 1943). � 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 1951, Vol. 1 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 1951 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 1), May 1951.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 2), December 1951.</li> </ul> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <ul><li><a href="https://n2t.net/ark:/13960/s261hfmshm7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span>ark:/13960/s261hfmshm7</span></a></li> <li><a href="https://n2t.net/ark:/13960/s21tk2wkzj4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span>ark:/13960/s21tk2wkzj4</span></a></li> </ul> 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 54 S LOVAKIA and destruction of tbe Slovak people, just a s communism 1s dedicated to the destructlon of all libertles and tbe ens la vement of al! peoples. Tbe old quarrel between tbe Czecbs and the Slovaks must be liquldated In the interests of botb the Czecbs and tbe Slovak.s, and in tbe lnterests of tbe democratic world as well. J ustice and tbe right demand it. The Slovaks fought against communism long before the Czech s and many other natlons; and the Stalin Reds were well aware or that fact in 1945. That is why the independent state of Slo• vakia had to be destroyed after the war and the Reds put into power there. Beneš and bis followers helped Stalin and his agents in their infll.IIlous work, believing that they would not attempt the same thing in Bohemia and Moravla. They were dead wrong then. and they are just as wrong today wben they promote tbe cause of Czechoslovakism - t he handmaid of communism - in the United States and other democratic countries of tbe world. T he Slovaks are fighting communism and want to keep fighting it together with ALL nations and national groups, even includlng the Czechs, but not specif ica ll y and jo ínt ly only wi th the Czec hs. Tbeir reward for their fight against communism must not be tbe !oss of their national existence, tbe surrender of their inberent right to freedom and independence. And even exiled Beneš Czechs, former Czech colla borators witb the Reds now enjoying the freedom of America, s bould be able to understand and appreciate that today. • • • • THE SLOVA.KS DO NOT WANT CZECHOSLOVA.KIA OR. ANDREW SLOVAK (The autbor of tbis artlcle is considered one of the foremost Slovak socialists. Recently he quit the "Czechoslovak" ranks and joined the Slovak National Council Abroad, the organlzation of Slovak exlles whose chief alm is to see Slovakla free and independent after her liberation from communism and tbe Soviet spbere of intluence thTust upon her by the victors in 1945. The vlews expressed by Dr. Slovak, who formerly favored the "Czechoslovak" ideology of Dr. Beneš, clearly indicate that there has been a change in the thinking of Slovak socialists.) The year 1945 was a surprise to every Slovak of the "Czecho• slovak" orientation. S\ovakia did not welcome the re-creatlon of the Czechoslovak State with great enthusiasm as was heralded by the propaganda apparatus of Dr. Beneš. The truth !s that apathy re!gned in practlcally all strata of tbe inhabitants of Slovakia without re• gard to differences In political convictions. Another surprising fact was the economic prosperity of the Slo· vak 1Republic. Slovak national economlsts proved to the world, and to the prO'tectors trom the W est and the Rast, that Slovakia is a se\f. sufficient economic unit whlch can get along wlthout outslde help. I believe tbat this fact surprised even tbe greatest adversaries of the idea of Slovak statehood. Another argument whlch compels every Slovak to a ction is the statemenl of Prof. Dr. J aroslav Stránsky that a talented, young Czech national economist cannot validate hlmself for the sake of tbe Slovaks. SLOVA.KU. 66 We do not want to restrict any one, but neltber do we wish to be restricted. The three actualities mentioned above mean much for every Intel• ligent Slovak. The f!rst factor means that the Slovak nation wishes to travel along its own Slovak road wlthout hatred and to live on friendly terms with all its neighbors - on the west with the Czechs, wlth the Poles on the north and with the Magyars on the south. The second fact surprised all o( us. Though we knew that Slo• vakia was rich in materials, nevertheless even the biggest optimista were s u rp,rlsed that it was so sel(-1:;ufricient. The third fact is really a memento for all of us. When Dr. Strán&ky mentioned that the Slovaks were to continue the role of the smaller, unwanted brother, he opened the eyes of all o( us. even though he did not lntend to. It is In the interest of all the nations of Centra! Europe that Slovakla should exlst as an Independent state unit, because the Slovak wishes to live in peace and contentment, as our poet has ex· pressed lt: " The Slovak sows on bis own and reaps only on hls own." H istory has proved that the poet was also rlght when he sald: " If it is the s word, swords have we too, and you know tbat we know how to use them." I thlnk it is necessary that memb ers of all nations of the Danub e Basin become aware of t he fact that the Slovaks are capable of taklng car e of themselves and that tbey want to Jive In peace and contentment, but independently. * WHO SAID IT ?: - * * "Th e treaty is a historic landmark In the relations between our two countries; lt is undoubtedly one of the foundation stones of security, prosperity, and strength of the Czechoslovak Repub lic. The treaty revealed ltself as one of the most lm• portant Instruments of a constructive European pollcy. . . . It 1s in• tended, not. only for the special needs of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, but it serves also, the common European interests on the basis of Britls h-Soviet-Amerlcan cooperatlon . . . . lt enables other natlons of Centra! Europe, partlcularly tbe Polisb natlon, to arrive at such a degree of cooperation with tbe neighboring Soviet power as dlstinguished the Soviet-Czecboslovak relatlonsbip - cooperation which is based upon the principle of mutual respect for their freedom and lndependence and also upon tbat of non-interference In tbe!r natlonal affairs . . . . The Czechoslovak-Soviet Pact is welcomed, first and foremost, by our nation, for in this w ay, the great expectatlon of our people receives its fulfillment .... The his toric merlts of the CzechoslO· vaklan treaty are due to President Deneš, who, a year ago, provided tbe lnltlative for the whole undertaklng, both by his general polit ical program, as well as by his concrete proposals, and who hlmself dlrected the particularly important negotiations. All of us, together wltb the whole nation, congratulate President Deneš on bis h!gbly s lgnlflcant and meritorious success and we are all slncerely gratifled by bis present offlclal vislt to the Soviet Union. wblcb wlll undoubtedly s trengtµen Czechoslovak-Sovlet frlendsblp." {Dr. Hubert Rlpka to tbe Czecholllovak State Councll. London, December 15, 1943).  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 Slovaks Do Not Want Czechoslovakia Description An account of the resource Dr. Andrew Slovak Slovakia, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2), December 1951 pp. 54-55 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Slovak, Andrew Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 1951 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a2d0affb0ebd5229faa0a0d6d9d871b7.pdf 9276dee27cc18c831a7a3d861fa2233c PDF Text Text 128 SLOVAKIA St. Cyril Ln Love A boy in a well-to-do bedroom, wound in rich blankets, tufted wool, his head resting on the hand-stitched cover of a feather pillow, bunched his legs to his chest and hugged himself tight as a spring, a boy with the mind of a man and the soul of a saint asleep in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, not long since his mother's milk, her large, soft hands and wrap-around arms, her lullaby voice tucking him in. The one woman he dreamed, Sophia, the only woman he ever wanted to pursue, had features he couldn't quite make outa Roman profile, it seemed, the blank eyes of a Greek statue, but no distinct size or shape of nose and mouth, no color of iris or curve of the eyebrows, no crow's feet or squint lines, no identifying freckles or mole on her neck. She was like a lady one catches sight of in a marketplace and is struck by something in the walk, something about the fall of the hair over her shoulders, something, something that makes one think she is someone he knew a long time ago, met among guest at a banquet strolled with on a Sunday afternoon, talked with outside the ruins of a temple, or fell in love with in his sleep. Something about her stride, something about the lilt of her hair, sends him chasing after her, careening into the crowd, halting as if at a roadblock, then snaking through and breaking into a half-jog �SLOVAKIA 129 past men leading donkeys loaded with baskets, women balancing jugs on their heads, soldiers, girls haggling at fruit and vegetable stalls, pickpockets, children tussling and dodging the one who is "it" in a game of tag or crouching to shoot pebbles into circles drawn in the dirt, toddlers. And in the hurly-burly and haste he never catches up. The seven-year-old Constantine awoke, locked himself in his room in Thessalonica, read and searched, searched and read ( . . . the soul of man, the mind of God . . . ) , sought the image of the lady, a rumor of her whereabouts. The seven-year-old Constantine peered out his window, picked up his quill, dipped it in the inkhorn, made notes on a parchment scroll till he was sixteen and best friends with a genius and holy man as he went off to the imperial school to study grammar, rhetor-ic, logic, music, poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, theology and Scripture texts . Luke, the Blessed ( ... poring over Homer, Helen Virgin ... ). Arm-in-arm with Gregory Nazianzen, he pursued the icon lady, the come-alive statue in gold ornaments and jewels into the shadows of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral, where the bell struck in the dome, and he was twenty-two. There was no one he would marry, no godchild of a chancellor, not even with a hefty dowry and promise of a post at the emperor's court; for, dropping into the bulging mother of a church one day for his accustomed visit, �130 SLOVAKIA he had stood transfixed before the gilded altar and mosaics recognizing, as if for the first time, Mary the mother, speechless, following her son through the jostling mob, along the cobblestones, Veronica, aghast, wiping His blood and sweat, then left with the imprint on her veil of His smeared face and soggy, matted hair, the women of the city cuddling their babies and sobbing, suddenly hushed by Him-gratefulall these women in Jerusalem loving Him, hoping, believing far beyond death. Constantine saw the visage of Sophiathe look of the women, Veronica, Mary, knowing the skull and crossbones, a rolled-back stoneSophia, Christ, in one wordless gaze. So for years it was Maria Sophia and Mother Church as the philosopher fled from library to monastery then back to the public, a cleric in the chair of philosophy, the disputant with Arabs and iconoclasts, then off to hermitage again, until, at someone's beck and call, he left the monastery of St. Basil to join Methodius his brother on a mission to the Khazars. He converted hundreds of barbarians, freed Greek patriots, the booty of the Khan, journeyed through Fulla and choppe~ down a sacred oak engrafted with branches of a cherry tree, traveled on to the Crimea, dug up an anchor and the bones of Pope Clement on an island just off the quarries and salt mines of Cherson, and returned to Byzantium. But there was still something, something . . . This woman, Sophia, who was always before him, this woman whose eyes were Mary's and Veronica's, whose smile was a calmed-down mother's on the way of the cross, �SLOVAKIA 131 whose whole bearing breathed Scripture and liturgy, this mystical body, still somehow eluded him. She was always just ahead of him in the caravan, just beyond his grasp. So often they were almost neck-and-neck, and then she would vanishSophia, the spirit of a woman from another time, Sophia, an angel, a puff of smoke, a whiff of incense, a cloud wafting off ... Something about Sophia, like a word, a sacrament, was not quite flesh and blood, not quite concrete. Sophia, the one woman he dreamed, drew him to heaven but hid herself in the dust of horses' hooves. Then a missive to Emperor Michael from Rastislav, prince of the rivers Morava and Vah, called Methodius and Constantine to an alphabet, gospels, liturgical books, and an apostolate to the Slovaks. For Constantine, Sophia was becoming more and more the gypsythe whim and will-o'-the-wisp of God. The Tatry mountains, linden trees, fields of poppies Young girls striking their foreheads to the gods, bearing wreaths of flowers and dancing at the altars of Lada, tossing handfuls of flour into roadside bushes and shrubbery for Meluzina, for Lada, goddess of beauty, for Meluzina, goddess of the wind ... Peasant mothers pulling their children away from the doorways to hide their faces in the lacework of their aprons and the gathers of their skirts against the lightning and storm, muttering charms against the thundergod Perun, mumbling pleas to Morena and zivena, death and life, those goddesses, wanton as a scattering of pebbles underfoot, whimsical as autumn leaves skittering across the fields ... �132 SLOVAKIA These women with cocks and hearts, apples, tulips, and slit leeks embroidered on their bodices and sleeves, these women in lace caps and bonnets, these flush-faced girls who stole behind haystacks and their white-washed cottages to sing, these flush-faced girls, love-longing, who wove ribbons through their caps and danced, these girls and women, earthy pagans, stopped and listened. The men set aside their plows and haymows, laid down their hatchets and tools, and, God knows why, heard Constantine, mulled it all over as if weighing a bargain with a trader or considering the terms of a truce with an old foe, and turned to ask to be baptized. And suddenly, like lightning cracking through a gray dead tree, it struck him: there she was standing, fullface, bright-eyed and smiling, in front of a peasant's hut. This phantom, this gypsy, this poppy, Sophia . . . an old Slovak grandmother in a black kerchief, her face weatherbeaten with laughter and weeping. It was as simple as that, mused ConstantineSophia, wisdom, was, had always been, a folkwoman humming and listening to the wind. (A grandmother who was a mother rocking by a fireside, embroidering, tatting, telling stories, a mother who was an apple-cheeked girl, fancy in flowers, ribbons and fine stitchery, giggling, hiding-and-seeking, sighing, lovelorn, an apple-cheeked girl who was a child dressed in hemp underwear, a wooly halenka, a linen blouse and pinafore, a child squatting on the ground playing with dolls made of dried-out cornhusks, a child who was a helpless infant, naked, nursed, and lulled to sleep . . . ) Constantine had followed Sophia and found her, �SLOVAKIA 133 a toothless big-hearted grandmother, a sage old matriarch who taught her men to work, play, sing, survive catastrophe, to listen, learn, and lie down to dream. Sophia, Christ, among the Slovaks . . . Wisdom was the fondness with which he welled up, the awe and tenderness with which he poured water over the peasant's brow, whispered the words of baptism like sweet nothings and like a magic spell, and traced with his thumb a cross. This plain, unstudied wisdoma grandmother gumming dark bread, cabbage, cheese This lovethe sun, the wind, the land, the children, flesh and blood This carnival of joy .. . And Constantine was ready to go back to Rome, weakened, ill, to take to a monastery, change his name to Cyril, and retreat into a rough-hewn cell, to doze off under thin covers on a hard cot and pass away in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, the unwinding of a clock, the bursting of a chick from an eggshell. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Note: For many of the details of biography and the descriptions of costume, topography, and heritage, this poem is indebted to the following sources: Agnes Bocan, "An Introduction to Slovak Costume," Slovakia, 22 (1972), pp. 153-157. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakian Culture in the Light of History, (Cambridge, Mass.: Hampshire Press, 1954). Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M., Sts. Cyril and Methodius: The Glory of the Slavs, (Milwaukee: Catholic Life Publications, Bruce Press, 1963). � 128 SLOVAKIA St. Cyril Ln Love A boy in a well-to-do bedroom, wound in rich blankets, tufted wool, his head resting on the hand-stitched cover of a feather pillow, bunched his legs to his chest and hugged himself tight as a spring, a boy with the mind of a man and the soul of a saint asleep in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, not long since his mother's milk, her large, soft hands and wrap-around arms, her lullaby voice tucking him in. The one woman he dreamed, Sophia, the only woman he ever wanted to pursue, had features he couldn't quite make outa Roman profile, it seemed, the blank eyes of a Greek statue, but no distinct size or shape of nose and mouth, no color of iris or curve of the eyebrows, no crow's feet or squint lines, no identifying freckles or mole on her neck. She was like a lady one catches sight of in a marketplace and is struck by something in the walk, something about the fall of the hair over her shoulders, something, something that makes one think she is someone he knew a long time ago, met among guest at a banquet strolled with on a Sunday afternoon, talked with outside the ruins of a temple, or fell in love with in his sleep. Something about her stride, something about the lilt of her hair, sends him chasing after her, careening into the crowd, halting as if at a roadblock, then snaking through and breaking into a half-jog �SLOVAKIA 129 past men leading donkeys loaded with baskets, women balancing jugs on their heads, soldiers, girls haggling at fruit and vegetable stalls, pickpockets, children tussling and dodging the one who is "it" in a game of tag or crouching to shoot pebbles into circles drawn in the dirt, toddlers. And in the hurly-burly and haste he never catches up. The seven-year-old Constantine awoke, locked himself in his room in Thessalonica, read and searched, searched and read ( . . . the soul of man, the mind of God . . . ) , sought the image of the lady, a rumor of her whereabouts. The seven-year-old Constantine peered out his window, picked up his quill, dipped it in the inkhorn, made notes on a parchment scroll till he was sixteen and best friends with a genius and holy man as he went off to the imperial school to study grammar, rhetor-ic, logic, music, poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, theology and Scripture texts . Luke, the Blessed ( ... poring over Homer, Helen Virgin ... ). Arm-in-arm with Gregory Nazianzen, he pursued the icon lady, the come-alive statue in gold ornaments and jewels into the shadows of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral, where the bell struck in the dome, and he was twenty-two. There was no one he would marry, no godchild of a chancellor, not even with a hefty dowry and promise of a post at the emperor's court; for, dropping into the bulging mother of a church one day for his accustomed visit, �130 SLOVAKIA he had stood transfixed before the gilded altar and mosaics recognizing, as if for the first time, Mary the mother, speechless, following her son through the jostling mob, along the cobblestones, Veronica, aghast, wiping His blood and sweat, then left with the imprint on her veil of His smeared face and soggy, matted hair, the women of the city cuddling their babies and sobbing, suddenly hushed by Him-gratefulall these women in Jerusalem loving Him, hoping, believing far beyond death. Constantine saw the visage of Sophiathe look of the women, Veronica, Mary, knowing the skull and crossbones, a rolled-back stoneSophia, Christ, in one wordless gaze. So for years it was Maria Sophia and Mother Church as the philosopher fled from library to monastery then back to the public, a cleric in the chair of philosophy, the disputant with Arabs and iconoclasts, then off to hermitage again, until, at someone's beck and call, he left the monastery of St. Basil to join Methodius his brother on a mission to the Khazars. He converted hundreds of barbarians, freed Greek patriots, the booty of the Khan, journeyed through Fulla and choppe~ down a sacred oak engrafted with branches of a cherry tree, traveled on to the Crimea, dug up an anchor and the bones of Pope Clement on an island just off the quarries and salt mines of Cherson, and returned to Byzantium. But there was still something, something . . . This woman, Sophia, who was always before him, this woman whose eyes were Mary's and Veronica's, whose smile was a calmed-down mother's on the way of the cross, �SLOVAKIA 131 whose whole bearing breathed Scripture and liturgy, this mystical body, still somehow eluded him. She was always just ahead of him in the caravan, just beyond his grasp. So often they were almost neck-and-neck, and then she would vanishSophia, the spirit of a woman from another time, Sophia, an angel, a puff of smoke, a whiff of incense, a cloud wafting off ... Something about Sophia, like a word, a sacrament, was not quite flesh and blood, not quite concrete. Sophia, the one woman he dreamed, drew him to heaven but hid herself in the dust of horses' hooves. Then a missive to Emperor Michael from Rastislav, prince of the rivers Morava and Vah, called Methodius and Constantine to an alphabet, gospels, liturgical books, and an apostolate to the Slovaks. For Constantine, Sophia was becoming more and more the gypsythe whim and will-o'-the-wisp of God. The Tatry mountains, linden trees, fields of poppies Young girls striking their foreheads to the gods, bearing wreaths of flowers and dancing at the altars of Lada, tossing handfuls of flour into roadside bushes and shrubbery for Meluzina, for Lada, goddess of beauty, for Meluzina, goddess of the wind ... Peasant mothers pulling their children away from the doorways to hide their faces in the lacework of their aprons and the gathers of their skirts against the lightning and storm, muttering charms against the thundergod Perun, mumbling pleas to Morena and zivena, death and life, those goddesses, wanton as a scattering of pebbles underfoot, whimsical as autumn leaves skittering across the fields ... �132 SLOVAKIA These women with cocks and hearts, apples, tulips, and slit leeks embroidered on their bodices and sleeves, these women in lace caps and bonnets, these flush-faced girls who stole behind haystacks and their white-washed cottages to sing, these flush-faced girls, love-longing, who wove ribbons through their caps and danced, these girls and women, earthy pagans, stopped and listened. The men set aside their plows and haymows, laid down their hatchets and tools, and, God knows why, heard Constantine, mulled it all over as if weighing a bargain with a trader or considering the terms of a truce with an old foe, and turned to ask to be baptized. And suddenly, like lightning cracking through a gray dead tree, it struck him: there she was standing, fullface, bright-eyed and smiling, in front of a peasant's hut. This phantom, this gypsy, this poppy, Sophia . . . an old Slovak grandmother in a black kerchief, her face weatherbeaten with laughter and weeping. It was as simple as that, mused ConstantineSophia, wisdom, was, had always been, a folkwoman humming and listening to the wind. (A grandmother who was a mother rocking by a fireside, embroidering, tatting, telling stories, a mother who was an apple-cheeked girl, fancy in flowers, ribbons and fine stitchery, giggling, hiding-and-seeking, sighing, lovelorn, an apple-cheeked girl who was a child dressed in hemp underwear, a wooly halenka, a linen blouse and pinafore, a child squatting on the ground playing with dolls made of dried-out cornhusks, a child who was a helpless infant, naked, nursed, and lulled to sleep . . . ) Constantine had followed Sophia and found her, �SLOVAKIA 133 a toothless big-hearted grandmother, a sage old matriarch who taught her men to work, play, sing, survive catastrophe, to listen, learn, and lie down to dream. Sophia, Christ, among the Slovaks . . . Wisdom was the fondness with which he welled up, the awe and tenderness with which he poured water over the peasant's brow, whispered the words of baptism like sweet nothings and like a magic spell, and traced with his thumb a cross. This plain, unstudied wisdoma grandmother gumming dark bread, cabbage, cheese This lovethe sun, the wind, the land, the children, flesh and blood This carnival of joy .. . And Constantine was ready to go back to Rome, weakened, ill, to take to a monastery, change his name to Cyril, and retreat into a rough-hewn cell, to doze off under thin covers on a hard cot and pass away in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, the unwinding of a clock, the bursting of a chick from an eggshell. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Note: For many of the details of biography and the descriptions of costume, topography, and heritage, this poem is indebted to the following sources: Agnes Bocan, "An Introduction to Slovak Costume," Slovakia, 22 (1972), pp. 153-157. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakian Culture in the Light of History, (Cambridge, Mass.: Hampshire Press, 1954). Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M., Sts. Cyril and Methodius: The Glory of the Slavs, (Milwaukee: Catholic Life Publications, Bruce Press, 1963). � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 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 128 SLOVAKIA St. Cyril Ln Love A boy in a well-to-do bedroom, wound in rich blankets, tufted wool, his head resting on the hand-stitched cover of a feather pillow, bunched his legs to his chest and hugged himself tight as a spring, a boy with the mind of a man and the soul of a saint asleep in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, not long since his mother's milk, her large, soft hands and wrap-around arms, her lullaby voice tucking him in. The one woman he dreamed, Sophia, the only woman he ever wanted to pursue, had features he couldn't quite make outa Roman profile, it seemed, the blank eyes of a Greek statue, but no distinct size or shape of nose and mouth, no color of iris or curve of the eyebrows, no crow's feet or squint lines, no identifying freckles or mole on her neck. She was like a lady one catches sight of in a marketplace and is struck by something in the walk, something about the fall of the hair over her shoulders, something, something that makes one think she is someone he knew a long time ago, met among guest at a banquet strolled with on a Sunday afternoon, talked with outside the ruins of a temple, or fell in love with in his sleep. Something about her stride, something about the lilt of her hair, sends him chasing after her, careening into the crowd, halting as if at a roadblock, then snaking through and breaking into a half-jog SLOVAKIA 129 past men leading donkeys loaded with baskets, women balancing jugs on their heads, soldiers, girls haggling at fruit and vegetable stalls, pickpockets, children tussling and dodging the one who is "it" in a game of tag or crouching to shoot pebbles into circles drawn in the dirt, toddlers. And in the hurly-burly and haste he never catches up. The seven-year-old Constantine awoke, locked himself in his room in Thessalonica, read and searched, searched and read ( . . . the soul of man, the mind of God . . . ) , sought the image of the lady, a rumor of her whereabouts. The seven-year-old Constantine peered out his window, picked up his quill, dipped it in the inkhorn, made notes on a parchment scroll till he was sixteen and best friends with a genius and holy man as he went off to the imperial school to study grammar, rhetor-ic, logic, music, poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, theology and Scripture texts . Luke, the Blessed ( ... poring over Homer, Helen Virgin ... ). Arm-in-arm with Gregory Nazianzen, he pursued the icon lady, the come-alive statue in gold ornaments and jewels into the shadows of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral, where the bell struck in the dome, and he was twenty-two. There was no one he would marry, no godchild of a chancellor, not even with a hefty dowry and promise of a post at the emperor's court; for, dropping into the bulging mother of a church one day for his accustomed visit, 130 SLOVAKIA he had stood transfixed before the gilded altar and mosaics recognizing, as if for the first time, Mary the mother, speechless, following her son through the jostling mob, along the cobblestones, Veronica, aghast, wiping His blood and sweat, then left with the imprint on her veil of His smeared face and soggy, matted hair, the women of the city cuddling their babies and sobbing, suddenly hushed by Him-gratefulall these women in Jerusalem loving Him, hoping, believing far beyond death. Constantine saw the visage of Sophiathe look of the women, Veronica, Mary, knowing the skull and crossbones, a rolled-back stoneSophia, Christ, in one wordless gaze. So for years it was Maria Sophia and Mother Church as the philosopher fled from library to monastery then back to the public, a cleric in the chair of philosophy, the disputant with Arabs and iconoclasts, then off to hermitage again, until, at someone's beck and call, he left the monastery of St. Basil to join Methodius his brother on a mission to the Khazars. He converted hundreds of barbarians, freed Greek patriots, the booty of the Khan, journeyed through Fulla and choppe~ down a sacred oak engrafted with branches of a cherry tree, traveled on to the Crimea, dug up an anchor and the bones of Pope Clement on an island just off the quarries and salt mines of Cherson, and returned to Byzantium. But there was still something, something . . . This woman, Sophia, who was always before him, this woman whose eyes were Mary's and Veronica's, whose smile was a calmed-down mother's on the way of the cross, SLOVAKIA 131 whose whole bearing breathed Scripture and liturgy, this mystical body, still somehow eluded him. She was always just ahead of him in the caravan, just beyond his grasp. So often they were almost neck-and-neck, and then she would vanishSophia, the spirit of a woman from another time, Sophia, an angel, a puff of smoke, a whiff of incense, a cloud wafting off ... Something about Sophia, like a word, a sacrament, was not quite flesh and blood, not quite concrete. Sophia, the one woman he dreamed, drew him to heaven but hid herself in the dust of horses' hooves. Then a missive to Emperor Michael from Rastislav, prince of the rivers Morava and Vah, called Methodius and Constantine to an alphabet, gospels, liturgical books, and an apostolate to the Slovaks. For Constantine, Sophia was becoming more and more the gypsythe whim and will-o'-the-wisp of God. The Tatry mountains, linden trees, fields of poppies Young girls striking their foreheads to the gods, bearing wreaths of flowers and dancing at the altars of Lada, tossing handfuls of flour into roadside bushes and shrubbery for Meluzina, for Lada, goddess of beauty, for Meluzina, goddess of the wind ... Peasant mothers pulling their children away from the doorways to hide their faces in the lacework of their aprons and the gathers of their skirts against the lightning and storm, muttering charms against the thundergod Perun, mumbling pleas to Morena and zivena, death and life, those goddesses, wanton as a scattering of pebbles underfoot, whimsical as autumn leaves skittering across the fields ... 132 SLOVAKIA These women with cocks and hearts, apples, tulips, and slit leeks embroidered on their bodices and sleeves, these women in lace caps and bonnets, these flush-faced girls who stole behind haystacks and their white-washed cottages to sing, these flush-faced girls, love-longing, who wove ribbons through their caps and danced, these girls and women, earthy pagans, stopped and listened. The men set aside their plows and haymows, laid down their hatchets and tools, and, God knows why, heard Constantine, mulled it all over as if weighing a bargain with a trader or considering the terms of a truce with an old foe, and turned to ask to be baptized. And suddenly, like lightning cracking through a gray dead tree, it struck him: there she was standing, fullface, bright-eyed and smiling, in front of a peasant's hut. This phantom, this gypsy, this poppy, Sophia . . . an old Slovak grandmother in a black kerchief, her face weatherbeaten with laughter and weeping. It was as simple as that, mused ConstantineSophia, wisdom, was, had always been, a folkwoman humming and listening to the wind. (A grandmother who was a mother rocking by a fireside, embroidering, tatting, telling stories, a mother who was an apple-cheeked girl, fancy in flowers, ribbons and fine stitchery, giggling, hiding-and-seeking, sighing, lovelorn, an apple-cheeked girl who was a child dressed in hemp underwear, a wooly halenka, a linen blouse and pinafore, a child squatting on the ground playing with dolls made of dried-out cornhusks, a child who was a helpless infant, naked, nursed, and lulled to sleep . . . ) Constantine had followed Sophia and found her, SLOVAKIA 133 a toothless big-hearted grandmother, a sage old matriarch who taught her men to work, play, sing, survive catastrophe, to listen, learn, and lie down to dream. Sophia, Christ, among the Slovaks . . . Wisdom was the fondness with which he welled up, the awe and tenderness with which he poured water over the peasant's brow, whispered the words of baptism like sweet nothings and like a magic spell, and traced with his thumb a cross. This plain, unstudied wisdoma grandmother gumming dark bread, cabbage, cheese This lovethe sun, the wind, the land, the children, flesh and blood This carnival of joy .. . And Constantine was ready to go back to Rome, weakened, ill, to take to a monastery, change his name to Cyril, and retreat into a rough-hewn cell, to doze off under thin covers on a hard cot and pass away in a curlicue like a baby in a cradle, the unwinding of a clock, the bursting of a chick from an eggshell. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Note: For many of the details of biography and the descriptions of costume, topography, and heritage, this poem is indebted to the following sources: Agnes Bocan, "An Introduction to Slovak Costume," Slovakia, 22 (1972), pp. 153-157. Stephen J. Palickar, Slovakian Culture in the Light of History, (Cambridge, Mass.: Hampshire Press, 1954). Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M., Sts. Cyril and Methodius: The Glory of the Slavs, (Milwaukee: Catholic Life Publications, Bruce Press, 1963).  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 St. Cyril in Love Description An account of the resource Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 128-133 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Sister M. Pamela, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/30c56c8a95838a4763469288f1e094a8.pdf f6e50684afa4f401d71637881e954353 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 99 HOMELAND AND HEAVEN: Incarnation and Resurrection in the Last Poems of Milos K. Mlynarovic The published form of Zlata koruna: Rozhovor s anjelom smrti (The Golden Crown: Dialogue with the Angel of Death), the poetic last will and testament of Milos K. Mlynarovic, is a bilingual edition in which the reverend monsignor's original Slovak poems stand sideby-side with their English translation by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Sister Martina's work is faithful to the expression and metrics of the Slovak but also admirably sensitive to the American English idiom and artistic in its own right for its rendering of metaphor and contemporary diction. Thus , these final poems by Monsignor Mlynarovic, with their fine tribute to native land, freedom, and, above all, the faith, are fittingly available to both the reader who can enjoy the music and language of the original Slovak and the reader who is accustomed to the modes of current American poetry. 1 am the son of a Slovak mother; I am he whom the Statue of Liberty welcomed , and thankful am I, I, a world citizen who now walks through the world with Christ J esus. (Whose Voice is This, p. 16)'' It is not simply an accident of placement that puts the brief verse, "Ci je to hlas?" ("Whose Voice is This?"), first in The Golden Crown. In joining love of homeland, love of freedom, and love of life as a "world citizen" with a deep faith in the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus and a sense ,:, All quotations of poems are from Milos K. Mlynarovic, Zlata koruna / The Golden Crown, translated by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. (Middletown, Pa.: J ednota Printery, 1972) . �100 SLOVAKIA of intimate fellowship with Him, the poet and priest announces in "Whose Voice is This" the religious perspective which all the poems in this volume take . As we read and reread this holy man's Dialogue with the Angel of Death, we see more and more clearly that Monsignor Mlynarovic's spirituality is deeply grounded in his faith in the Incarnation and the Resurrection. As he squarely faces his own dying and assents to the summons of the Angel of Death, Monsignor Mlynarovic grows more, rather than less, in love with the world. There is nothing of unhealthy "attachment" about this love, however. He exults in seedlings and trees, golden grain, land and sea, the sunset, moon and stars, the flames of beeswax candles, the flight of the skylark, shuttered windows , the table set for a meal, bookshelves, the ticking and cuckooing of a clock-enjoying and celebrating them for themselves, for the Creator whose artistry they proclaim, and also for the truths they have to tell. All living things and all arts and crafts are, for this poet, a sign, a reminder , that God has indeed visited His people and invested man's handiwork with holiness. Despite the fact that "derisive laughter taunts: there is no God, and if there ever was, he is dead now," despite the fact that modern man is sorely tempted to an ungodly egotism as he prides himself on his accomplishments and powers, the Angel of Death insists that man's life and work have been-and still are-sanctified: Hold fa st your faith ! The flame of truth fr eshly jets out of a living source. It pli 2s its busy tasks in labora tories, fi ssioning a nd splicing; it hull s away the secrets of being and , like sprightl y skylarks, pours out thanks for creation . Whe re there is life and growth there will be upheaval, too. Dynamos pressure th e mind of man into tomorrow where , triumphantl y, confidently, he builds a world to ward the tomorrow of tomorro ws in which he will arise resurrect ed from the dead. ("Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 22) How can a man who has lived to see his native countrymen oppressed and his adopted land slowly overtaken by a kind of technological paganism still retain hope in the sacredness of this life? By this one assurance alone-that �SLOVAKIA 101 in the midst of the tug-of-war between good and evil there is still One who has come, who still "invites," who will r eturn: Som eone did li ve he re. one who spoke mightily and th e \rnrd beca me the fl esh of the cosmos. Th e fi elds unfold and bl ossom . Someone has sown them and continu es to sow them fruitfully, effectively . . . And one da y there will h2 a return; a wearied wayfarer will call , exha usted beyond recognition, fa in t wit h hunger and thi rs t. cage r to know all about our h 3rvests a nd a bout ourselves. Seatin g him se lf. he will join us. drink of our water and break our fra grant bread. ('· Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 24) Thus, notwithstanding his own heartbreak, homesickness, and pain, Monsignor Mlynarovic finds in the approach of death an ever-increasing ability to see through the smoke-screen of present evil and sorrow to a vision of great hope. Because of his profound personal conviction that the Word-made-flesh continues to dwell among us, the dying pastor finds himself overwhelmed with a love of the earth which is derived directly from his faith in God's love for His creatures. Monsignor Mlynarovic expresses this abounding Father-fostered love in his fondness for the simplest of things: "garments of rye" and "oak-forested tracts" ("My Slovak People"), "the breath of twilight's billowing clouds" and night "as intense as the cyclamen" ("The Wayfarer"). Because he himself is so truly a man who is "salt of the earth" in the most Christ-like way, Monsignor Mlynarovic cherishes his Slovak heritage religiously. One could never accuse him of mere nationalism or of undue ethnic pride in his praise of the Slovak people who, "clutching life," are "determined not to die" ("My Slovak People," p. 62). He is not just speaking of the preservation of a culture; rather, he is revealing his belief that the life of God seems to him to be especially embodied, enfleshed, in the Slovak folk. The simplicity and purity of lived faith, the spontaneity of prayer, the acceptance of God's will in the daily circumstances of home and family, the capacity for endurance of endless trials, and the humble closeness to the earth which are all characteristic of the Slovaks seem to �102 SLOVAKIA the poet a unique and blessed expression of the impact of the Incarnation of a people. We see that in his Christian optimism the poet is far from blind to suffering. He observes that "pain saturates the ocean; agony bursts out of the hills / and all the domestic brood shields its face and flees in desperation" ("The Wayfarer," p. 28). At the same time, he believes without hesitation that "man is no slave; / even in its bleakest moments life has always been a gratuitous gift / not a mere bone grudgingly thrown you by some tyrant and left lying there" (p. 30). For this priest-poet, pain and delight are simultaneous. We can understand this seeming paradox somewhat better if we recognize that man's participation in the Incarnation, his living of the present Christlife, also means following through the Lord's passion and death. So we read in "He is Not Here" the aged monsignor appealing to Christ: - Do not unfasten, I beg! Nail back again that ugly nail in its place. A5 long as the face of humanity is befouled let this be my resting place . . . (p. 46 ) In "The Mandate" he asks the angel, "Rest the crucifix upon my breast" (p. 44), and in "The Resurrection Station" he avers, "There has always been and there will always be a cross as long as earth can hear the bell-tones of the heart" (p. 54 ). What we find, in short, is that from his utterly joyful belief in the Incarnation Monsignor Mlynarovic is prompted to bring that Good News to others; having been so moved, he commits himself to crucifixion: Tim e ticks the counsel : Give of yourself. That is the only way to assure your own increase. Help man toward the everlasting; help God; in this way only will God shine through all things. Even th ro ugh us. ("Timepieces," p. 38) Just as his love of the world is inspired by his faith in the Incarnation, Monsignor Mlynarovic's generous and complete self-surrender is motivated by his hope in the Resurrection. As a result, these deathwatch poems are never finally unhappy, though they candidly admit that the �SLOVAKIA 103 process of letting-go is far from easy. There are regrets and longings and daydreams: One final flight took him back to greet his native land once more: fr agra nce of wine and bread ; no one suffers want here. and n ot a dove, nor the cross crowning the spire, in fact, not even the dog whose baying shatters the night, nothing was alien to him here. He wished to catch again the sounding evening bell and the sir en's wail, the light of tender eyes in the cradle, the tread of tottering years-oh, so pain-filled now. And he moved along the range, gladdened by a skylark welcome and sat at the lakeside with streaming tears, weeping with the swan that pour s out a final song. ("Before Parting," p. 32 ) All these longings, lingering as they are, are overcome by the promise of the Pasch, by his conviction that dying does not really mean giving up anything. He can still regard his people, his homeland, birds, flowering plants, and all God's goods with tenderness and affection because he is certain that all are moving into a transformation and glorification: "like the Tatry, I too await resurrection" ("Upon the Bier," p. 34). He does not look forward to a disembodied otherworld but to the realization of a new earth and a new heaven. For himself, for his people, for all mankind toiling with the creatures of land, sea, and sky, he prophesies an immortality of united bodies and souls, of matter and spirit drawn together in the pattern of the Resurrection and, we might add, our Lady's Assumption. "Whoever once had the gift of life / cannot ever not live again," he declares ("He is Not Here," p. 48). Monsignor Mlynarovic turns to the image of the dove - with all its rich symbolic associations for Christians-to depict his own soul and his destiny in dying: 0 fai thful dove, now you can claim your everlasting nesting place. No storm or flood can ever touch it now. Yours is the shari ng of the seed, the partaking of the very tree of life. You shall wing yo ur flight in majesty, wheeling into the inner court of God �104 SLOVAKIA where multitudes of the r edee med who call to you gently sou nd t he dithyram b of God's creation. (" The Mandate," p. 44 ) This dying, this letting-loose of the dove, is no leavetaking, he is sure. It is, rather, a liberation from a cage and an occasion of homecoming: I lea\·e but I shall be go ne onl y fo r a time. The dove sh all return to i ts cote and I sha ll return to you wit h vehemence and ardor (fo r now a growi ng fain t ness hinders me) a nd once again I shall be one of you . I know t ha t in eternity no one clips the wings of love, so I sh all fr eely wing a re turn flight to my homeland ; I shall kiss and be kissed , I shall come again to plant boxwood hedges once more. ("I Shall Come to You," p. 50 ) A contemporary American poet, Richard Wilbur, has said that "Love calls us to the things of this world." In considering the poems of Milos Mlynarovic's Golden Crown we can see how profoundly meaningful such a statement is for the Christian. As the beloved monsignor so gracefully gives himself over to his own death, he shows that for the man of faith dying is really an intensification of life. As he prepares for a total union with God-in whose unseen company he has spent his years-the dying man comes to r ealize that he is not going away, not ending one life to begin another, but that he is being set free to experience fully-at last-the life with God that is. The Incarnation, Christ's coming, has already opened the way to communion between God and man; it is only by consenting to die and rise witµ Christ, however, that man can begin to experience the reality of this presence of himself and God to one another . For Monsignor Mlynarovic the y es to the call of Angel of Death springs him free as a high-flying dove. And this freedom , the freedom of Easter (which dawns on us gradually, not merely at the moment when we can officially be pronounced dead), draws us, he assures, to a deeper, fuller , and holier love of the dovecote . Sister M . Pamela S mi t h. SS.C.M. � SLOVAKIA 99 HOMELAND AND HEAVEN: Incarnation and Resurrection in the Last Poems of Milos K. Mlynarovic The published form of Zlata koruna: Rozhovor s anjelom smrti (The Golden Crown: Dialogue with the Angel of Death), the poetic last will and testament of Milos K. Mlynarovic, is a bilingual edition in which the reverend monsignor's original Slovak poems stand sideby-side with their English translation by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Sister Martina's work is faithful to the expression and metrics of the Slovak but also admirably sensitive to the American English idiom and artistic in its own right for its rendering of metaphor and contemporary diction. Thus , these final poems by Monsignor Mlynarovic, with their fine tribute to native land, freedom, and, above all, the faith, are fittingly available to both the reader who can enjoy the music and language of the original Slovak and the reader who is accustomed to the modes of current American poetry. 1 am the son of a Slovak mother; I am he whom the Statue of Liberty welcomed , and thankful am I, I, a world citizen who now walks through the world with Christ J esus. (Whose Voice is This, p. 16)'' It is not simply an accident of placement that puts the brief verse, "Ci je to hlas?" ("Whose Voice is This?"), first in The Golden Crown. In joining love of homeland, love of freedom, and love of life as a "world citizen" with a deep faith in the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus and a sense ,:, All quotations of poems are from Milos K. Mlynarovic, Zlata koruna / The Golden Crown, translated by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. (Middletown, Pa.: J ednota Printery, 1972) . �100 SLOVAKIA of intimate fellowship with Him, the poet and priest announces in "Whose Voice is This" the religious perspective which all the poems in this volume take . As we read and reread this holy man's Dialogue with the Angel of Death, we see more and more clearly that Monsignor Mlynarovic's spirituality is deeply grounded in his faith in the Incarnation and the Resurrection. As he squarely faces his own dying and assents to the summons of the Angel of Death, Monsignor Mlynarovic grows more, rather than less, in love with the world. There is nothing of unhealthy "attachment" about this love, however. He exults in seedlings and trees, golden grain, land and sea, the sunset, moon and stars, the flames of beeswax candles, the flight of the skylark, shuttered windows , the table set for a meal, bookshelves, the ticking and cuckooing of a clock-enjoying and celebrating them for themselves, for the Creator whose artistry they proclaim, and also for the truths they have to tell. All living things and all arts and crafts are, for this poet, a sign, a reminder , that God has indeed visited His people and invested man's handiwork with holiness. Despite the fact that "derisive laughter taunts: there is no God, and if there ever was, he is dead now," despite the fact that modern man is sorely tempted to an ungodly egotism as he prides himself on his accomplishments and powers, the Angel of Death insists that man's life and work have been-and still are-sanctified: Hold fa st your faith ! The flame of truth fr eshly jets out of a living source. It pli 2s its busy tasks in labora tories, fi ssioning a nd splicing; it hull s away the secrets of being and , like sprightl y skylarks, pours out thanks for creation . Whe re there is life and growth there will be upheaval, too. Dynamos pressure th e mind of man into tomorrow where , triumphantl y, confidently, he builds a world to ward the tomorrow of tomorro ws in which he will arise resurrect ed from the dead. ("Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 22) How can a man who has lived to see his native countrymen oppressed and his adopted land slowly overtaken by a kind of technological paganism still retain hope in the sacredness of this life? By this one assurance alone-that �SLOVAKIA 101 in the midst of the tug-of-war between good and evil there is still One who has come, who still "invites," who will r eturn: Som eone did li ve he re. one who spoke mightily and th e \rnrd beca me the fl esh of the cosmos. Th e fi elds unfold and bl ossom . Someone has sown them and continu es to sow them fruitfully, effectively . . . And one da y there will h2 a return; a wearied wayfarer will call , exha usted beyond recognition, fa in t wit h hunger and thi rs t. cage r to know all about our h 3rvests a nd a bout ourselves. Seatin g him se lf. he will join us. drink of our water and break our fra grant bread. ('· Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 24) Thus, notwithstanding his own heartbreak, homesickness, and pain, Monsignor Mlynarovic finds in the approach of death an ever-increasing ability to see through the smoke-screen of present evil and sorrow to a vision of great hope. Because of his profound personal conviction that the Word-made-flesh continues to dwell among us, the dying pastor finds himself overwhelmed with a love of the earth which is derived directly from his faith in God's love for His creatures. Monsignor Mlynarovic expresses this abounding Father-fostered love in his fondness for the simplest of things: "garments of rye" and "oak-forested tracts" ("My Slovak People"), "the breath of twilight's billowing clouds" and night "as intense as the cyclamen" ("The Wayfarer"). Because he himself is so truly a man who is "salt of the earth" in the most Christ-like way, Monsignor Mlynarovic cherishes his Slovak heritage religiously. One could never accuse him of mere nationalism or of undue ethnic pride in his praise of the Slovak people who, "clutching life," are "determined not to die" ("My Slovak People," p. 62). He is not just speaking of the preservation of a culture; rather, he is revealing his belief that the life of God seems to him to be especially embodied, enfleshed, in the Slovak folk. The simplicity and purity of lived faith, the spontaneity of prayer, the acceptance of God's will in the daily circumstances of home and family, the capacity for endurance of endless trials, and the humble closeness to the earth which are all characteristic of the Slovaks seem to �102 SLOVAKIA the poet a unique and blessed expression of the impact of the Incarnation of a people. We see that in his Christian optimism the poet is far from blind to suffering. He observes that "pain saturates the ocean; agony bursts out of the hills / and all the domestic brood shields its face and flees in desperation" ("The Wayfarer," p. 28). At the same time, he believes without hesitation that "man is no slave; / even in its bleakest moments life has always been a gratuitous gift / not a mere bone grudgingly thrown you by some tyrant and left lying there" (p. 30). For this priest-poet, pain and delight are simultaneous. We can understand this seeming paradox somewhat better if we recognize that man's participation in the Incarnation, his living of the present Christlife, also means following through the Lord's passion and death. So we read in "He is Not Here" the aged monsignor appealing to Christ: - Do not unfasten, I beg! Nail back again that ugly nail in its place. A5 long as the face of humanity is befouled let this be my resting place . . . (p. 46 ) In "The Mandate" he asks the angel, "Rest the crucifix upon my breast" (p. 44), and in "The Resurrection Station" he avers, "There has always been and there will always be a cross as long as earth can hear the bell-tones of the heart" (p. 54 ). What we find, in short, is that from his utterly joyful belief in the Incarnation Monsignor Mlynarovic is prompted to bring that Good News to others; having been so moved, he commits himself to crucifixion: Tim e ticks the counsel : Give of yourself. That is the only way to assure your own increase. Help man toward the everlasting; help God; in this way only will God shine through all things. Even th ro ugh us. ("Timepieces," p. 38) Just as his love of the world is inspired by his faith in the Incarnation, Monsignor Mlynarovic's generous and complete self-surrender is motivated by his hope in the Resurrection. As a result, these deathwatch poems are never finally unhappy, though they candidly admit that the �SLOVAKIA 103 process of letting-go is far from easy. There are regrets and longings and daydreams: One final flight took him back to greet his native land once more: fr agra nce of wine and bread ; no one suffers want here. and n ot a dove, nor the cross crowning the spire, in fact, not even the dog whose baying shatters the night, nothing was alien to him here. He wished to catch again the sounding evening bell and the sir en's wail, the light of tender eyes in the cradle, the tread of tottering years-oh, so pain-filled now. And he moved along the range, gladdened by a skylark welcome and sat at the lakeside with streaming tears, weeping with the swan that pour s out a final song. ("Before Parting," p. 32 ) All these longings, lingering as they are, are overcome by the promise of the Pasch, by his conviction that dying does not really mean giving up anything. He can still regard his people, his homeland, birds, flowering plants, and all God's goods with tenderness and affection because he is certain that all are moving into a transformation and glorification: "like the Tatry, I too await resurrection" ("Upon the Bier," p. 34). He does not look forward to a disembodied otherworld but to the realization of a new earth and a new heaven. For himself, for his people, for all mankind toiling with the creatures of land, sea, and sky, he prophesies an immortality of united bodies and souls, of matter and spirit drawn together in the pattern of the Resurrection and, we might add, our Lady's Assumption. "Whoever once had the gift of life / cannot ever not live again," he declares ("He is Not Here," p. 48). Monsignor Mlynarovic turns to the image of the dove - with all its rich symbolic associations for Christians-to depict his own soul and his destiny in dying: 0 fai thful dove, now you can claim your everlasting nesting place. No storm or flood can ever touch it now. Yours is the shari ng of the seed, the partaking of the very tree of life. You shall wing yo ur flight in majesty, wheeling into the inner court of God �104 SLOVAKIA where multitudes of the r edee med who call to you gently sou nd t he dithyram b of God's creation. (" The Mandate," p. 44 ) This dying, this letting-loose of the dove, is no leavetaking, he is sure. It is, rather, a liberation from a cage and an occasion of homecoming: I lea\·e but I shall be go ne onl y fo r a time. The dove sh all return to i ts cote and I sha ll return to you wit h vehemence and ardor (fo r now a growi ng fain t ness hinders me) a nd once again I shall be one of you . I know t ha t in eternity no one clips the wings of love, so I sh all fr eely wing a re turn flight to my homeland ; I shall kiss and be kissed , I shall come again to plant boxwood hedges once more. ("I Shall Come to You," p. 50 ) A contemporary American poet, Richard Wilbur, has said that "Love calls us to the things of this world." In considering the poems of Milos Mlynarovic's Golden Crown we can see how profoundly meaningful such a statement is for the Christian. As the beloved monsignor so gracefully gives himself over to his own death, he shows that for the man of faith dying is really an intensification of life. As he prepares for a total union with God-in whose unseen company he has spent his years-the dying man comes to r ealize that he is not going away, not ending one life to begin another, but that he is being set free to experience fully-at last-the life with God that is. The Incarnation, Christ's coming, has already opened the way to communion between God and man; it is only by consenting to die and rise witµ Christ, however, that man can begin to experience the reality of this presence of himself and God to one another . For Monsignor Mlynarovic the y es to the call of Angel of Death springs him free as a high-flying dove. And this freedom , the freedom of Easter (which dawns on us gradually, not merely at the moment when we can officially be pronounced dead), draws us, he assures, to a deeper, fuller , and holier love of the dovecote . Sister M . Pamela S mi t h. SS.C.M. � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 99 HOMELAND AND HEAVEN: Incarnation and Resurrection in the Last Poems of Milos K. Mlynarovic The published form of Zlata koruna: Rozhovor s anjelom smrti (The Golden Crown: Dialogue with the Angel of Death), the poetic last will and testament of Milos K. Mlynarovic, is a bilingual edition in which the reverend monsignor's original Slovak poems stand sideby-side with their English translation by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Sister Martina's work is faithful to the expression and metrics of the Slovak but also admirably sensitive to the American English idiom and artistic in its own right for its rendering of metaphor and contemporary diction. Thus , these final poems by Monsignor Mlynarovic, with their fine tribute to native land, freedom, and, above all, the faith, are fittingly available to both the reader who can enjoy the music and language of the original Slovak and the reader who is accustomed to the modes of current American poetry. 1 am the son of a Slovak mother; I am he whom the Statue of Liberty welcomed , and thankful am I, I, a world citizen who now walks through the world with Christ J esus. (Whose Voice is This, p. 16)'' It is not simply an accident of placement that puts the brief verse, "Ci je to hlas?" ("Whose Voice is This?"), first in The Golden Crown. In joining love of homeland, love of freedom, and love of life as a "world citizen" with a deep faith in the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus and a sense ,:, All quotations of poems are from Milos K. Mlynarovic, Zlata koruna / The Golden Crown, translated by Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. (Middletown, Pa.: J ednota Printery, 1972) . 100 SLOVAKIA of intimate fellowship with Him, the poet and priest announces in "Whose Voice is This" the religious perspective which all the poems in this volume take . As we read and reread this holy man's Dialogue with the Angel of Death, we see more and more clearly that Monsignor Mlynarovic's spirituality is deeply grounded in his faith in the Incarnation and the Resurrection. As he squarely faces his own dying and assents to the summons of the Angel of Death, Monsignor Mlynarovic grows more, rather than less, in love with the world. There is nothing of unhealthy "attachment" about this love, however. He exults in seedlings and trees, golden grain, land and sea, the sunset, moon and stars, the flames of beeswax candles, the flight of the skylark, shuttered windows , the table set for a meal, bookshelves, the ticking and cuckooing of a clock-enjoying and celebrating them for themselves, for the Creator whose artistry they proclaim, and also for the truths they have to tell. All living things and all arts and crafts are, for this poet, a sign, a reminder , that God has indeed visited His people and invested man's handiwork with holiness. Despite the fact that "derisive laughter taunts: there is no God, and if there ever was, he is dead now," despite the fact that modern man is sorely tempted to an ungodly egotism as he prides himself on his accomplishments and powers, the Angel of Death insists that man's life and work have been-and still are-sanctified: Hold fa st your faith ! The flame of truth fr eshly jets out of a living source. It pli 2s its busy tasks in labora tories, fi ssioning a nd splicing; it hull s away the secrets of being and , like sprightl y skylarks, pours out thanks for creation . Whe re there is life and growth there will be upheaval, too. Dynamos pressure th e mind of man into tomorrow where , triumphantl y, confidently, he builds a world to ward the tomorrow of tomorro ws in which he will arise resurrect ed from the dead. ("Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 22) How can a man who has lived to see his native countrymen oppressed and his adopted land slowly overtaken by a kind of technological paganism still retain hope in the sacredness of this life? By this one assurance alone-that SLOVAKIA 101 in the midst of the tug-of-war between good and evil there is still One who has come, who still "invites," who will r eturn: Som eone did li ve he re. one who spoke mightily and th e \rnrd beca me the fl esh of the cosmos. Th e fi elds unfold and bl ossom . Someone has sown them and continu es to sow them fruitfully, effectively . . . And one da y there will h2 a return; a wearied wayfarer will call , exha usted beyond recognition, fa in t wit h hunger and thi rs t. cage r to know all about our h 3rvests a nd a bout ourselves. Seatin g him se lf. he will join us. drink of our water and break our fra grant bread. ('· Dialogue with the Angel of Death," p. 24) Thus, notwithstanding his own heartbreak, homesickness, and pain, Monsignor Mlynarovic finds in the approach of death an ever-increasing ability to see through the smoke-screen of present evil and sorrow to a vision of great hope. Because of his profound personal conviction that the Word-made-flesh continues to dwell among us, the dying pastor finds himself overwhelmed with a love of the earth which is derived directly from his faith in God's love for His creatures. Monsignor Mlynarovic expresses this abounding Father-fostered love in his fondness for the simplest of things: "garments of rye" and "oak-forested tracts" ("My Slovak People"), "the breath of twilight's billowing clouds" and night "as intense as the cyclamen" ("The Wayfarer"). Because he himself is so truly a man who is "salt of the earth" in the most Christ-like way, Monsignor Mlynarovic cherishes his Slovak heritage religiously. One could never accuse him of mere nationalism or of undue ethnic pride in his praise of the Slovak people who, "clutching life," are "determined not to die" ("My Slovak People," p. 62). He is not just speaking of the preservation of a culture; rather, he is revealing his belief that the life of God seems to him to be especially embodied, enfleshed, in the Slovak folk. The simplicity and purity of lived faith, the spontaneity of prayer, the acceptance of God's will in the daily circumstances of home and family, the capacity for endurance of endless trials, and the humble closeness to the earth which are all characteristic of the Slovaks seem to 102 SLOVAKIA the poet a unique and blessed expression of the impact of the Incarnation of a people. We see that in his Christian optimism the poet is far from blind to suffering. He observes that "pain saturates the ocean; agony bursts out of the hills / and all the domestic brood shields its face and flees in desperation" ("The Wayfarer," p. 28). At the same time, he believes without hesitation that "man is no slave; / even in its bleakest moments life has always been a gratuitous gift / not a mere bone grudgingly thrown you by some tyrant and left lying there" (p. 30). For this priest-poet, pain and delight are simultaneous. We can understand this seeming paradox somewhat better if we recognize that man's participation in the Incarnation, his living of the present Christlife, also means following through the Lord's passion and death. So we read in "He is Not Here" the aged monsignor appealing to Christ: - Do not unfasten, I beg! Nail back again that ugly nail in its place. A5 long as the face of humanity is befouled let this be my resting place . . . (p. 46 ) In "The Mandate" he asks the angel, "Rest the crucifix upon my breast" (p. 44), and in "The Resurrection Station" he avers, "There has always been and there will always be a cross as long as earth can hear the bell-tones of the heart" (p. 54 ). What we find, in short, is that from his utterly joyful belief in the Incarnation Monsignor Mlynarovic is prompted to bring that Good News to others; having been so moved, he commits himself to crucifixion: Tim e ticks the counsel : Give of yourself. That is the only way to assure your own increase. Help man toward the everlasting; help God; in this way only will God shine through all things. Even th ro ugh us. ("Timepieces," p. 38) Just as his love of the world is inspired by his faith in the Incarnation, Monsignor Mlynarovic's generous and complete self-surrender is motivated by his hope in the Resurrection. As a result, these deathwatch poems are never finally unhappy, though they candidly admit that the SLOVAKIA 103 process of letting-go is far from easy. There are regrets and longings and daydreams: One final flight took him back to greet his native land once more: fr agra nce of wine and bread ; no one suffers want here. and n ot a dove, nor the cross crowning the spire, in fact, not even the dog whose baying shatters the night, nothing was alien to him here. He wished to catch again the sounding evening bell and the sir en's wail, the light of tender eyes in the cradle, the tread of tottering years-oh, so pain-filled now. And he moved along the range, gladdened by a skylark welcome and sat at the lakeside with streaming tears, weeping with the swan that pour s out a final song. ("Before Parting," p. 32 ) All these longings, lingering as they are, are overcome by the promise of the Pasch, by his conviction that dying does not really mean giving up anything. He can still regard his people, his homeland, birds, flowering plants, and all God's goods with tenderness and affection because he is certain that all are moving into a transformation and glorification: "like the Tatry, I too await resurrection" ("Upon the Bier," p. 34). He does not look forward to a disembodied otherworld but to the realization of a new earth and a new heaven. For himself, for his people, for all mankind toiling with the creatures of land, sea, and sky, he prophesies an immortality of united bodies and souls, of matter and spirit drawn together in the pattern of the Resurrection and, we might add, our Lady's Assumption. "Whoever once had the gift of life / cannot ever not live again," he declares ("He is Not Here," p. 48). Monsignor Mlynarovic turns to the image of the dove - with all its rich symbolic associations for Christians-to depict his own soul and his destiny in dying: 0 fai thful dove, now you can claim your everlasting nesting place. No storm or flood can ever touch it now. Yours is the shari ng of the seed, the partaking of the very tree of life. You shall wing yo ur flight in majesty, wheeling into the inner court of God 104 SLOVAKIA where multitudes of the r edee med who call to you gently sou nd t he dithyram b of God's creation. (" The Mandate," p. 44 ) This dying, this letting-loose of the dove, is no leavetaking, he is sure. It is, rather, a liberation from a cage and an occasion of homecoming: I lea\·e but I shall be go ne onl y fo r a time. The dove sh all return to i ts cote and I sha ll return to you wit h vehemence and ardor (fo r now a growi ng fain t ness hinders me) a nd once again I shall be one of you . I know t ha t in eternity no one clips the wings of love, so I sh all fr eely wing a re turn flight to my homeland ; I shall kiss and be kissed , I shall come again to plant boxwood hedges once more. ("I Shall Come to You," p. 50 ) A contemporary American poet, Richard Wilbur, has said that "Love calls us to the things of this world." In considering the poems of Milos Mlynarovic's Golden Crown we can see how profoundly meaningful such a statement is for the Christian. As the beloved monsignor so gracefully gives himself over to his own death, he shows that for the man of faith dying is really an intensification of life. As he prepares for a total union with God-in whose unseen company he has spent his years-the dying man comes to r ealize that he is not going away, not ending one life to begin another, but that he is being set free to experience fully-at last-the life with God that is. The Incarnation, Christ's coming, has already opened the way to communion between God and man; it is only by consenting to die and rise witµ Christ, however, that man can begin to experience the reality of this presence of himself and God to one another . For Monsignor Mlynarovic the y es to the call of Angel of Death springs him free as a high-flying dove. And this freedom , the freedom of Easter (which dawns on us gradually, not merely at the moment when we can officially be pronounced dead), draws us, he assures, to a deeper, fuller , and holier love of the dovecote . Sister M . Pamela S mi t h. SS.C.M.  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 Incarnation and Resurrection in the Last Poems of Miloš K. Mlynarovič Description An account of the resource Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 99-104 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Sister M. Pamela, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b82ed8c61ed3319932e3d806c6540f03.pdf 2e72961d4ce3f6b710526c3db9d5b85a PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails, �72 SLOVAKIA down before daybreak and up at night, blackfaced and hacking, blessing the waterpumps, the coal cars, the breaker, the sky, pochvdleny bud' jezis kristus for the fuhrmann-schmidt brewery and polka parties, the "anthratones" at barbershop song and beer-barrel accordian, for the long, cool chug-a-lug and a quick, hot, footstomping cardas, jezis kristus for christmas eve vilija supper, matka and babicka rolling bobal'ky (mother, grandma, doughballs), baking kolac, poppy seed or black walnut, boiling saurkraut soup, then breaking the wafers, oblatky, spread with honey, praised be work, play, and the family ( though stefan pavelko wheezed himself to coaldust and cyril dorko was buried alive in a cave-in landslide), praised be jesus christ, now and forever (bittersweet) jezis kristus a ten-year old boy in a ski-jacket and a cossack hat pelts a freight with snowballs from a footbridge over the railroad tracks, a coal truck dripping water down its mudflaps fumes up the red ash road where the blessed mother, st. joseph, and the infant reside enshrined in the slovensky window of run-down company houses and two old ladies in babushkas huff and hobble arm-in-arm down a hill naveky (naveky) (naveky) amen. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. � SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails, �72 SLOVAKIA down before daybreak and up at night, blackfaced and hacking, blessing the waterpumps, the coal cars, the breaker, the sky, pochvdleny bud' jezis kristus for the fuhrmann-schmidt brewery and polka parties, the "anthratones" at barbershop song and beer-barrel accordian, for the long, cool chug-a-lug and a quick, hot, footstomping cardas, jezis kristus for christmas eve vilija supper, matka and babicka rolling bobal'ky (mother, grandma, doughballs), baking kolac, poppy seed or black walnut, boiling saurkraut soup, then breaking the wafers, oblatky, spread with honey, praised be work, play, and the family ( though stefan pavelko wheezed himself to coaldust and cyril dorko was buried alive in a cave-in landslide), praised be jesus christ, now and forever (bittersweet) jezis kristus a ten-year old boy in a ski-jacket and a cossack hat pelts a freight with snowballs from a footbridge over the railroad tracks, a coal truck dripping water down its mudflaps fumes up the red ash road where the blessed mother, st. joseph, and the infant reside enshrined in the slovensky window of run-down company houses and two old ladies in babushkas huff and hobble arm-in-arm down a hill naveky (naveky) (naveky) amen. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails, 72 SLOVAKIA down before daybreak and up at night, blackfaced and hacking, blessing the waterpumps, the coal cars, the breaker, the sky, pochvdleny bud' jezis kristus for the fuhrmann-schmidt brewery and polka parties, the "anthratones" at barbershop song and beer-barrel accordian, for the long, cool chug-a-lug and a quick, hot, footstomping cardas, jezis kristus for christmas eve vilija supper, matka and babicka rolling bobal'ky (mother, grandma, doughballs), baking kolac, poppy seed or black walnut, boiling saurkraut soup, then breaking the wafers, oblatky, spread with honey, praised be work, play, and the family ( though stefan pavelko wheezed himself to coaldust and cyril dorko was buried alive in a cave-in landslide), praised be jesus christ, now and forever (bittersweet) jezis kristus a ten-year old boy in a ski-jacket and a cossack hat pelts a freight with snowballs from a footbridge over the railroad tracks, a coal truck dripping water down its mudflaps fumes up the red ash road where the blessed mother, st. joseph, and the infant reside enshrined in the slovensky window of run-down company houses and two old ladies in babushkas huff and hobble arm-in-arm down a hill naveky (naveky) (naveky) amen. Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M.  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 Praised-be in the Coal Region Description An account of the resource Sister M. Pamela Smith, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 71-72 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Sister M. Pamela, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/21b94f30889d6c1fd49952f3b57d9503.pdf 83c0b89e2c828868c96df4cd561c93ba PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 63 SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND INDEPENDENT SLOVAKIA By Mikulds Sprinc On October 6, 1938, when the Slovaks attained autonomy and the Pittsburgh Agreement was incorporated into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, the Slovak League in America had a great and unquestioned share in the great event. In the days that followed there was an outburst of fresh enthusiasm. The Slovaks were beginning to build their own new national home on the pattern of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Slovakia fully appreciated the support which had been given the country by the Slovak League in America for the attainment of its self-government. The Slovak nation immediately wanted to know about the life of the American Slovaks because a mutual affection and friendship develops through knowledge and understanding. Konstantin Culen, a dynamic writer and ace newspaperman, was sent by Karol Sidor and the Slovak autonomous government to the U.S. His chief role was to establish closer cultural ties with the American Slovaks and to write a history of the Slovaks in America, - and as a secondary purpose, to act as a life-line between the Slovaks in their homeland and their fellow countrymen overseas; also, to maintain communication between the American Slovak organizations and the Slovaks at home. What the attitude of the Slovak League was towards the new form of Slovak national life in the old country was at this time we readily deduce from the special meeting of the executive committee of the Slovak League on March 2-3, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa. We read the following minutes : "President Rusek warmly welcomed the distinguished guest, Konstantin Culen, from Slovakia. The Slovak emissary thanked him sincerely and in his brief response expressed his feelings and extended the greetings of the Slovak government and parliament to all the American Slovaks. The applause was spontaneous and enthusiastic." In another section of the above minutes of the same �64 SLOVAKIA meeting, culen's impressions of the public reaction in Slovakia to the first session of the Slovak parliament in Bratislava are recorded as follows: "We were indeed sorry that there were no American Slovaks present at the opening session of the first Slovak parliament in history. The places reserved for you were vacant. But since you were absent from this historic session, I feel sure you will be represented at the next session, the second one, at which the Slovak parliament will discuss the Constitution. You must come, and others, too, from all over America." How vitally interested. the Slovak League of America was in the matter of Slovak autonomy in 1939 is evident from the same special executive meeting, for a nominating committee was named to select a delegation to visit Slovakia. This committee immediately chose the following: Ivan Bielek, J . A. Kocur, Jozef Rusek, Mrs. Gabriela Vavrek r.nd Dr. Peter P . Hletko, alternates were P . Jamriska, Rev. Klemo Hrtanek. Rev. Florian Billy, Andrej Suroviak and Michal Sincak. Jozef Rusek, the president, was designated to head the special delegation, which received unanimous approval. It was decided at the meeting that the Slovak League delegation should take the original Pittsburgh Agreement document and present it to the Slovak nation 'with due ceremonies' - and added remark in the minutes. The executive committee of the Slovak League made this decision on the basis of the previous Congress of the Slovak League which had approved the proposal to surrender the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement, a precious historical document, and present it officially to the Slovak parliament as soon as the political requirements guaranteed to the Slovak nation were fulfilled and carried out as outlined .3pecifically in the pact. A fund raising campaign to help Slovakia was organized, which again shows the enthusiastic support in behalf of the freedom of Slovakia by the Slovak League of America. This received the unanimous approval of all present because they realized how important it was to lend a helping hand at this particular time of the Slovak nation's history. Practically everybody pledged his aid. Mr. Kridlo res- �SLOVAKIA 65 ponded first. His organization ( the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union) voted $150 and promised to contact all of its branches for donations. Virostek, Jamriska, Dlhos, Salva and Kostolnik spoke approvingly - Kostolnik presented a check from the Federation of Slovak Societies in Detroit and later sent in the sum of $270 which he had personally collected for aid to Slovakia. Good will and generosity were in evidence everywhere for this good and worthy cause. The Slovak League records show the magnanimity of our people on this occasion. One feels anew the spirit of the times of Furdek and the first campaign of the American Slovaks during World War I. It is no wonder that the Slovak League rejoiced, for this was the first time since the fall of its kingdom of Moravia (at the beginning· of the 10th century) that the Slovaks had their own national parliament and were assured self-government. The Slovak State and the Slovak League of America Slovakia's struggle of two decades ended on a triumphant note of victory and the Slovak League had had a major share in the winning of national autonomy. But Divine Providence decreed that the Slovak nation should have not only self-government but an independent Slovak state. From October, 1938, to March, 1939, the Slovak spirit of national pride reached its highest point of development and it became increasingly clear that Slovakia was ripe not only for autonomy but for a complete, self-governing state. Meantime, Slovakia was ridding itself of Czechs whom the Slovak autonomous government sent home to Prague. Treaty-breaking Czechs who bitterly assailed the emergence of a new Slovakia and plotted to take autonomy away from the Slovak nation by force of arms, even though the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic solemnly guaranteed it. Under the heavy pressure of the European political situation and subject to aggression by Germany, the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia fell apart at the seams. At the same time the Slovaks who were united under their own . national parliament and government in Bratislava �65 SLOVAKIA cheered the unanimous decision of the parliament to declare the Slovak nation's independence and the establishment of an independent Slovak state, the Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. These events in the history of the Slovak nation are m omentous and unforgettable. No one pressurized the Slovak parliament on March 14, 1939, to its unanimous declaration to organize its own, free self-governing and sovereign state. If the idea of Slovak statehood had not been ripe, and if the legally constituted body of Slovak representatives had not grasped that this was the final phase of the Slovak struggle for self-government, if they had not realized that their unanimous vote for independence was in harmony with the will of the vast majority of the Slovak people, they would have timidly surrendered to the tragic circumstances of having their country torn asunder by neighbors who had never been true friends but covetous foes of the 8.lovak nation. Fully conscious of their opportunity, responsibility and dangers ahead, they decided to go forward as a free nation towards its destiny. Germany's hand of friendship was extended, it had not been solicited, but now that it was given, it was accepted because a refusal would have not only been inexpedient but perhaps suicidal in view of the political tension of the times. No one can justly blame the Slovaks for the acceptance cf German support. They could not know in advance that in the future their self-proclaimed champion would become barbaric and inhumane, nor could they foresee future developments when actually on March 14, 1939, the Germans solemnly announced that they had no territorial demands other than the Sudeten lands . From every angle the Slovak state was to become in reality what the Slovak nation dreamed about and fought ior through the centuries, namely, the highest development of a nation's genius as the result of the embodiment of Slovak rights to freedom and independent progress, a renewal of the glorious and triumphant tradition of Slovak princes and rulers, the fulfillment of the aspirations of all Slovak generations, the actualization of the right to �SLOVAKIA 67 regulate their own affairs by themselves, and for themselves, and for their own Slovak welfare and happiness in building and maintaining their own free, national state. This was their golden destiny. At no time had the renaissance of the Slovak national spirit soared to such heights of glory as during the Slovak Republic. Never before had the country's administration been in the hands of native Slovaks and never before had the Slovaks worked so hard and so willingly, or paid their taxes so readily as then. Slovak lands for the first time in history produced everything in abundance for the benefit of the Slovaks who finally ruled and governed themselves, and were masters of their national destiny. As nothing but destruction and ruin met the eye beyond the borders of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia enjoyed a period of phenomenal growth and prosperity. The Slovaks gave their Republic a democratic Constitution while totalitarianism and dictatorship surrounded them on every side. Slovak statesmen constructed their political edifice on the foundations of God's law and providence at a time when everywhere in Europe Christian morality was being almost universally supplanted by the savage cult of force and a new pagan philosophy. Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko recalled the universal acclamation that had greeted the founding of the Slovak Republic and he spoke of the Slovak state openly at the procommunistic trial held in Bratislava after the war. His testimony clearly indicates that the declaration of Slovak independence on March 14, 1939, was the occasion for a spontaneous celebration throughout Slovakia. Catholics and Protestants rejoiced alike . Every true Slovak was genuinely pleased and happy at the turn of events that brought the Slovak nation its own free, independent state. Moreover, he began to appreciate more and more the many opportunities to develop his native talents for his individual welfare, as well as for the benefit of his own country. For too long he had been denied these opportunities because of alien rule. Slovak League archives contain the following text of a letter from a Protestant school inspector in Slovakia: �68 SLOVAKIA It was adressed to Jozef Rusek, President, Slovak League of America, Pittsburgh, Pa. The text of the letter: Teachers of the Slovak school inspectors' committee in Trencin who have taken the oath of loyalty to the Slovak state, gratefully recall your vigorous fight for the recognition of the independence of our Slovak nation. In this free Slovak state we will work with might and main, God helping us, for the spiritual and material welfare of our nation and state. We respectfully request your aid, Mr. President, so that we may succeed in our common endeavor. With the approval of the teachers I send you sincere greetings from the 'old country.' With sentiments of profound esteem, Na straz! - On Guard, Michal Balafovic, School Inspector in Trencin, Slovakia This is only one of many expressions of hope, confidence and joy that greeted the founding of the free, Slovak state, and as usual, was accompanied by a message of gratitude addressed to the Slovak League of America. Not even for a moment did the Slovak League hesitate to take its proper stand on the question of the newly-created Slovak state. Accordingly, at an executive meeting on May l 2, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa., the officers formulated the official reaction on the basis of the recommendations made by the president, Jozef Rusek, namely: 1) Establish a special committee to draw up a Memorandum to 1e addressed to the governments of the U.S., Britain and France in the interests of and for the recognition of the Slovak state, a revision of the boundaries, and a provision to guarantee the cultural rights of 700,000 Slovaks residing inside Hungary. 2) Designate a reporter from the Slovak League and dispatch him to Slovakia to determine the situation there and investigate the exact conditions under which the Slovaks decided to terminate their alliance with the Czechs. After discussing the matter, the members at the meeting agreed to authorize the Slovak League executive officers: 1) To name the necessary committees. 2) To establish an information bureau in Washington, D.C. in order to counteract false , deceitful and slanted anti-Slovak news in the American press and furnish the American press instead with information founded on facts and the truth. 3) To edit English memoranda and pamphlets in the int.erest of the Slovak nati.on and its officially constituted �SLOVAKIA 69 free state, the Slovak Republic. 4) To take the necessary steps for a hearing in the State Department in the nation's capital in order to obtair, U.S. recognition of the Slovak Republic. All these fo:re-going resolutions are duly registered and taken verbatim from the minutes of the above meeting of the Slovak League's executive committee, May 12, 1939. They prove that the Slovak League gave prompt approval to the Slovak state. and, as always, sought to lend a helping hand by seeking to obtain the diplomatic and official recognition of the Slovak state by the United States government in Washington, D.C. On the otherhand, the Slovak state was not un-mindful of the Slovak League of America. The first president of the Slovak Republic sent a greeting by cablegram addressed directly to the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The minutes of the Congress refer to this as follows: The president announced that Dr. Jozef Tiso, the president of the Slovak Republic, sent his greetings to the Congress and he asked Dr. Peter Hletko, honorary president of the Slovak League, to read the message. Whereupon, Dr. Hletko read the cablegram informing the American Slovaks of the warmth and loyalty prevailing everywhere throughout the country to the new Slovak state. The message also indicated the immediate necessity of defending the young Republic against enemy aggression and the happy outcome of events in perilous and challenging times. Moreover, there was a note of assurance anct hope for the future destiny of the Slovak nation. Prolonged applause followed the reading of the cablegram from President Tiso. This Congress of the Slovak League in Cleveland directed the administration of the League to reply with a cablegram to Dr. Jozef Tiso, the first president of the Slovak Republic. (Minutes of the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League of America, Cleveland, Ohio, May 12-14, 1939). Czechoslovakia on the Horizon While the Slovaks in their free Slovak Republic rolled up their sleeves and went to work in full strength to build their Slovak state, and while the Slovak League took the first step to secure recognition for the newly-formed Slovak Republic by the government of the United States, the defeated, cowardly ex-president of the Czecho-Slovak Re- �70 SLOVAKIA public, Dr. Benes, appeared on the scene here with his entire entourage. History repeats itself - as in World War I his gaze was directed again towards the American Slovaks who de facto had set up the Czecho-Slovak Republic financially, so now Dr. Benes sought the sympathy and support of the Slovak League of America. He did not approach the League personally but sent his faithful servant, Dr. Juraj Slavik. Dr. Slavik therefore, appeared on May 12, 1939, at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Slavik's visit is described in the minutes of the meeting as follows: Then President Josef Husek introduced Dr. Slavik, former minister in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and requested him to state the nature of his mission. The guest speaker extended his greetings and then proceeded to explain what had happened in Slovakia, especially how the Slovak state had been created, how much of his property had been confiscated by the Slovak government, and his reasons for cooperation with Dr. Benes for the re-establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He further stated that it was Professor Tuka, Sano Mach, chief of propaganda, Karol Murgas, head of he Hlinka Guards (Militia) , and Dr. Ferdinand !>urcansky who were the instigators of a plot that enabled Hitler to destroy the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He referred to Sidor, a member of parliament, and declared that Sidor had been opposed to Slovak independence and for that reason the Hlinka party dismissed him from the Slovak government. Mr. Husek interrupted the Benes emissary and gave him a letter from Sidor who explained the events in an entirely different vein ; and even his account of why he was dropped from the formation of the new Slovak government differed substantially from Slavik's report. Reaction to Sidor's letter was simply a smile on Slavik's face when he returned the letter to Husek without comment. Various questions touching on discrimination, persecution and imprisonments to which loyal Slovaks were subjected at the hands of the central regime in Prague were directed at the visitor. Whereupon, Slavik made only feeble attempts to exonerate his Czechoslovak and Czech colleagues - and these, of course, were all in vain. His hearers remained unimpressed. Dr. Slavik's sweet talk did not win the Slovak League because now as never before it stood solidly behind the idea and reality of the free Slovak state. The official reply was clear as implied in the recommendation at the meeting: "To draw up a resolution that would concisely and clearly express the Slovak League's reasons to oppose Dr. Eduard Benes's program and leadership which were designed for the renewal of the old Czecho-Slovakia." �SLOVAKIA 71 That was a genuinely Slovak reply of the Slovak League. Dr. Slavik's visit was merely the first of several attempts to derail the Slovak League so that the people, led by Dr. Benes, might once more get the League into their clutches. Although the Slovak League remained firm, Benes did not cease his machinatio ns. Rocky Path for the Slovak League of America In the interim, the most dreadful of wars had spread throughou t Europe. All communic ations between Slovakia and the Slovak League of America was suddenly cut off. Against its will Slovakia was dragged into the conflict. As the bitter aftermath of Dr. Benes's failure to lure the Slovak League into a position of unqualified support of the Czechoslov ak camp against the Slovak state, the Czechoslovak governmen t-in-exile simply began a campaign of revenge against the League. A nationwide Czechoslov ak apparatus hit the Slovak League with a ferocious propagand a barrage. It was the intention of Benes to destroy the League by discreditin g it in Washingto n in a vicious smear campaign that sought to put the stamp of nazism on the organizatio n, labeling the Slovak League maliciously as a loyal Hitler ally, and therefore, an enemy of the U.S. and the United Nations . Against this web of lies circulated by the Czechoslov ak propagand a agency here against the Slovak League, naturally, the latter had great difficulties in meeting charges that were made arbitrarily but which could not be adequately answered because the Slovak League lacked necessary informatio n from Slovakia to refute the malicious propagand a. With no communic ation because of the war, it seemed that the Slovak League was completely at the mercy of the merciless foes of Slovak freedom who attempted to cut the vital roots of the organizatio n and destroy it forever . In fact, matters went so far that officers in the Slovak League were subjected to federal investigation on charges of being dangerous to the national interests of the U.S. as subversive elements. The Czechs had their allies in Washingto n and they were not particular about the methods and means to be used to attain their mad objective of destroying the Slovak League. �72 SLOVAKIA This was an unequal and bitterly fought contest. Benes and his informants were the sources of information of the highest military propaganda bureaus in Washington. Jozef Rusek as president of the Slovak League had presented a Memorandum in Washington, D.C. asking for U.S. recognition of the Slovak state. It was ignored. Meanwhile, reports (false) were circulated that Slovakia got involved in the war by declaring hostilities on the U.S. There was no way for the Slovak League to verify or deny these reports . . the line of communication with Slovakia was closed tightly. If the Slovak League, in 1943, had only known one salient fact , namely, that the so-called war-declaration on the U.S. was not a legally declared state of war because neither the Slovak parliament nor President Tiso had given their assent to such a grave act, and that in actuality the reported 'state of war' between Slovakia and this country was an illegal proclamation of one man, Dr. Vojtech Tuka, who. without any authority what-so-ever simply declared war on the U.S. Extreme determination to destroy the Slovak Republic motivated Dr. Benes in his policy. Consequently, this declaration of war was utilized to the utmost in distorted form by the resigned second president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. It served Benes well to emphasize this status of an 'official act of hostility' presumably on the part of the Slovak nation, which actually was against such n declaration, as was the Slovak government with its parliament and President Tiso . Indisputably, on the face of it, without explaining the circumstances of the reported declaration of war on the U.S. by Slovakia, this was a great opportunity for Dr . Benes to exploit the occasion and he did, to the hilt. His intrigues for the despicable objective of the destruction of the Slovak nation's own free state knew no bounds. Monsignor Francis Dubosh, wartime president of the Slovak League of America, was shouldered with the heavy responsibility of defending the organization against · vilification by its enemies. Slovak League archives of 1943 contain a complete record of correspondence between Msgr. Dubosh and the OWI (Office of War Information). �SLOVAKIA 73 Faced by an endless series of barefaced lies that poured into Washington from the sworn foes of Slovak freed.om, the Slovak League stood fast in its defense of the truth and freedom for Slovakia. Moreover, there was nothing to hide, for the Slovak League membership, its president and executive officers were men of personal integrity and loyal citizens of the United States. They met the challenge without flinching and withstood the test with courage and dignity. Some timid souls, it is unfortunately true, became terrorized by this vicious attack of the enemy but the leadership of such stalwart men as Monsignor Dubosh rallied the faithful under the unsullied banner of the Slovak League of America. In the end they prevailed in the fight for Slovak freedom , self-government and free statehood. Now that they sensed the type of opposition they had to contend with, they became determined to maintain the struggle until final victory over the evil forces arrayed against the gallant men they were associated with in the Slovak League . Many resolutions and statements on behalf of the Slovak nation were formulated and proclaimed by the Slovak League despite the bitter attacks levelled against its daring leaders and resolute program. Dr. Benes and his paid propagandists spent several million dollars but all their fiery and venomous darts failed to pierce the stout armor of the American Slovak champion who defended the great citadel of freedom for Slovakia, namely, the Slovak League of America. Though under tremendous tension and pressure in this struggle, the Slovak League did not falter. Its leaders addressed new resolutions that reached the highest government circles in Washington. The historic 'Memorandum', which was entitled, "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood", was sent directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Signed by Msgr. Dubosh and Jan A. Kocur, this wartime document was a review of the struggle of the Slovaks through the centuries for their national freedom and their right to determine their own national destiny on the fundamental democratic principle and tradition of self-determination. �74 SLOVAKIA Whether the Slovaks should have their own independent state, or whether they should belong to the CzechoSlovak Republic, the Slovak League, being deprived of factual news from Slovakia, did not presume to be a competent judge - and hence, it merely wished to re-emphasize President Roosevelt's proclamation and democratic creed that "every nation, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood." American statesmen are formally addressed in the prophetic and fearless appeal which deals fundamentally with the Slovak problem: We Americans of Slovak ancestry who make sacrifices and fight side by side with other nations, and have dedicated our lives to the cause of freedom, appeal to our leaders in this momentous struggle and ask them especially to have the destiny of Slovakia in mind lest the foes of Slovak rights to freedom and nationhood deceive them in an unguarded moment, we further respectfully request them to bear in mind the sacred right of the Slovak nation to its own national selfgoverning state, which, as a matter of history, the Slovak nation established after many centuries of struggle against oppression and tyranny; and finally, we ask that liberty, self-determination and the means to a democratic way of life be guaranteed to the Slovaks in the same full measure as will be guaranteed all other nations in the world. This memorable document explains quite extensively 2nd manifestly Czech treacheries aimed against the Slovaks and takes a firm, uncompromising stand against Dr. Benes and his Slovak and Czechoslovak janizaries. It remains a historic testimony that not all Slovak emigrants were on the side of Dr. Benes. The examples of Dr. Osusky and Dr. Hodfa are cited because their political programs coincided essentially with the articles of the Pittsburgh Agreement (Pact) . Remarkable in many respects, but especially amazing is the fact that the Slovak League's life and death struggle was carried on despite an empty treasury against the millions of dollars expended by Benes and his anti-Slovak confederates! Dr. Milan Hodza and the Slovak League of America Dr. Milan Hodfa was invited to be a guest speaker at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League of America. Hodfa, an emigrant political leader from Slovakia, ex- �SLOVAKIA 75 pressed his regrets but sent in an extensive letter or message dated April 9, 1943, and addressed to Msgr. Dubosh, President, in which he explains, in detail, his stand on the Slovak problem and outlines his suggestions and proposals to the Slovak League which was involved vitally in the struggle for Slovakia's rights to national freedom and statehood. About American Slovaks Dr. Hodza has this opinion: First, I highly esteem the Slovak League as an institution of the American Slovaks, one that has done meritorious work in behalf of the Slovak nation and its native homeland. Hodza pays tribute to Furdek, the founder of the Slovak League, and reviews the currents of Slovak political action. He has words of praise for Slovak patriotism and pride that was inspired by the Slovak League, the great champion of the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom. On the subject of World War II , he expressed his understanding of the perilous times: Everyone who knows anything of Slovak loyalty could never have any shadow of doubt about the allegiance of American Slovaks to American democracy or deny their wholehearted dedication to the ideals of freedom and democracy - for America and Slovakia. But someone rashly has said that the majority of American Slovaks have 'fascist leanings.' To that unfounded charge I reply: When it became necessary to defend their country and the highest moral values of mankind, the American Slovaks proved themselves by their deeds and sacrifices. They purchased bonds and bombers, joined the military forces in large numbers, with their young men and women enrolling in all the services-hundreds, perhaps thousands of whom now are wounded or dead on battlefields in every corner of the globe . .. suffering death or wounds in defense of American democracy, security and freedom. Such are Slovak 'fascists.' This moving testimonial to the Slovak League's program by a leading Slovak politician and statesman excels anything that might be added on the subject. It is an honest, heartfelt evaluation of the work of the Slovak League based on firsthand observation and information. Moreover, Hodza, as he notes in his long letter to the Slovak League, considered it his solemn duty to inform the Slovaks of America of the events that occurred up to the year, 1938, in Czecho-Slovakia. He recalls the visit of the Slovak League delegation in Praha. Upon being approached to support the Pittsburgh Agreement, he ob- �?(, SLOVAKIA served that he had already drawn up his own draft for Slovak rights, which, in his personal opinion, he deemed substantially even better and proposed it as a substitute. Hodza explains that his political views were based on the fact that both economically and financially Slovakia was very weak at the conclusion of World War I. He goes on record: In a public statement of May 17, 1938, I spoke about the Pittsburgh Agreement, and in the discussion I urged that the time for criticizing it was long past. Now was the time to actualize it in reality, I said. Finally, at the end of June or the beginning of July, 1938, I succeeded in securing a virtual promise of the government to recognize it and put it into effect, namely, the official extension of self government and the establishment of a parliament in Bratislava for Slovakia. Subsequent remarks by Hodza emphasized his advocating the international political continuity of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and the self-same continuity of the internal political policies and acts of the Republic. Since the legality of the Zilina Agreement was nullified on the grounds that it had been drawn up a week after Munich, the legality of the decisions of the constitutional government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in June and July, 1938, could not be questioned, and therefore he favored guarantees for self-rule and the rights of the Slovak nation in their native home country. Under all circumstances Hodza stood his ground in this manifest policy. He added: What type of federal or political system we will decide upon, that will be our domestic problem. But to be specific: No longer shall we tolerate the machinery of the Czecho-Slovak Assembly in Prague to dominate by its majority vote. Why not? Because in a total of some 300 members the Czechs have approximately 150 votes, the Slovaks scarcely 60. Thus a 2/3 or a 3/ 5 majority vote would automatically determine Slovak policy with or without a small Slovak minority. No longer can we allow this government monopoly by a Czech regime in Praha. The new reorganization of the state must take into consideration a constitutional measure respecting a Slovak national majority as well as a Czech national majority correspondingly in their own national assembly or parliament. This is the principle and policy that was enunciated and approved by the Czecho-Slovak National Committee on January 1, 1940. In the future, Hodza believed, that the vast majority of the Czechs would abandon centralism as a national policy and accept the new effective policy of mutual Czech �SLOVAKIA 77 and Slovak cooperation through proper Slovak representation on the basis of a federative status of national equality. "I am continuing my efforts in behalf of Slovakia today on the basis of international law," Dr. Hodza declared, "and in accord with England which in March, 1939, of its own volition, and on the basis of fundamental reasons, refused to recognize German dis-memberm ent of the Czecho-Slova k Republic." Both the U.S and the Soviet Union, according to Hodza, adhered to this view of continuity, and he, therefore, thought this was the only sure foundation for future action in behalf of Slovakia. Peace in Europe Hodza envisioned as the development of an intimate association of America, England and Russia and the creation of a central European federation to which Yugoslavia and Romania should belong also. This federation, he believed, would be an effective defensive bloc against any possible future German aggression. "Slavonic democracy' --, in Hodza's opinion, "in which the Slovaks must have a role, must guarantee both national and religious freedom, human dignity, the rights of the individual, provide social and economic security, preserve representativ e government that is based on the free expression of each nation's will." American Slovaks, through its Slovak League, demanded all the guarantees of democratic freedom and the free exercise of natural rights for the Slovak nation on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, namely, the Four Freedoms, self-determin ation and the right to choose their own national destiny. Conclusion of Dr. Hodza's message reads: "Continue as you have begun. You are on the right road." All Slovaks with few exceptions at home and abroad Hnanimously agree that the Slovaks are entitled as a nation to the rights of freedom and self-determin ation, the cardinal principles of the victorious united nations of World War II. There were no substantial differences between his political doctrine and the Slovak League's program, Hodza �78 SLOVAKIA contended. Nevertheless, there was one difference, and it was that the Slovak League of America maintained the belief that it is the Slovak nation's prerogative to decide whether it wants to rejoin the Czechs in a newly-recreated Czecho-Slovakia, or remain in its own separate independent state. As a matter of fact, Hodza, at one time a centralist, could not free himself from the personal conviction that the Czechs and Slova,ks belong indubitably in a united state. Hodza lacked the experience and enlightenment of being a citizen in his own native Slovak political state. Very interesting, indeed, would have been Hodza's views, and relationship with the Slovak League, after Benes' treasonable act in Moscow (1943) and the aftermath of the 'paper agreement' in Kosice with the Slovak national council (1945). We can presume, in view of the sad events in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic, that the Slovak political leader would have followed the leadership of the Slovak League and the vast majority of the Slovaks in their home country in demanding a plebiscite in postwar Slovakia to determine: 1) Whether the Slovak nation wanted to be an integral part of Czecho-Slovakia. 2) Or whether it wanted to be an independent state. 3) Or whether it wanted to join a federation. Death ended any further speculation, and because of the situation in Czecho-Slovakia after the war, the Prague regime refused to grant permission to the Hodza family tc have the body of an eminent Slovak political figure to be returned to his native Slovakia for burial. A Final Break with Benes Intrigues and slanders, coarse and cynical comments marked the careers and attitudes of Dr. Benes and his colleagues. As immediate consequences of their ignoble activities there was a complete disregard of Slovak rights in U.S. State Department circles that determined our international policy while a cloud of dark suspicion hovered over the Slovak League. Refusal to bow down under the crushing pressure exerted by Benes and his clique maddened the Czech plotter and his slanderous propagandists. All of their plans to destroy the Slovak League of America failed miserably. �SLOVAKIA 79 After reviewing the activities of Dr. Benes in World War I and World War II, the Slovak League of America went on record as being irrevocably opposed to Dr. Benes and his ideology. Monsignor Dubosh, the president, declared publicly in his report at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League in October, 1943: I have explained the situation of the Slovak League in relationship to Dr. Benes and his intrigues. Now, where shall we go? What should we do ? Well, Dr. Benes, acknowledged as a skillful diplomat, has refused to negotiate with us. He seems to think that if he looks down upon us with disdain, we 'stupid Slovaks' will shake with trepidation and run to him seeking his help. It is unfortunate that he, a diplomat and political leader, never learned to know the Slovaks better. Perhaps the Slovaks were somewhat naive for tolerating him so long. He forgets that in America, the sons of Slovak immigrants who escaped to America had the opportunity for an education. One of the lessons they learned well was not to take abuse from anybody. He acts as if the Slovaks had no rights whatsoever, not even the right to speak up and say whether they want to live with the Czechs or not. Dr. Benes is sadly mistaken if he thinks the Slovaks were given to the Czechs by divine decree. The Slovaks voluntarily entered into partnership with the Czechs, and they can voluntarily dissolve that partnership. If this is not true, then the Slovaks are not human beings, but slaves, even worse, for then they are but mere animals. That we refuse to accept. We will never allow the Slovaks to be treated as brutes, not even for the price of a million Beneses! Msgr. Dubosh concluded his statement: Truly wise would Benes have been had he and his disciples finally realized that they cannot act as if the Slovaks had no rights at all, that they cannot destroy the Slovak nation which has survived so many centuries, that the Slovak was, is, and will always remain a Slovak, that there will be no peace between the Czechs and Slovaks until justice and equality are established between the two, that nobody will ever convince the Slovak he is anything than what he is: a Slovak. A number of renegades among the Slovaks may be found, as in the case of the Magyar era, and these will agree with Benes and propagate his ideas. But the vast majority of the Slovaks here and in their historic homeland have remained unmoved and unconvinced because they know the true history of the Slovak nation. This is a clear-cut view and a definite stand. Andrej Hlinka would have spoken the same way - and every loyal Slovak agrees with this unqualified view that refuses to surrender the rights of the Slovak nation to freedom and nationhood. The year, 1943, definitely witnessed another resurgence of dynamic and invincible spirit of Slovak national pride in the Slovak League of America. �8Li SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America and the Slovak National Council in Slovakia War was slowly coming to an end and it was clear who would win by this time. For the Slovak League serious problems and grave responsibilities were anticipated. At the beginning of autum, 1944, the first news from Slovakia reported a revolt. The information was incomplete, distorted, and, therefore, confusing and unreliable. As might be expected the Slovak Republic was presented in a bad light by hostile propaganda forces. There was no direct connection with Slovakia to counteract the highly distorted image of the Slovaks who deserved a better fate. Moreover, the Slovak League was not aware of the many instances of official and unofficial opposition to German policies in Slovakia. Awaiting the outcome of the war and hoping for reliable reports from Slovakia, the Slovak League, meanwhile, had to ward off the Benes propagandists. Laboring under a terrible disadvantage, the Slovak League president, Msgr. Dubosh, told the Slovak League Congress on October 18-19, 1944, that "we have assured the state department in Washington the Slovaks will be heard from as soon as they get the opportunity. Our hope has not been in vain as current events prove. The Slovaks, we are told, have revolted . . .but not the Czechs ... and they are now fighting the Germans . How fortunate I am to be able to report that en my last visit to the state department in Washington I pointed out this latest development. Moreover, we had the happy occasion of launching a new warship, the General Milan R. Stefanik, at the time." Such was the first reaction to the report of the socalled Slovak revolt in the early days of September 1944. But it is interesting to note that during the 26th Congress resolutions were adopted against the Slovak national council and its self-assumed program. In this instance, again, sound Slovak instinct guided the Slovak League leadership. A special proclamation on Slovakia was issued, to wit, With great caution and intense interest we have followed and are following progress of events in Slovakia day by day. We have read a declaration, greetings, etc. from the so-called Slovak national council �SLOVAK!.'. 81 which under its own authority has assumed or rather usurped the exclusive right to speak in the name of the Slovak nation and seeks to take over the legislative and executive power into its hands for the complete control of Slovakia. We replied that the Slovak League could hardly be expected to decide what position to take in this matter when there was doubt about the background to the so-called Slovak uprising since the sources of information were not checked out but appeared unreliable because they were inaccurate and incomplete. What made the American Slovaks suspicious from the start was t.lle declaration of the Slovak national council that seemed at first ~o defend the sovereignity of the Slovak nation but later to have tipped its hand by extending greetings to the Benes government in exile . . . and the greetings ended with a promise of loyalty and aid to the Czechoslovak resistance movement - to all intents and purposes an indication of the ultimate return of Slovakia to re-union with the Czechs in a new, reconstructed postwar Czechoslovakia! Without consulting the will of the Slovak nation the so-called Slovak national council placed the country into a definite state organization, thereby denying the Slovak nation the right of self-determination for which we are fighting and presumed to associate the Slovak nation with actions to which we American Slovaks have no sympathy, and to which we are not at all attracted, and which we believe to be completely unfavorable to the Slovaks in their own historic homeland. All these circumstances prompt us to maintain the utmost reserve towards the activity of the so-called national council because we fear that this activity instead of helping to liberate the Slovak nation leads to disruption, disintegration and ultimately to the weakening of the Slovak cause. Neither the leadership nor the aims of the Slovak national council, combined with the names of those who are cooperating with it, give us any assurance that the interests of Slovakia are in capable hands since the so-called Slovak uprising. People whose names we have noted are connected with the national council so-called, as well as in association with the so-called Slovak revolt, do not have our confidence er trust, and for those reasons we must proceed with caution if not entirely in opposition to these so-called representatives of the Slovak nation. Finally, it is quite obvious that the Slovak national council does not represent all classes of Slovak society. It does not represent either the .democratic or progressive elements in the Slovak nation, and hence, in our opinion, the council is not a qualified representative body of the Slovak people in whose name it presumes to speak, has taken over all law-enforcement agencies and assumed executive authority, and even has already decided arbitrarily that the Slovaks must give their allegiance to a pre-determined state re-organization, namely, Czechoslovakia again. Clear and concise was this formulation of official Slovak League policy in this situation, and it coincides with the refusal of the Slovak government and its president to join the revolt for precisely the same reasons. This judgment will always remain the true analysis of the will of the Slovak nation and its duly-constituted government of the Slovak Republic as opposed to the so-called national council. The latter's blunders and many crimes will one day be justly �82 SLOVAKIA attributed to its personnel when the genuinely true history of Slovakia may once again be written in freedom when a new era of truth, justice and peace will prevail. Zeroing in the Slovak nation as a victim to be re-assigned to a postwar re-creation of Czechoslovakia was a colossal historic blunder and crime of the so-called Slovak national council against the sovereignity of the Slovak nation, against its just rights to freedom, self-determination and democracy, and against truth and justice. The 1945 Washington Resolution of the Slovak League of America During the last months of the war from October, 1944, to April, 1945, the situation changed rapidly and essentially. The Russians had captured Bratislava and the war in Europe was just about ended. Sources of information for the Slovak League at this time were controlled completely by the U.S. Office of War Information agencies. And these were under the full censorship of Benes and his staff that had succeeded in winning the Slovak national council, so-called, to their side. Naturally, all information from them was favorable to the council . . . another Czechoslovak agency. What made the Slovak League officials anxious to get in contact with the Slovaks overseas was their desire to help them get on their feet after the most devastating of wars ... and since this was the only source of news available, they were forced to rely on it with reservations, however. These first news indicated that the Slovak national council had persuaded Benes ( who was in Moscow at the time ) to recognize the individuality of the Slovak nation and to grant extensive self-government to the Slovak nation in a new post-war Czecho-Slovakia. At first glance this program of the Slovak national council so-called ran parallel with the objectives of the Slovak League of America. That is what prompted the Slovak League to express its desire to get in touch with the council ... this fact enemies of both the Slovak nation and its champion, the Slovak League of America, take delight in citing when explaining their own policies. Before condemning this resolution it is well to take into consideration all the circumstances in which it was made and then study its contents. The entire first half of the resolution deals with the program and aspirations of �SLOVAKIA 83 the Slovak League designed to guarantee the Slovak nation the absolute right of self-determination. Then follows this controversial paragraph: Let it be further resolved that to realize these aforementioned objectives, the Slovak League in America is willing to establish communication with the Slovak national council for the purpose of cooperating in matters that would benefit the Slovak nation and actualize the above program. Other 'insurance clauses' are also incorporated in the message in order to be on the safe side when dealing with the Slovak national council. In no manner was this a de facto recognition of the Slovak national council by the Slovak League but merely a statement of willingness to discuss mutually all phases of the Slovak problem, one may speak with someone without adopting his views or accepting his proposals, and in this case it was an expression of mere willingness to sit down and discuss the Slovak nation's problems of the present and map the future destiny of Slovakia. Personally, Msgr. Dubosh, the president of the Slovak League, described the entire affair as a resolution declaring a willingness to discuss the matter, nothing less, nothing more. Confirmation of the motives and genuine approach to the problem by the Slovak League of America on this occasion is made on the basis of the fact that as soon as the Slovak League administration got the record straight from Slovakia and diagnosed the case correctly, the Slovak League did not make any further attempts to get in touch officially with the so-called Slovak national council. Among the Slovaks in America this episode caused a. great deal of excitement and the Slovak League had to issue a public statement to clarify the matter. In its public statement, the Slovak League declared the Slovak national council guilty of deceit, and since it showed no inclination of guaranteeing freedom for the Slovak nation for which the League had always fought and would continue to fight, the traditional position of the Slovak League was emphatically repeated, namely, that the platform adopted at the 26th Congress of the Slovak League was still the guideline for the future policy of the League. A policy of �84 SLOVAKIA 'watchful waiting' would be pursued and the League officers would be more than wary where the Slovak national council was concerned. American Activity of the Slovak League The Slovak League of America is an organization of American citizens of Slovak ancestry. Consequently , it invariably coordinates its program and activities with the program and political policy of the United States. Beginning in 1907 and continuing up to now, the Slovak League, uesides its avowed program for the welfare of the Slovak nation in its homeland, was always actively engaged in work that was exclusively designed for the benefit and national interests of America. What was true in World War I, as far as the activity of the Slovak League was concerned, was more than doubly true in World War II. Perhaps Dr. Hodza's description of this united program suffices (as quoted above) to prove this. His words of commendatio n in the message to the Slovak League Congress constitute a remarkable testimony of its manifold contributions . Loyalty and fidelity, Hodza listed as among the foremost virtues of the American Slovaks because his fellow countrymen always felt that their faithfulness to the U.S., their adopted country, must ever be profound and complete. When, therefore, this country became involved in the war against nazism, the Slovak League joined America with all its resources for the strife. Never has the Slovak League boasted of this American activity. Actually it was a duty to be performed and no need to publicize it. But Benes and his alien propagandists incessantly attacked the Slovak League in American circles and assailed it as a nazi agency, and therefore, an enemy to the national interests of America, and even contrary to the Slovak League's program in behalf of Slovakia! Monsignor Dubosh, who had to combat the malicious propaganda levelled at the Slovak League of America, had to swallow many a bitter pill on this account, and only because of his devotion to America - and his love for the Slovak nation . Undoubtedly, the best argument in favor of the Slovak �SLOVAKIA 85 League was its activity for the welfare of America. This action included the following: 1) The Slovak League Campaign for U.S. War Bonds Merely to have a birds-eye view of the gigantic patriotic efforts of the Slovak League in behalf of the U.S., it is sufficient to cite a few facts and figures. Under the dynamic leadership of the patriotic Father John J. Lach the Slovak League gave full support to a war-bond campaign. From the report by Father Lach at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. on October 17-18, 1944, we learn that under Slovak League sponsorship approximately 53 million dollars' worth of bonds were purchased during World War II. This and similar cases attest to the loyalty of Slovak individuals and their societies throughout the country. Who can doubt the sincere patriotism of the American Slovaks or deny their loyalty? 2) Airplanes War bonds were not the only means by which American Slovaks supported the war effort. One of its activities was the purchase of airplanes for the U.S. Airforce. First, the Slovensk<i Obrana, edited and published by Michael Bosak, Jr., Scranton, Pa., opened the campaign for three airplanes. Chicago's Osadne Hlasy weekly joined the campaign. The fund brought in $31,000. The ceremony of presenting a trio of training planes to the U.S. armed forces occured at the Cleveland airport on May 29, 1943. Each plane bore the slogan, "Spirit of the Slovak League of America," but even on this occasion the Czech propagandists tried to reap undeserved honors by claiming this act to be a part of their program. Monsignor Dubosh reported to the 25th Congress of the Slovak League: This was a capital idea, which, naturally, our Czechoslovak 'friends' tried to exploit for their benefit just as they tried to do last year when the Slovaks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland purchased war bonds. Their propaganda machine gave credit to 'Czechs' and Czechoslovaks. Such are our so-called brothers . . . everything we have they consider their very own. 3) Warships Liberty ships, three of them, bore the names submitted by the Slovak League in recognition of its highly successful war-bond campaign. Elaborate ceremonies marked �BG SLOVAKIA the launching of the "Stephen Furdek," "Sgt. Matej Kocak," and the "General Milan R. Stefanik." Altogether this variety of activity brought the Slovak League and the American Slovaks widespread publicity and recognition. They were the most telling arguments to refute libelous propaganda aimed at the Slovak League which was unjustly smeared by its foes as anti-American and pro-nazi. The patriotic acts by the Slovak League completely vindicated the honor of the American Slovaks, and the press in America recorded them with great admiration and enthusiasm. 4) Social Action of the Slovak League Increased social and charitable deeds of the Slovak League in wartime belong to a special phase of the history of the times because this was a new form of action that vvas directly under the sponsorship of a new organizational branch, namely, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, officially known as "Slovenske Vcielky" - Slovak bees. At an executive meeting of the Slovak League on August 23, 1941, a definite plan was formulated to organize the "Slovak bees" under the leadership of Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, vice-president of the League. Accordingly, she became the president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, the official title of the 'Vcielky' group. Slovak women from all parts of America enrolled as members in the new auxiliary, which cooperated closely with the work of the Red Cross. By their unselfish service, social action and samaritan-like deeds, the American Slovak women contributed invaluable service to their country and enhanced the good name of the Slovak League and the Slovaks in America generally. Details of some of the work accomplished by the Slovak ladies auxiliary were reported at the 24th Congress of the Slovak League on February 25-26, 1943. They constitute a glorious record of achievements in the history of the American Slovaks. In one cell, alone, in Chicago more t.han 300 women were enrolled. These women presented the Red Cross with 66,900 surgical dressings, 2,246 suits of clothing for refugees ( for children and adults), 717 knitted sweaters, caps, shawls, gloves, etc. for soldiers; and �SLOVAKIA 87 455 hospital gowns. Blood was donated by 214 cells. More than 200 cells completed first-aid courses and 36 were trained in home-care of the sick. A total of 630 shipments were sent to American soldiers of Slovak ancestry. These are only a sample of the type of activities performed by the Ladies Auxiliary cells throughout the country. As soon as the war €nded, pleas for help came from Slovakia. The Ladies Auxiliary cells were the first to respond. Shipments of canned goods and clothing were immediately dispatched to the war-torn areas of Slovakia. Slovak emigrants fleeing from their war-devastated homeland were given emergency aid by the auxiliary. Value in dollars to cover this essential aid exceeds tens of thousands of American dollars that were given freely and generously for a worthy cause in the name of the Slovak League through the charitable agency of the Ladies Auxiliary of the League. This added a new chapter of charitable action to the history of the Slovak League of America. A special postwar campaign for funds under the traditional slogan, 'Za tu nasu slovencinu,' - for our Slovak mother-language-was inaugurated in the very first months after the war. This netted thousands of dollars for much needed help to the Slovaks in their home country, and to those in exile because these had lost all their worldly possessions in the war. No less important in its salutary effects, aside from the continued struggle for Slovakia's national freedom, was this social work which had as its primary source a deep American sense of patriotism and a profound Slovak and Christian philosophy of life to be of service to one's fellow man, and particularly to one's Slovak countrymen. Cultural Program of the Slovak League Versatility has marked the activity of the Slovak League of America. The cultural aspect was not neglected despite the pressure of the needs of the immediate present. In this respect a need was perceived to reach the Englishreading public for two reasons: 1) To combat the false �88 SLOVAKIA propaganda of anti-Slovak groups. 2) To furnish genuine information about the Slovak nation's history, the Slovaks in America, the Slovak League, etc. Too often, well-disposed Americans in high governmental positions were misled as to the real purpose of the Slovak League simply because they were uninformed or misinformed. The information had to be in the English language. Proposals to publish a Slovak League informational publication in English were made and approved at an executive meeting of the Slovak League on Nov. 13, 1942. It was designed both for the general American public and the young Slovak generations that no longer understood the language of their parents or grandparents. This was necessary to win the sympathy of the American public by Ehowing how important had been, and still was, the role of the Slovaks in mankind's struggle for liberty, human dignity and peace. An immediate result of this conference was the " Slovak Record " which began publication under the capable editorship of Joseph G. Prusa. The first issue appeared precisely on the 28th anniversary of the death of ~tefan Furdek, founder of the Slovak League of America. This wartime " Slovak Record" quarterly was well edited. It presented u true and clear picture of American Slovak life and thought that was reflected from its pages as if from a wellpolished mirror. The Record was listed officially as quarterly review of the Slovak League of America. Any future historian will find a wealth of material on Slovak history and the life of American Slovaks in the comparatively few issues that were published during World War II. The Slovak Record was an informative and cultural periodical, which for the first time presented a great many literary and political facts to the American public. Moreover, it acquainted many readers with the history, culture and aspirations of the Slovak nation. Congressmen and high officials in our government received the Slovak Record. So did American radio stati ons, newspaper offices and libraries. In a word, it was distributed where it would do the most good for the Slovak cause. Unfortunately, the Slovak Record ceased publication �SLOVAKIA 89 after two and a half years. But the year after its demise, ie., in 1946, the Slovak Review, a political magazine, and the Slovak Digest, a cultural quarterly, made their appearance. These, too, had a brief existence. Never-the-less, they did their work well while they lasted. Among other cultural projects inaugurated by the Slovak League was an American-Slovak museum. This was the work of the cultural committee which met in Cleveland in the spring of 1945. Benedictine High School was designated as the temporary center where Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S .B., a young, talented American-Slovak historian and journalist, had already established an extensive Slovak library under the auspices of St. Andrew's Abbey. As director of the newly-established Slovak museum, Father Pir obtained permission from Abbot Stanislaus Gmuca, O.S .B. to have a special room as the cultural center for Slovak books , historical records, museum articles, etc. at the Abbey in Cleveland. This later was destined to become the Slovak Institute established in 1952 by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S .B. who named Dr. Francis Hrusovsky as the first director. On a high cultural level were all the memoranda and other publications of the Slovak League of America; all issued in behalf of Slovak national freedom and sent to the highest American political quarters. The most important of these perhaps was "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood" in 1943. Representatives of the Slovak League at the International Conference in San Francisco 1945 This historic conference of allied nations was called to decide the national destinies of peoples all over the world, but particularly in Europe The fate of the Slovaks was also to be determined there. Never amiss where the welfare of the Slovak nation was concerned, the Slovak League was anxious to present the Slovak problem and all its ramifications at this world parley. It particularly wanted to present the just right of the Slovak nation. Although the Slovak League had the right to seek and obtain representation officially at the �90 SLOVAKIA conference, its delegates were denied entry because the Czechoslovaks usurped this right by securing official admittance as the spokesmen for Slovakia. Ironically, Jan Masaryk, one of the most prominent Czechs, was registered as a Slovak! Failure to secure official recognition for its representatives prompted the executive council of the Slovak League to send an observer. As an observer, Rev. John J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, was selected to represent the Slovak League at the San Francisco conference. He remained there in that capacity from April 25 to June 21. Msgr. Milos Mlynarovic accompanied him. It was difficult for them even to obtain entry, and impossible for a pass to attend some of the meetings . In fact, Jan Masaryk's Czechoslovak delegation sought to have them excluded entirely. Nevertheless, Father Lach ~ucceeded by skillful maneuvering to outwit his opponents. He got a registration card with full credentials as an official observer for the proceedings. Since Father Lach was not permitted a voice at the conference, he visited delegations of a number of nationality groups and informed them of the Slovak cause, stressing especially the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and nationhood. Although it did not have any influence on Jan Masaryk, Father Lach's visit to his office at least emphasized the fact that the Slovaks had their rights and that the Slovak League of America stood foursquare behind them in their struggle for freedom and nationhood. Upon his return from San Francisco, Father Lach reported the outcome of his presence at the International Conference as follows: In conclusion, I want to say that always and everywhere I emphasized the good work of the Slovak League and I explained its program as a noble and worthy endeavor that is nothing more or less than a program for the welfare of the American Slovaks and the Slovak nation's destiny as a free people in their historic homeland. I told them of my conviction that the Slovaks as a nation with an individual entity and a glorious history must have a place of honor among the nations of the world , a place that the United Nations must one day officially assign to them in the family of nations. One must not under-estimate the importance of this attempt for world recognition at an international forum �SLOVAKIA 91 by a Slovak League delegate. Had there been direct communication with Slovakia instead of being forced to rely on Jan Masaryk, self-appointed as he was to represent the Slovaks, things might have worked out differently. Yet, the fact remains the Slovak League tried, and the attempt, though unsuccessful, was, none-the-less, a noble if futile gesture in behalf of a down-trodden Slovak nation. The battle in San Francisco with the Czechoslovak faction led by Dr. Benes and Jan Masaryk was lost mainly because they used utterly false propaganda to discredit the Slovak nation and its cause. In this case truth, which Thomas Masaryk liked to talk about so much, did not prevail, instead a neatly-bound pack of Czechoslovak lies doomed the Slovak people to domination by the Czechs again in the postwar era. Perseverance in I deals - Endurance in Combat Not even when the United Nations officially granted recognition to Czecho-Slovakia did the Slovak League throw in the towel. It retained its program intact and continued its fight for the Slovak nation's cause of freedom . Attorney Peter P. Jurcak, a writer and political leader from Pennsylvania, succeeded Msgr. Dubosh as president in 1945. He discussed at great length the Slovak League's program and ideals with Husek, Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh, all former presidents. Jozef Husek soon afterwards retired from public life because of illness. But both Dr. Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh remained at the side of Jurcak, the new president, and gave him their whole-hearted cooperation in the unending fight for the rights of the Slovak nation. Like a strong tree that looses its dry branches in 8, storm but continues to grow stronger, so the Slovak League of America thrives and grows taller and more mighty than ever before. The war that subjected the Slovak League to violent attacks only tested it and proved its vitality and power. It stands a living monument to the heroic courage of the stalwart sons of Slovakia and their unceasing fight for the sacred rights to justice, truth and liberty for their nation beneath the Tatras. Once more the Slovak League takes the offensive in 1946. It addresses an appeal to the President of the United �92 SLOVAKIA States and to Congress, as well as to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The appeal in behalf of the Slovak national cause of freedom reviews the history of the Slovaks, calls attention to their struggle for freedom and explains their sad experience of trying to live with the Czechs in one state. According to the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the Slovak League makes a request for a plebiscite in Slovakia under the supervision of the United Nations to give the Slovaks the opportunity to decide in a free election whether they wish to continue to live in a political union with the Czechs, or whether they want their own independent state; or if they prefer to be incorporated in a federation of free, self-governing states in central Europe. The State Department and Congressmen are kept well informed of the injustices suffered by the Slovaks in the past and present by the Slovak League's news agency and information in the nation's capital. Finally, the true facts about the Slovak Republic are available to American statesmen in Washington, D.C. For too long a time our American leaders in public life were kept shamelessly misinformed by Dr. Benes and his cohorts of false propagandists. Genuine information b now provided from first-hand experiences of Slovak emigrants who lived under the regime of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. At long last, too, we know the true facts about the so-called Slovak revolt of 1944 and the distorted picture of wartime Slovakia is coming sharply into proper focus. Meantime, too, the Slovak League of America maintains a full-time political, cultural and social program. Culturally, the work begun by the Slovak Record quarterly is carried on by the Slovak Review and the Slovak Digest quarterlies. Moreover, President Jurcak has published his book The Slovaks-Their History and Traditions, which is doing good work in behalf of the Slovak nation by a concise review of the history of Slovakia. Slovak music is perhaps the best means to reach the young generation. In this field the Slovak League plans a score of concerts by Slovak artists. At the suggestion of Msgr. Dubosh, the Slovak League �SLOVAKIA 93 is inaugurating a National Fund campaign to which every American Slovak is asked to contribute at least a quarter a year. During its struggle the past several years, the Slovak League administration discovered that finances are essential to carry on effective work for realizing high ideals. Perhaps the most urgent task at the present is the publication of books and periodicals about the Slovak nation in the English language . Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, the president of the Slovak League's ladies auxiliary, continues to inspire greater efforts in behalf of an extensive social and charitable program to help war-torn Slovakia as well as to provide necessary funds and help to Slovak emigrants who were forced to escape to the west. Under her dynamic leadership the Slovak 'Vcielky' - bees have accomplished an incredible amount of good work by providing for immediate needs of food, shelter and clothing for the people of Slovakia and for those who had to leave their homeland to save their very lives. Truly, the 'Vcielky' have shown themselves to be loving mothers by their dedication and devotion to their Slovak children in need. The Program approaches its zenith As we follow the ideological development of the Slovak League of America, from the year of its founding, 1907, to the present, we note that it passed through several phases that ran concurrently with the evolution of the idea of Slovak independent statehood. Three cities and a trio of Slovak League Congresses are historic milestones in the gradual development of an idea and an Ideal: Slovak national freedom. They are : Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit where nation-wide Congresses of American Slovak representatives took progressive strides towards the fulfilment of the Slovak ideal of political liberty. We are justified in declaring that the struggle of all Slovak generations has been the fight for a Slovak state as the highest fulfillment of the aspirations of an entire nation, namely, the achievement of national freedom . This idea was not born on March 14, 1939. It merely became a reality on that memorable day. It had first sprung to life �94 SLOVAKIA in Svatopluk's time in the 9th century, came back to life as an ideal in the era of Bernolak. Holly, stur and Hurban, during the early 19th century, was again very much alive during the struggle led by Andrej Hlinka before and during the era of the Czecho-Slovak Republic of World War I vintage, until the idea came ultimately to full maturity on March 14, 1939, with the founding of the Slovak Republic. Ideologically, the aim of the Slovak League was always in this direction because it invariably and reliably reflected the degree of Slovak aspirations for self-government in Slovakia itself. As a happy coincidence and consequence the Slovak League of America never presented a false image of the Slovak nation. Despite the temporary set-back inflicted on the Slovak League by Dr. Benes's false propagandists, the fact that the Slovak League stood firm in defense of the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and selfgoverning statehood only confirms the amazing similarity of objectives of the Slovak nation and its great champion overseas, the Slovak League of America. There never has been, therefore, any major divergence of views or objectives between the two. Detroit (Michigan) was host to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League on October 29, 1946. It proved to be a dramatic convention. All the cards were placed on the table at this historic Detroit Congress. Dr. Benes who had promised to make Czecho-Slovakia an island of democracy had just announced that he had placed the reorganized state into the hands of Moscow, and thereby surrendered central Europe to Communism. International developments reached a crisis soon so that there was an immediate cleavage between the East and West. Dr. Benes chose the East with communism and Soviet dictatorship that seized complete control of all countries under various pretexts in the Russian orbit. The Iron Curtain was about to come down and divide Europe into two hostile camps. In direct opposition to Dr. Benes, the Slovak League made its momentous decision. Moreover, the Slovak nation, too, in the May elections of 1946 cast more than a % democratic majority vote while the communist party in �SLOVAKIA 95 Slovakia garnered considerably less than a third of the total vote in the country . Slovak statehood as the most responsible form of political organization had been cherished for ages by the Slovak nation. In modern times this ideal was upheld admirably by the Slovak League of America. At its 26th Congress in Detroit, the Slovak League unanimously adopted a declaration favoring independent statehood for the Slovaks in their historic homeland ( since the 5th century A.D . the Slovaks have lived in their present country ). Dr. Peter Hletko, M.D. headed the special committee that had drawn up this declaration: "The Committee of the future program has taken into consideration the whole world situation, and in relationship to it the present status of the Slovak nation's aspirations to liberty; also the mind of the American Slovaks. After much deliberation and discussion, therefore, this committee submits the following program with confidence that its ideas and proposals will win approval and adoption at this Congress so that all of the supreme officers, the various local officials and all the assemblies of the Slovak League throughout America will accept this program as its very own. "The proposed program for the future destiny of the Slovaks is designed to coordinate all of our efforts so that by unified action we can reach our common goal that will be of immense value to the Slovaks in their home country and to the American Slovaks, too. "Our stand in the Slovak League of America, therefore, requires that we clarify our policies on a number of issues. Consequently, we propose to express precisely what position we take in relationship to the following : The Czecho-Slovak R epublic " So far, the Slovak League of America never maintained a hostile attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We admit we criticized the government and the representatives of that country, and we came to the aid of the Slovak nation in its struggle for a recognition of its just rights, and we condemned the injustices perpetrated on the Slovak people, but we never advocated nor took any �ga SLOVAKIA steps to destroy the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia even when our detractors labelled us unjustly as the destroyers of this state. "Not even after the Slovaks established their own state six months before World War II, nor during the entire conflict when Czechoslovak adherents were busily planning to reconstruct Czecho-Slovakia, did the Slovak League in America declare itself in opposition to a renewal of that country, but it unequivocally maintained the right of selfdetermination for the Slovak nation and it openly fought for this right to be exercised by the Slovaks freely to determine what type of self-government they wished and what form of state administration they wanted as the will of the majority of the Slovak people. "We often repeated our views that if the Slovaks were granted the opportunity to express their will freely as to what form of government they wished to have, or what type of state or federation they preferred, and even if they should choose Czecho-Slovakia all over again, we said that we would be completely _satisfied and would not disagree or opposE: their choice. We insisted, however, and fought for the right of the Slovak nation during World War II that once Europe and the world would be reorganized after the conflict the Slovaks must be guaranteed a free vote, subject to no pressure, violence or force - in a word, complete freedom to express their own national will . "In spite of every assurance by the great powers, however, and contrary to various world declarations, by which all nations, particularly the small ones, were given high hopes of liberation, freedom and independence, and despite the Atlantic Charter which won the trust of all the small nations but which was discarded once the objectives for which it was proclaimed were secure, and in spite of all the promises for free expression and choice of the future destiny of the Slovaks, f:.bsolutely no opportunity was given to the Slovak nation for making a free choice at all. "Simply and definitely once more the Slovaks were thrown back into the Benes's pre-fabricated structure, namely, the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. It was explained that this was necessary in order to re-establish the pre- �SLOVAKIA 97 Munich status quo but this was sheer deceit, for the restoration of the pre-Munich status quo was only done whenever and wherever it was to the advantage of a number of world-powers, if it was not to their advantage, there was simply no restoration at all. "Neither the so-called national revolt, nor the Kosice agreement were manifestations of the Slovak nation's will, and therefore there was no obligation on the part of the Slovaks to return to Czecho-Slovakia. No one asked the Slovaks their preference - all at once they found themselves back in the old, slightly-mended Czecho-Slovakia. "As we have noted on the very first occasion that the Slovaks had to manifest their will and they did so by an overwhelming majority of more than two-thirds against communism but this was not counted in any way-and the Slovak nation was retained as an oppressed nation under communist rule . . . and has remained under communist dictatorship since 1946. "Nevertheless, the Slovaks were not granted a choice to vote on the issue if they wanted to remain in the old Czecho-Slovak Republic or not. They were forced to accept the fait accompli situation with the Czechs again in power. This injustice is all the greater since we know and are firmly convinced that the Slovak nation been given an opportunity of free choice, it certainly would have voted overwhelmingly against being re-attached to Benes's postwar creation, Czecho-Slovakia III. "Apparently the Slovaks have a semblance of autonomy in postwar Czecho-Slovakia but this does not alter the fact that they were denied their freedom of choice. Moreover, the Republic is officially named Czechoslovakia and continues to be written without the controversial hyphen (it should be Czecho-Slovakia). As it is now, this jndicates that the new government is still imbued with the spirit of the false and artificial identity of a Czechoslovak nation. A return to the 'old sins' presages a gradual taking away of self-government from the Slovaks because Benes has reiterated his belief that the Slovaks must not be permitted to have 'wild dreams of self-rule.' "Czech centralism still rules, for Slovak administration is subject to Praha. For these, and other reasons not �98 SLOVAKIA mentioned, we are forced to come to the conclusion that inevitably we must restrain our tolerant policy and favorable attitude to the Czecho-Slovak state by abandoning what we American Slovaks for so many years held as proper and hopeful for the future. The present demands another policy, hence, we stand in opposition to the new, illegal Czecho-Slovakia and we now emphasize the fact that the Slovaks were wronged as a nation. We intend to inform the great powers and the whole world of this grave injustice because the Slovaks were forced into the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. " As free American Slovaks we further protest that the Slovak nation is held in political bondage in a state that leans away from western democracy and is helping to create an anti-democratic bloc while the Slovaks are truly democratic-minded as they surely indicated by the recent vote that left no doubt of their resistance to communist influence and infiltration from the East. The Slovak State "Many good and sound reasons would prompt the Slovaks to vote against re-attaching Slovakia to the newlyre-created Czecho-Slovakia, and that by a vast majority of votes against re-union, for while the Slovaks were discriminated against in pre-war Czecho-Slovakia, the same is true today. "Under their own regime in their own Slovak Republic the Slovaks were happy and prosperous, they worked and progressed economically, politically, culturally, they built, created and developed a new life of their own. Never before were the Slovaks so content with their lot. This good fortune not even the enemies of the Slovak State can deny . The record of the Slovak Republic speaks for itself. "World conditions in wartime brought temporary prosperity not only to America but to other countries, too. Nevertheless, prosperity for the Slovak state, though necessarily stimulated by the war, had as its permanent basis the industry, ingenuity and inspiration of the Slovak nation that was vitally interested in its destiny. The Slovak people cooperated splendidly and enthusiastically in the building of their own self-governing state. �SLOVAKIA 99 "Dependence, to some extent, upon its powerful neighbor, Germany, was a natural relationship, for small nations always depend upon strong nations in time of peace or war. Here it must be noted, however, that neither England, the U.S. nor the USSR were of any assistance to the Slovak Republic . "Every small state seeks protection and security wherever it can. The Slovak state needed protection for national survival. Yet, it must be affirmed that the Slovak Republic was not a gift to the Slovaks from either the Germans or their leader, Hitler. Further, the Slovak state was not a German creation. On the contrary, the Slovaks had to defend their country against German machinations, and intrigues of other nations. The Slovak Republic was truly the result of the aspirations of the Slovak nation for freedom and their own state. A free state is the zenith and fulfillment of the highest and noblest ideals of every nation. "A return to limited rights, or a surrender of all rights of the Slovak nation by the involuntary incorporation of the Slovak people in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, is a step backwards and definitely contrary to sttir's motto: 'We cannot go backward - We must go forward.' "Our duty is to inform and influence the world in this direction, namely, the renewal of a free Slovak Republic, the existence of which is at the same time the obligation of all the nations of the world . "Unconditionally, the Slovak League of America urges the great powers to re-establish the Slovak Republic because in it the Slovak nation found its true destiny, enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom, and made unpresedented progress in every phase of its national culture. The Slovak League and Dr. Tiso "Dr. Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak Republic, had the welfare of the Slovak nation at heart. Not even his enemies can deny that he was sincere in his efforts to insure the national well-being of the Slovak people in their own, free and independent state. While many others fled to safety after resigning high positions, Dr. Tiso remained in his country to serve it in a grave crisis. To minimize �100 SLOVAKIA his virtues and magnify his faults, mistakes, methods, policies etc., is easy, but it will not change the facts that despite his real or imaginary administrative deficiencies he not only succeeded in saving the Slovak nation from destruction but supervised the Slovak state so admirably that the people in Slovakia enjoyed peace, prosperity and great cultural and economic progress. "Nobody can erase the true image of Dr. Tiso as a kind, just and wise president of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation reveres his memory today despite the attempts of the enemy to destroy that image by false propaganda spread throughout the world. We are horrified at the malice of our enemies who seek to brand President Tiso as a traitor to his Slovak nation and as such are planning to try him in a court-of-law ... the impending trial, of course, to be supervised by his enemies and the enemies of the Slovak nation. "To defend Dr. Tiso is our most solemn duty. We must arouse world opinion in his favor to offset the slanderous campaign against him. It is quite obvious that the efforts to discredit his good name is done with a vengeance, and H our enemies succeed in unjustly dishonoring him they will wreak their utmost revenge upon him. And it would be a great crime of gross injustice against a just man and the Slovak nation. "Dr. Tiso is not a war criminal. He did not torture anyone, he did not execute one person, or give orders to execute anyone. Father Tiso did not commit any crime. He was the great defender and benefactor of his country which he served with distinction and honor. The Slovak National Council "Much has been written and discussed about the socalled Slovak national council. Our position towards this organization remains unchanged. We still regard it as an agency that has usurped power and authority because it was not elected or authorized by the Slovaks, nor approved de facto by the Slovak nation, and consequently in a democratic system it is not a legal body and has no legal standing or jurisdiction. �SLOVAKIA 101 The Slovak Liberation Committee "Against no one who wishes to work conscientiously for the liberation of the Slovak nation does the Slovak League of America have any arguments. In fact it welcomes any positive action. However, to achieve success there is need for a common united front - not a faction or several factions. "Assumption of definite rights and obligations is the prerogative of the Slovak League of America because it is recognized as the highest cultural-political organization of American Slovaks, and as such it wants to retain this preeminent position and prestige by the pursuit of a prudent policy and by its charitable activities . Therefore, if anyone desires to participate in a national program involving the Slovak League must, necessarily coordinate his efforts with the program of the Slovak League. He must never misuse the name of the League, nor use the name prematurely without being properly authorized to do so. "Our organization has experienced many crises but has ultimately taken the proper stand on many intricate problems and questions mainly because it has acted discretely, carefully, and always adopted a course of action only after a thorough study of all the problems involved. It has refrained from following the opinion of this or that 5ndividual and hence has avoided being influenced by the enthusiasm of individuals, often admirable, but too often erroneous. "We do not condemn the Slovak Action Committee, nor do we suspect its aims, but because this committee has committed a number of errors of judgment and because its program does not assure us of the successful liberation of the Slovak nation at this time, and finally, because as yet we have not come to any agreement with its spokesmen, the Slovak League of America maintains its friendly attitude but continues its traditional policy of watchful waiting towards this committee. "Never has the Slovak League in America lost out in much more serious affairs by 'watchful waiting,' and we believe it will not lose anything by keeping this policy. Be it noted well, that the use of sharp and bitter phrases �l.02 SLOVAKIA against Slovak leaders in America or Europe, or the general attitude, which gives the impression that the Slovak Action Committee wants to by-pass, ignore or sabotage the action of the Slovak League of America, certainly does not constitute the best means of winning the friendship, confidence or cooperation of the League . "We are well informed that the Slovak Action Committee must come to friendly terms with other prominent persons in Europe who have the best interests of the Slovak nation at heart. These must not exclude each other by mutual disagreement or refusal to arrive at mutual understanding. "Until that time when all the responsible Slovak leaders meet and agree on a common program in behalf of the Slovak nation's fight for freedom and welfare, the Slovak League cannot give an unqualified endorsement to the Slovak Action Committee. What is far more important in this case is that the American government will not sanction our formal union with the activity of the Slovak Action Committee. The Three 'Isms "Against the trio of the present three 'isms: nazism, fascism, and communism, the Slovak League has gone on record long ago. The first two are vanquished. We, too, helped to crush them. But our stand against the third one, namely, communism, has not changed. We will not stop fighting until this one, too, is completely destroyed. "American public opinion is subject to various changes but we remain unchanged and unmoved in our position to communism. It is necessary to do everything possible in opposition to it because the sooner we get rid of this 'ism the sooner will Slovakia be liberated and the less will America suffer from its intrigues, plots and machinations. "Communism today has a death-grip on Slovakia, and the Slovaks are helpless. If it were not for this alien power, the Slovak nation would easily dispose of Benes, the Czechoslovaks and the Czech imperialists. And communist bayonets which escorted Benes to power in Praha keep the Slovaks imprisoned in their own country while they �SLOVAKIA 103 keep Benes in his position as head of the post-war Czechoslovak satellite of the Soviet Union. "As loyal Americans, as true Slovaks, and as Christians, too, it is our sacred duty to fight communism no matter where it appears, except perhaps in Moscow, if they want it there let them keep it there." When at one of its very first sessions, Vice-President Pavol Jamriska, presiding chairman, gave a brief review of the above declaration and the position taken by the Slovak League of America, there was a spontaneous outburst of applause The vote was unanimously in approval and all the subsequent sessions were conducted in this spirit. Everyone present sensed the importance of this momentous decision and when Dr . Peter P. Hletko finished reading the detailed program of the Slovak League the approval was unanimous. The Canadian Slovak League, which was holding its convention simultaneously, adopted the American Slovak League's resolution and proclamation. Embattled in their homeland, the Slovaks have found a true champion in the Slovak League of America which once again supports their noble cause of political liberty, cultural freedom, economic opportunity and, in our day, the added sacred cause of religious freedom. These foregoing facts are merely segments from many pages of the illustrious history of the Slovak League. Its history will undoubtedly some day be enshrined as a glorious chapter in the history of the Slovak nation. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA heartily commends all efforts of our governmental and other organs to ferret out and unmask all Communists and fellow travellers, as well as all persons and organizations who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism promoted by the Soviet Union. � SLOVAKIA 63 SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND INDEPENDENT SLOVAKIA By Mikulds Sprinc On October 6, 1938, when the Slovaks attained autonomy and the Pittsburgh Agreement was incorporated into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, the Slovak League in America had a great and unquestioned share in the great event. In the days that followed there was an outburst of fresh enthusiasm. The Slovaks were beginning to build their own new national home on the pattern of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Slovakia fully appreciated the support which had been given the country by the Slovak League in America for the attainment of its self-government. The Slovak nation immediately wanted to know about the life of the American Slovaks because a mutual affection and friendship develops through knowledge and understanding. Konstantin Culen, a dynamic writer and ace newspaperman, was sent by Karol Sidor and the Slovak autonomous government to the U.S. His chief role was to establish closer cultural ties with the American Slovaks and to write a history of the Slovaks in America, - and as a secondary purpose, to act as a life-line between the Slovaks in their homeland and their fellow countrymen overseas; also, to maintain communication between the American Slovak organizations and the Slovaks at home. What the attitude of the Slovak League was towards the new form of Slovak national life in the old country was at this time we readily deduce from the special meeting of the executive committee of the Slovak League on March 2-3, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa. We read the following minutes : "President Rusek warmly welcomed the distinguished guest, Konstantin Culen, from Slovakia. The Slovak emissary thanked him sincerely and in his brief response expressed his feelings and extended the greetings of the Slovak government and parliament to all the American Slovaks. The applause was spontaneous and enthusiastic." In another section of the above minutes of the same �64 SLOVAKIA meeting, culen's impressions of the public reaction in Slovakia to the first session of the Slovak parliament in Bratislava are recorded as follows: "We were indeed sorry that there were no American Slovaks present at the opening session of the first Slovak parliament in history. The places reserved for you were vacant. But since you were absent from this historic session, I feel sure you will be represented at the next session, the second one, at which the Slovak parliament will discuss the Constitution. You must come, and others, too, from all over America." How vitally interested. the Slovak League of America was in the matter of Slovak autonomy in 1939 is evident from the same special executive meeting, for a nominating committee was named to select a delegation to visit Slovakia. This committee immediately chose the following: Ivan Bielek, J . A. Kocur, Jozef Rusek, Mrs. Gabriela Vavrek r.nd Dr. Peter P . Hletko, alternates were P . Jamriska, Rev. Klemo Hrtanek. Rev. Florian Billy, Andrej Suroviak and Michal Sincak. Jozef Rusek, the president, was designated to head the special delegation, which received unanimous approval. It was decided at the meeting that the Slovak League delegation should take the original Pittsburgh Agreement document and present it to the Slovak nation 'with due ceremonies' - and added remark in the minutes. The executive committee of the Slovak League made this decision on the basis of the previous Congress of the Slovak League which had approved the proposal to surrender the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement, a precious historical document, and present it officially to the Slovak parliament as soon as the political requirements guaranteed to the Slovak nation were fulfilled and carried out as outlined .3pecifically in the pact. A fund raising campaign to help Slovakia was organized, which again shows the enthusiastic support in behalf of the freedom of Slovakia by the Slovak League of America. This received the unanimous approval of all present because they realized how important it was to lend a helping hand at this particular time of the Slovak nation's history. Practically everybody pledged his aid. Mr. Kridlo res- �SLOVAKIA 65 ponded first. His organization ( the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union) voted $150 and promised to contact all of its branches for donations. Virostek, Jamriska, Dlhos, Salva and Kostolnik spoke approvingly - Kostolnik presented a check from the Federation of Slovak Societies in Detroit and later sent in the sum of $270 which he had personally collected for aid to Slovakia. Good will and generosity were in evidence everywhere for this good and worthy cause. The Slovak League records show the magnanimity of our people on this occasion. One feels anew the spirit of the times of Furdek and the first campaign of the American Slovaks during World War I. It is no wonder that the Slovak League rejoiced, for this was the first time since the fall of its kingdom of Moravia (at the beginning· of the 10th century) that the Slovaks had their own national parliament and were assured self-government. The Slovak State and the Slovak League of America Slovakia's struggle of two decades ended on a triumphant note of victory and the Slovak League had had a major share in the winning of national autonomy. But Divine Providence decreed that the Slovak nation should have not only self-government but an independent Slovak state. From October, 1938, to March, 1939, the Slovak spirit of national pride reached its highest point of development and it became increasingly clear that Slovakia was ripe not only for autonomy but for a complete, self-governing state. Meantime, Slovakia was ridding itself of Czechs whom the Slovak autonomous government sent home to Prague. Treaty-breaking Czechs who bitterly assailed the emergence of a new Slovakia and plotted to take autonomy away from the Slovak nation by force of arms, even though the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic solemnly guaranteed it. Under the heavy pressure of the European political situation and subject to aggression by Germany, the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia fell apart at the seams. At the same time the Slovaks who were united under their own . national parliament and government in Bratislava �65 SLOVAKIA cheered the unanimous decision of the parliament to declare the Slovak nation's independence and the establishment of an independent Slovak state, the Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. These events in the history of the Slovak nation are m omentous and unforgettable. No one pressurized the Slovak parliament on March 14, 1939, to its unanimous declaration to organize its own, free self-governing and sovereign state. If the idea of Slovak statehood had not been ripe, and if the legally constituted body of Slovak representatives had not grasped that this was the final phase of the Slovak struggle for self-government, if they had not realized that their unanimous vote for independence was in harmony with the will of the vast majority of the Slovak people, they would have timidly surrendered to the tragic circumstances of having their country torn asunder by neighbors who had never been true friends but covetous foes of the 8.lovak nation. Fully conscious of their opportunity, responsibility and dangers ahead, they decided to go forward as a free nation towards its destiny. Germany's hand of friendship was extended, it had not been solicited, but now that it was given, it was accepted because a refusal would have not only been inexpedient but perhaps suicidal in view of the political tension of the times. No one can justly blame the Slovaks for the acceptance cf German support. They could not know in advance that in the future their self-proclaimed champion would become barbaric and inhumane, nor could they foresee future developments when actually on March 14, 1939, the Germans solemnly announced that they had no territorial demands other than the Sudeten lands . From every angle the Slovak state was to become in reality what the Slovak nation dreamed about and fought ior through the centuries, namely, the highest development of a nation's genius as the result of the embodiment of Slovak rights to freedom and independent progress, a renewal of the glorious and triumphant tradition of Slovak princes and rulers, the fulfillment of the aspirations of all Slovak generations, the actualization of the right to �SLOVAKIA 67 regulate their own affairs by themselves, and for themselves, and for their own Slovak welfare and happiness in building and maintaining their own free, national state. This was their golden destiny. At no time had the renaissance of the Slovak national spirit soared to such heights of glory as during the Slovak Republic. Never before had the country's administration been in the hands of native Slovaks and never before had the Slovaks worked so hard and so willingly, or paid their taxes so readily as then. Slovak lands for the first time in history produced everything in abundance for the benefit of the Slovaks who finally ruled and governed themselves, and were masters of their national destiny. As nothing but destruction and ruin met the eye beyond the borders of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia enjoyed a period of phenomenal growth and prosperity. The Slovaks gave their Republic a democratic Constitution while totalitarianism and dictatorship surrounded them on every side. Slovak statesmen constructed their political edifice on the foundations of God's law and providence at a time when everywhere in Europe Christian morality was being almost universally supplanted by the savage cult of force and a new pagan philosophy. Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko recalled the universal acclamation that had greeted the founding of the Slovak Republic and he spoke of the Slovak state openly at the procommunistic trial held in Bratislava after the war. His testimony clearly indicates that the declaration of Slovak independence on March 14, 1939, was the occasion for a spontaneous celebration throughout Slovakia. Catholics and Protestants rejoiced alike . Every true Slovak was genuinely pleased and happy at the turn of events that brought the Slovak nation its own free, independent state. Moreover, he began to appreciate more and more the many opportunities to develop his native talents for his individual welfare, as well as for the benefit of his own country. For too long he had been denied these opportunities because of alien rule. Slovak League archives contain the following text of a letter from a Protestant school inspector in Slovakia: �68 SLOVAKIA It was adressed to Jozef Rusek, President, Slovak League of America, Pittsburgh, Pa. The text of the letter: Teachers of the Slovak school inspectors' committee in Trencin who have taken the oath of loyalty to the Slovak state, gratefully recall your vigorous fight for the recognition of the independence of our Slovak nation. In this free Slovak state we will work with might and main, God helping us, for the spiritual and material welfare of our nation and state. We respectfully request your aid, Mr. President, so that we may succeed in our common endeavor. With the approval of the teachers I send you sincere greetings from the 'old country.' With sentiments of profound esteem, Na straz! - On Guard, Michal Balafovic, School Inspector in Trencin, Slovakia This is only one of many expressions of hope, confidence and joy that greeted the founding of the free, Slovak state, and as usual, was accompanied by a message of gratitude addressed to the Slovak League of America. Not even for a moment did the Slovak League hesitate to take its proper stand on the question of the newly-created Slovak state. Accordingly, at an executive meeting on May l 2, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa., the officers formulated the official reaction on the basis of the recommendations made by the president, Jozef Rusek, namely: 1) Establish a special committee to draw up a Memorandum to 1e addressed to the governments of the U.S., Britain and France in the interests of and for the recognition of the Slovak state, a revision of the boundaries, and a provision to guarantee the cultural rights of 700,000 Slovaks residing inside Hungary. 2) Designate a reporter from the Slovak League and dispatch him to Slovakia to determine the situation there and investigate the exact conditions under which the Slovaks decided to terminate their alliance with the Czechs. After discussing the matter, the members at the meeting agreed to authorize the Slovak League executive officers: 1) To name the necessary committees. 2) To establish an information bureau in Washington, D.C. in order to counteract false , deceitful and slanted anti-Slovak news in the American press and furnish the American press instead with information founded on facts and the truth. 3) To edit English memoranda and pamphlets in the int.erest of the Slovak nati.on and its officially constituted �SLOVAKIA 69 free state, the Slovak Republic. 4) To take the necessary steps for a hearing in the State Department in the nation's capital in order to obtair, U.S. recognition of the Slovak Republic. All these fo:re-going resolutions are duly registered and taken verbatim from the minutes of the above meeting of the Slovak League's executive committee, May 12, 1939. They prove that the Slovak League gave prompt approval to the Slovak state. and, as always, sought to lend a helping hand by seeking to obtain the diplomatic and official recognition of the Slovak state by the United States government in Washington, D.C. On the otherhand, the Slovak state was not un-mindful of the Slovak League of America. The first president of the Slovak Republic sent a greeting by cablegram addressed directly to the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The minutes of the Congress refer to this as follows: The president announced that Dr. Jozef Tiso, the president of the Slovak Republic, sent his greetings to the Congress and he asked Dr. Peter Hletko, honorary president of the Slovak League, to read the message. Whereupon, Dr. Hletko read the cablegram informing the American Slovaks of the warmth and loyalty prevailing everywhere throughout the country to the new Slovak state. The message also indicated the immediate necessity of defending the young Republic against enemy aggression and the happy outcome of events in perilous and challenging times. Moreover, there was a note of assurance anct hope for the future destiny of the Slovak nation. Prolonged applause followed the reading of the cablegram from President Tiso. This Congress of the Slovak League in Cleveland directed the administration of the League to reply with a cablegram to Dr. Jozef Tiso, the first president of the Slovak Republic. (Minutes of the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League of America, Cleveland, Ohio, May 12-14, 1939). Czechoslovakia on the Horizon While the Slovaks in their free Slovak Republic rolled up their sleeves and went to work in full strength to build their Slovak state, and while the Slovak League took the first step to secure recognition for the newly-formed Slovak Republic by the government of the United States, the defeated, cowardly ex-president of the Czecho-Slovak Re- �70 SLOVAKIA public, Dr. Benes, appeared on the scene here with his entire entourage. History repeats itself - as in World War I his gaze was directed again towards the American Slovaks who de facto had set up the Czecho-Slovak Republic financially, so now Dr. Benes sought the sympathy and support of the Slovak League of America. He did not approach the League personally but sent his faithful servant, Dr. Juraj Slavik. Dr. Slavik therefore, appeared on May 12, 1939, at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Slavik's visit is described in the minutes of the meeting as follows: Then President Josef Husek introduced Dr. Slavik, former minister in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and requested him to state the nature of his mission. The guest speaker extended his greetings and then proceeded to explain what had happened in Slovakia, especially how the Slovak state had been created, how much of his property had been confiscated by the Slovak government, and his reasons for cooperation with Dr. Benes for the re-establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He further stated that it was Professor Tuka, Sano Mach, chief of propaganda, Karol Murgas, head of he Hlinka Guards (Militia) , and Dr. Ferdinand !>urcansky who were the instigators of a plot that enabled Hitler to destroy the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He referred to Sidor, a member of parliament, and declared that Sidor had been opposed to Slovak independence and for that reason the Hlinka party dismissed him from the Slovak government. Mr. Husek interrupted the Benes emissary and gave him a letter from Sidor who explained the events in an entirely different vein ; and even his account of why he was dropped from the formation of the new Slovak government differed substantially from Slavik's report. Reaction to Sidor's letter was simply a smile on Slavik's face when he returned the letter to Husek without comment. Various questions touching on discrimination, persecution and imprisonments to which loyal Slovaks were subjected at the hands of the central regime in Prague were directed at the visitor. Whereupon, Slavik made only feeble attempts to exonerate his Czechoslovak and Czech colleagues - and these, of course, were all in vain. His hearers remained unimpressed. Dr. Slavik's sweet talk did not win the Slovak League because now as never before it stood solidly behind the idea and reality of the free Slovak state. The official reply was clear as implied in the recommendation at the meeting: "To draw up a resolution that would concisely and clearly express the Slovak League's reasons to oppose Dr. Eduard Benes's program and leadership which were designed for the renewal of the old Czecho-Slovakia." �SLOVAKIA 71 That was a genuinely Slovak reply of the Slovak League. Dr. Slavik's visit was merely the first of several attempts to derail the Slovak League so that the people, led by Dr. Benes, might once more get the League into their clutches. Although the Slovak League remained firm, Benes did not cease his machinatio ns. Rocky Path for the Slovak League of America In the interim, the most dreadful of wars had spread throughou t Europe. All communic ations between Slovakia and the Slovak League of America was suddenly cut off. Against its will Slovakia was dragged into the conflict. As the bitter aftermath of Dr. Benes's failure to lure the Slovak League into a position of unqualified support of the Czechoslov ak camp against the Slovak state, the Czechoslovak governmen t-in-exile simply began a campaign of revenge against the League. A nationwide Czechoslov ak apparatus hit the Slovak League with a ferocious propagand a barrage. It was the intention of Benes to destroy the League by discreditin g it in Washingto n in a vicious smear campaign that sought to put the stamp of nazism on the organizatio n, labeling the Slovak League maliciously as a loyal Hitler ally, and therefore, an enemy of the U.S. and the United Nations . Against this web of lies circulated by the Czechoslov ak propagand a agency here against the Slovak League, naturally, the latter had great difficulties in meeting charges that were made arbitrarily but which could not be adequately answered because the Slovak League lacked necessary informatio n from Slovakia to refute the malicious propagand a. With no communic ation because of the war, it seemed that the Slovak League was completely at the mercy of the merciless foes of Slovak freedom who attempted to cut the vital roots of the organizatio n and destroy it forever . In fact, matters went so far that officers in the Slovak League were subjected to federal investigation on charges of being dangerous to the national interests of the U.S. as subversive elements. The Czechs had their allies in Washingto n and they were not particular about the methods and means to be used to attain their mad objective of destroying the Slovak League. �72 SLOVAKIA This was an unequal and bitterly fought contest. Benes and his informants were the sources of information of the highest military propaganda bureaus in Washington. Jozef Rusek as president of the Slovak League had presented a Memorandum in Washington, D.C. asking for U.S. recognition of the Slovak state. It was ignored. Meanwhile, reports (false) were circulated that Slovakia got involved in the war by declaring hostilities on the U.S. There was no way for the Slovak League to verify or deny these reports . . the line of communication with Slovakia was closed tightly. If the Slovak League, in 1943, had only known one salient fact , namely, that the so-called war-declaration on the U.S. was not a legally declared state of war because neither the Slovak parliament nor President Tiso had given their assent to such a grave act, and that in actuality the reported 'state of war' between Slovakia and this country was an illegal proclamation of one man, Dr. Vojtech Tuka, who. without any authority what-so-ever simply declared war on the U.S. Extreme determination to destroy the Slovak Republic motivated Dr. Benes in his policy. Consequently, this declaration of war was utilized to the utmost in distorted form by the resigned second president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. It served Benes well to emphasize this status of an 'official act of hostility' presumably on the part of the Slovak nation, which actually was against such n declaration, as was the Slovak government with its parliament and President Tiso . Indisputably, on the face of it, without explaining the circumstances of the reported declaration of war on the U.S. by Slovakia, this was a great opportunity for Dr . Benes to exploit the occasion and he did, to the hilt. His intrigues for the despicable objective of the destruction of the Slovak nation's own free state knew no bounds. Monsignor Francis Dubosh, wartime president of the Slovak League of America, was shouldered with the heavy responsibility of defending the organization against · vilification by its enemies. Slovak League archives of 1943 contain a complete record of correspondence between Msgr. Dubosh and the OWI (Office of War Information). �SLOVAKIA 73 Faced by an endless series of barefaced lies that poured into Washington from the sworn foes of Slovak freed.om, the Slovak League stood fast in its defense of the truth and freedom for Slovakia. Moreover, there was nothing to hide, for the Slovak League membership, its president and executive officers were men of personal integrity and loyal citizens of the United States. They met the challenge without flinching and withstood the test with courage and dignity. Some timid souls, it is unfortunately true, became terrorized by this vicious attack of the enemy but the leadership of such stalwart men as Monsignor Dubosh rallied the faithful under the unsullied banner of the Slovak League of America. In the end they prevailed in the fight for Slovak freedom , self-government and free statehood. Now that they sensed the type of opposition they had to contend with, they became determined to maintain the struggle until final victory over the evil forces arrayed against the gallant men they were associated with in the Slovak League . Many resolutions and statements on behalf of the Slovak nation were formulated and proclaimed by the Slovak League despite the bitter attacks levelled against its daring leaders and resolute program. Dr. Benes and his paid propagandists spent several million dollars but all their fiery and venomous darts failed to pierce the stout armor of the American Slovak champion who defended the great citadel of freedom for Slovakia, namely, the Slovak League of America. Though under tremendous tension and pressure in this struggle, the Slovak League did not falter. Its leaders addressed new resolutions that reached the highest government circles in Washington. The historic 'Memorandum', which was entitled, "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood", was sent directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Signed by Msgr. Dubosh and Jan A. Kocur, this wartime document was a review of the struggle of the Slovaks through the centuries for their national freedom and their right to determine their own national destiny on the fundamental democratic principle and tradition of self-determination. �74 SLOVAKIA Whether the Slovaks should have their own independent state, or whether they should belong to the CzechoSlovak Republic, the Slovak League, being deprived of factual news from Slovakia, did not presume to be a competent judge - and hence, it merely wished to re-emphasize President Roosevelt's proclamation and democratic creed that "every nation, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood." American statesmen are formally addressed in the prophetic and fearless appeal which deals fundamentally with the Slovak problem: We Americans of Slovak ancestry who make sacrifices and fight side by side with other nations, and have dedicated our lives to the cause of freedom, appeal to our leaders in this momentous struggle and ask them especially to have the destiny of Slovakia in mind lest the foes of Slovak rights to freedom and nationhood deceive them in an unguarded moment, we further respectfully request them to bear in mind the sacred right of the Slovak nation to its own national selfgoverning state, which, as a matter of history, the Slovak nation established after many centuries of struggle against oppression and tyranny; and finally, we ask that liberty, self-determination and the means to a democratic way of life be guaranteed to the Slovaks in the same full measure as will be guaranteed all other nations in the world. This memorable document explains quite extensively 2nd manifestly Czech treacheries aimed against the Slovaks and takes a firm, uncompromising stand against Dr. Benes and his Slovak and Czechoslovak janizaries. It remains a historic testimony that not all Slovak emigrants were on the side of Dr. Benes. The examples of Dr. Osusky and Dr. Hodfa are cited because their political programs coincided essentially with the articles of the Pittsburgh Agreement (Pact) . Remarkable in many respects, but especially amazing is the fact that the Slovak League's life and death struggle was carried on despite an empty treasury against the millions of dollars expended by Benes and his anti-Slovak confederates! Dr. Milan Hodza and the Slovak League of America Dr. Milan Hodfa was invited to be a guest speaker at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League of America. Hodfa, an emigrant political leader from Slovakia, ex- �SLOVAKIA 75 pressed his regrets but sent in an extensive letter or message dated April 9, 1943, and addressed to Msgr. Dubosh, President, in which he explains, in detail, his stand on the Slovak problem and outlines his suggestions and proposals to the Slovak League which was involved vitally in the struggle for Slovakia's rights to national freedom and statehood. About American Slovaks Dr. Hodza has this opinion: First, I highly esteem the Slovak League as an institution of the American Slovaks, one that has done meritorious work in behalf of the Slovak nation and its native homeland. Hodza pays tribute to Furdek, the founder of the Slovak League, and reviews the currents of Slovak political action. He has words of praise for Slovak patriotism and pride that was inspired by the Slovak League, the great champion of the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom. On the subject of World War II , he expressed his understanding of the perilous times: Everyone who knows anything of Slovak loyalty could never have any shadow of doubt about the allegiance of American Slovaks to American democracy or deny their wholehearted dedication to the ideals of freedom and democracy - for America and Slovakia. But someone rashly has said that the majority of American Slovaks have 'fascist leanings.' To that unfounded charge I reply: When it became necessary to defend their country and the highest moral values of mankind, the American Slovaks proved themselves by their deeds and sacrifices. They purchased bonds and bombers, joined the military forces in large numbers, with their young men and women enrolling in all the services-hundreds, perhaps thousands of whom now are wounded or dead on battlefields in every corner of the globe . .. suffering death or wounds in defense of American democracy, security and freedom. Such are Slovak 'fascists.' This moving testimonial to the Slovak League's program by a leading Slovak politician and statesman excels anything that might be added on the subject. It is an honest, heartfelt evaluation of the work of the Slovak League based on firsthand observation and information. Moreover, Hodza, as he notes in his long letter to the Slovak League, considered it his solemn duty to inform the Slovaks of America of the events that occurred up to the year, 1938, in Czecho-Slovakia. He recalls the visit of the Slovak League delegation in Praha. Upon being approached to support the Pittsburgh Agreement, he ob- �?(, SLOVAKIA served that he had already drawn up his own draft for Slovak rights, which, in his personal opinion, he deemed substantially even better and proposed it as a substitute. Hodza explains that his political views were based on the fact that both economically and financially Slovakia was very weak at the conclusion of World War I. He goes on record: In a public statement of May 17, 1938, I spoke about the Pittsburgh Agreement, and in the discussion I urged that the time for criticizing it was long past. Now was the time to actualize it in reality, I said. Finally, at the end of June or the beginning of July, 1938, I succeeded in securing a virtual promise of the government to recognize it and put it into effect, namely, the official extension of self government and the establishment of a parliament in Bratislava for Slovakia. Subsequent remarks by Hodza emphasized his advocating the international political continuity of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and the self-same continuity of the internal political policies and acts of the Republic. Since the legality of the Zilina Agreement was nullified on the grounds that it had been drawn up a week after Munich, the legality of the decisions of the constitutional government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in June and July, 1938, could not be questioned, and therefore he favored guarantees for self-rule and the rights of the Slovak nation in their native home country. Under all circumstances Hodza stood his ground in this manifest policy. He added: What type of federal or political system we will decide upon, that will be our domestic problem. But to be specific: No longer shall we tolerate the machinery of the Czecho-Slovak Assembly in Prague to dominate by its majority vote. Why not? Because in a total of some 300 members the Czechs have approximately 150 votes, the Slovaks scarcely 60. Thus a 2/3 or a 3/ 5 majority vote would automatically determine Slovak policy with or without a small Slovak minority. No longer can we allow this government monopoly by a Czech regime in Praha. The new reorganization of the state must take into consideration a constitutional measure respecting a Slovak national majority as well as a Czech national majority correspondingly in their own national assembly or parliament. This is the principle and policy that was enunciated and approved by the Czecho-Slovak National Committee on January 1, 1940. In the future, Hodza believed, that the vast majority of the Czechs would abandon centralism as a national policy and accept the new effective policy of mutual Czech �SLOVAKIA 77 and Slovak cooperation through proper Slovak representation on the basis of a federative status of national equality. "I am continuing my efforts in behalf of Slovakia today on the basis of international law," Dr. Hodza declared, "and in accord with England which in March, 1939, of its own volition, and on the basis of fundamental reasons, refused to recognize German dis-memberm ent of the Czecho-Slova k Republic." Both the U.S and the Soviet Union, according to Hodza, adhered to this view of continuity, and he, therefore, thought this was the only sure foundation for future action in behalf of Slovakia. Peace in Europe Hodza envisioned as the development of an intimate association of America, England and Russia and the creation of a central European federation to which Yugoslavia and Romania should belong also. This federation, he believed, would be an effective defensive bloc against any possible future German aggression. "Slavonic democracy' --, in Hodza's opinion, "in which the Slovaks must have a role, must guarantee both national and religious freedom, human dignity, the rights of the individual, provide social and economic security, preserve representativ e government that is based on the free expression of each nation's will." American Slovaks, through its Slovak League, demanded all the guarantees of democratic freedom and the free exercise of natural rights for the Slovak nation on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, namely, the Four Freedoms, self-determin ation and the right to choose their own national destiny. Conclusion of Dr. Hodza's message reads: "Continue as you have begun. You are on the right road." All Slovaks with few exceptions at home and abroad Hnanimously agree that the Slovaks are entitled as a nation to the rights of freedom and self-determin ation, the cardinal principles of the victorious united nations of World War II. There were no substantial differences between his political doctrine and the Slovak League's program, Hodza �78 SLOVAKIA contended. Nevertheless, there was one difference, and it was that the Slovak League of America maintained the belief that it is the Slovak nation's prerogative to decide whether it wants to rejoin the Czechs in a newly-recreated Czecho-Slovakia, or remain in its own separate independent state. As a matter of fact, Hodza, at one time a centralist, could not free himself from the personal conviction that the Czechs and Slova,ks belong indubitably in a united state. Hodza lacked the experience and enlightenment of being a citizen in his own native Slovak political state. Very interesting, indeed, would have been Hodza's views, and relationship with the Slovak League, after Benes' treasonable act in Moscow (1943) and the aftermath of the 'paper agreement' in Kosice with the Slovak national council (1945). We can presume, in view of the sad events in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic, that the Slovak political leader would have followed the leadership of the Slovak League and the vast majority of the Slovaks in their home country in demanding a plebiscite in postwar Slovakia to determine: 1) Whether the Slovak nation wanted to be an integral part of Czecho-Slovakia. 2) Or whether it wanted to be an independent state. 3) Or whether it wanted to join a federation. Death ended any further speculation, and because of the situation in Czecho-Slovakia after the war, the Prague regime refused to grant permission to the Hodza family tc have the body of an eminent Slovak political figure to be returned to his native Slovakia for burial. A Final Break with Benes Intrigues and slanders, coarse and cynical comments marked the careers and attitudes of Dr. Benes and his colleagues. As immediate consequences of their ignoble activities there was a complete disregard of Slovak rights in U.S. State Department circles that determined our international policy while a cloud of dark suspicion hovered over the Slovak League. Refusal to bow down under the crushing pressure exerted by Benes and his clique maddened the Czech plotter and his slanderous propagandists. All of their plans to destroy the Slovak League of America failed miserably. �SLOVAKIA 79 After reviewing the activities of Dr. Benes in World War I and World War II, the Slovak League of America went on record as being irrevocably opposed to Dr. Benes and his ideology. Monsignor Dubosh, the president, declared publicly in his report at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League in October, 1943: I have explained the situation of the Slovak League in relationship to Dr. Benes and his intrigues. Now, where shall we go? What should we do ? Well, Dr. Benes, acknowledged as a skillful diplomat, has refused to negotiate with us. He seems to think that if he looks down upon us with disdain, we 'stupid Slovaks' will shake with trepidation and run to him seeking his help. It is unfortunate that he, a diplomat and political leader, never learned to know the Slovaks better. Perhaps the Slovaks were somewhat naive for tolerating him so long. He forgets that in America, the sons of Slovak immigrants who escaped to America had the opportunity for an education. One of the lessons they learned well was not to take abuse from anybody. He acts as if the Slovaks had no rights whatsoever, not even the right to speak up and say whether they want to live with the Czechs or not. Dr. Benes is sadly mistaken if he thinks the Slovaks were given to the Czechs by divine decree. The Slovaks voluntarily entered into partnership with the Czechs, and they can voluntarily dissolve that partnership. If this is not true, then the Slovaks are not human beings, but slaves, even worse, for then they are but mere animals. That we refuse to accept. We will never allow the Slovaks to be treated as brutes, not even for the price of a million Beneses! Msgr. Dubosh concluded his statement: Truly wise would Benes have been had he and his disciples finally realized that they cannot act as if the Slovaks had no rights at all, that they cannot destroy the Slovak nation which has survived so many centuries, that the Slovak was, is, and will always remain a Slovak, that there will be no peace between the Czechs and Slovaks until justice and equality are established between the two, that nobody will ever convince the Slovak he is anything than what he is: a Slovak. A number of renegades among the Slovaks may be found, as in the case of the Magyar era, and these will agree with Benes and propagate his ideas. But the vast majority of the Slovaks here and in their historic homeland have remained unmoved and unconvinced because they know the true history of the Slovak nation. This is a clear-cut view and a definite stand. Andrej Hlinka would have spoken the same way - and every loyal Slovak agrees with this unqualified view that refuses to surrender the rights of the Slovak nation to freedom and nationhood. The year, 1943, definitely witnessed another resurgence of dynamic and invincible spirit of Slovak national pride in the Slovak League of America. �8Li SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America and the Slovak National Council in Slovakia War was slowly coming to an end and it was clear who would win by this time. For the Slovak League serious problems and grave responsibilities were anticipated. At the beginning of autum, 1944, the first news from Slovakia reported a revolt. The information was incomplete, distorted, and, therefore, confusing and unreliable. As might be expected the Slovak Republic was presented in a bad light by hostile propaganda forces. There was no direct connection with Slovakia to counteract the highly distorted image of the Slovaks who deserved a better fate. Moreover, the Slovak League was not aware of the many instances of official and unofficial opposition to German policies in Slovakia. Awaiting the outcome of the war and hoping for reliable reports from Slovakia, the Slovak League, meanwhile, had to ward off the Benes propagandists. Laboring under a terrible disadvantage, the Slovak League president, Msgr. Dubosh, told the Slovak League Congress on October 18-19, 1944, that "we have assured the state department in Washington the Slovaks will be heard from as soon as they get the opportunity. Our hope has not been in vain as current events prove. The Slovaks, we are told, have revolted . . .but not the Czechs ... and they are now fighting the Germans . How fortunate I am to be able to report that en my last visit to the state department in Washington I pointed out this latest development. Moreover, we had the happy occasion of launching a new warship, the General Milan R. Stefanik, at the time." Such was the first reaction to the report of the socalled Slovak revolt in the early days of September 1944. But it is interesting to note that during the 26th Congress resolutions were adopted against the Slovak national council and its self-assumed program. In this instance, again, sound Slovak instinct guided the Slovak League leadership. A special proclamation on Slovakia was issued, to wit, With great caution and intense interest we have followed and are following progress of events in Slovakia day by day. We have read a declaration, greetings, etc. from the so-called Slovak national council �SLOVAK!.'. 81 which under its own authority has assumed or rather usurped the exclusive right to speak in the name of the Slovak nation and seeks to take over the legislative and executive power into its hands for the complete control of Slovakia. We replied that the Slovak League could hardly be expected to decide what position to take in this matter when there was doubt about the background to the so-called Slovak uprising since the sources of information were not checked out but appeared unreliable because they were inaccurate and incomplete. What made the American Slovaks suspicious from the start was t.lle declaration of the Slovak national council that seemed at first ~o defend the sovereignity of the Slovak nation but later to have tipped its hand by extending greetings to the Benes government in exile . . . and the greetings ended with a promise of loyalty and aid to the Czechoslovak resistance movement - to all intents and purposes an indication of the ultimate return of Slovakia to re-union with the Czechs in a new, reconstructed postwar Czechoslovakia! Without consulting the will of the Slovak nation the so-called Slovak national council placed the country into a definite state organization, thereby denying the Slovak nation the right of self-determination for which we are fighting and presumed to associate the Slovak nation with actions to which we American Slovaks have no sympathy, and to which we are not at all attracted, and which we believe to be completely unfavorable to the Slovaks in their own historic homeland. All these circumstances prompt us to maintain the utmost reserve towards the activity of the so-called national council because we fear that this activity instead of helping to liberate the Slovak nation leads to disruption, disintegration and ultimately to the weakening of the Slovak cause. Neither the leadership nor the aims of the Slovak national council, combined with the names of those who are cooperating with it, give us any assurance that the interests of Slovakia are in capable hands since the so-called Slovak uprising. People whose names we have noted are connected with the national council so-called, as well as in association with the so-called Slovak revolt, do not have our confidence er trust, and for those reasons we must proceed with caution if not entirely in opposition to these so-called representatives of the Slovak nation. Finally, it is quite obvious that the Slovak national council does not represent all classes of Slovak society. It does not represent either the .democratic or progressive elements in the Slovak nation, and hence, in our opinion, the council is not a qualified representative body of the Slovak people in whose name it presumes to speak, has taken over all law-enforcement agencies and assumed executive authority, and even has already decided arbitrarily that the Slovaks must give their allegiance to a pre-determined state re-organization, namely, Czechoslovakia again. Clear and concise was this formulation of official Slovak League policy in this situation, and it coincides with the refusal of the Slovak government and its president to join the revolt for precisely the same reasons. This judgment will always remain the true analysis of the will of the Slovak nation and its duly-constituted government of the Slovak Republic as opposed to the so-called national council. The latter's blunders and many crimes will one day be justly �82 SLOVAKIA attributed to its personnel when the genuinely true history of Slovakia may once again be written in freedom when a new era of truth, justice and peace will prevail. Zeroing in the Slovak nation as a victim to be re-assigned to a postwar re-creation of Czechoslovakia was a colossal historic blunder and crime of the so-called Slovak national council against the sovereignity of the Slovak nation, against its just rights to freedom, self-determination and democracy, and against truth and justice. The 1945 Washington Resolution of the Slovak League of America During the last months of the war from October, 1944, to April, 1945, the situation changed rapidly and essentially. The Russians had captured Bratislava and the war in Europe was just about ended. Sources of information for the Slovak League at this time were controlled completely by the U.S. Office of War Information agencies. And these were under the full censorship of Benes and his staff that had succeeded in winning the Slovak national council, so-called, to their side. Naturally, all information from them was favorable to the council . . . another Czechoslovak agency. What made the Slovak League officials anxious to get in contact with the Slovaks overseas was their desire to help them get on their feet after the most devastating of wars ... and since this was the only source of news available, they were forced to rely on it with reservations, however. These first news indicated that the Slovak national council had persuaded Benes ( who was in Moscow at the time ) to recognize the individuality of the Slovak nation and to grant extensive self-government to the Slovak nation in a new post-war Czecho-Slovakia. At first glance this program of the Slovak national council so-called ran parallel with the objectives of the Slovak League of America. That is what prompted the Slovak League to express its desire to get in touch with the council ... this fact enemies of both the Slovak nation and its champion, the Slovak League of America, take delight in citing when explaining their own policies. Before condemning this resolution it is well to take into consideration all the circumstances in which it was made and then study its contents. The entire first half of the resolution deals with the program and aspirations of �SLOVAKIA 83 the Slovak League designed to guarantee the Slovak nation the absolute right of self-determination. Then follows this controversial paragraph: Let it be further resolved that to realize these aforementioned objectives, the Slovak League in America is willing to establish communication with the Slovak national council for the purpose of cooperating in matters that would benefit the Slovak nation and actualize the above program. Other 'insurance clauses' are also incorporated in the message in order to be on the safe side when dealing with the Slovak national council. In no manner was this a de facto recognition of the Slovak national council by the Slovak League but merely a statement of willingness to discuss mutually all phases of the Slovak problem, one may speak with someone without adopting his views or accepting his proposals, and in this case it was an expression of mere willingness to sit down and discuss the Slovak nation's problems of the present and map the future destiny of Slovakia. Personally, Msgr. Dubosh, the president of the Slovak League, described the entire affair as a resolution declaring a willingness to discuss the matter, nothing less, nothing more. Confirmation of the motives and genuine approach to the problem by the Slovak League of America on this occasion is made on the basis of the fact that as soon as the Slovak League administration got the record straight from Slovakia and diagnosed the case correctly, the Slovak League did not make any further attempts to get in touch officially with the so-called Slovak national council. Among the Slovaks in America this episode caused a. great deal of excitement and the Slovak League had to issue a public statement to clarify the matter. In its public statement, the Slovak League declared the Slovak national council guilty of deceit, and since it showed no inclination of guaranteeing freedom for the Slovak nation for which the League had always fought and would continue to fight, the traditional position of the Slovak League was emphatically repeated, namely, that the platform adopted at the 26th Congress of the Slovak League was still the guideline for the future policy of the League. A policy of �84 SLOVAKIA 'watchful waiting' would be pursued and the League officers would be more than wary where the Slovak national council was concerned. American Activity of the Slovak League The Slovak League of America is an organization of American citizens of Slovak ancestry. Consequently , it invariably coordinates its program and activities with the program and political policy of the United States. Beginning in 1907 and continuing up to now, the Slovak League, uesides its avowed program for the welfare of the Slovak nation in its homeland, was always actively engaged in work that was exclusively designed for the benefit and national interests of America. What was true in World War I, as far as the activity of the Slovak League was concerned, was more than doubly true in World War II. Perhaps Dr. Hodza's description of this united program suffices (as quoted above) to prove this. His words of commendatio n in the message to the Slovak League Congress constitute a remarkable testimony of its manifold contributions . Loyalty and fidelity, Hodza listed as among the foremost virtues of the American Slovaks because his fellow countrymen always felt that their faithfulness to the U.S., their adopted country, must ever be profound and complete. When, therefore, this country became involved in the war against nazism, the Slovak League joined America with all its resources for the strife. Never has the Slovak League boasted of this American activity. Actually it was a duty to be performed and no need to publicize it. But Benes and his alien propagandists incessantly attacked the Slovak League in American circles and assailed it as a nazi agency, and therefore, an enemy to the national interests of America, and even contrary to the Slovak League's program in behalf of Slovakia! Monsignor Dubosh, who had to combat the malicious propaganda levelled at the Slovak League of America, had to swallow many a bitter pill on this account, and only because of his devotion to America - and his love for the Slovak nation . Undoubtedly, the best argument in favor of the Slovak �SLOVAKIA 85 League was its activity for the welfare of America. This action included the following: 1) The Slovak League Campaign for U.S. War Bonds Merely to have a birds-eye view of the gigantic patriotic efforts of the Slovak League in behalf of the U.S., it is sufficient to cite a few facts and figures. Under the dynamic leadership of the patriotic Father John J. Lach the Slovak League gave full support to a war-bond campaign. From the report by Father Lach at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. on October 17-18, 1944, we learn that under Slovak League sponsorship approximately 53 million dollars' worth of bonds were purchased during World War II. This and similar cases attest to the loyalty of Slovak individuals and their societies throughout the country. Who can doubt the sincere patriotism of the American Slovaks or deny their loyalty? 2) Airplanes War bonds were not the only means by which American Slovaks supported the war effort. One of its activities was the purchase of airplanes for the U.S. Airforce. First, the Slovensk<i Obrana, edited and published by Michael Bosak, Jr., Scranton, Pa., opened the campaign for three airplanes. Chicago's Osadne Hlasy weekly joined the campaign. The fund brought in $31,000. The ceremony of presenting a trio of training planes to the U.S. armed forces occured at the Cleveland airport on May 29, 1943. Each plane bore the slogan, "Spirit of the Slovak League of America," but even on this occasion the Czech propagandists tried to reap undeserved honors by claiming this act to be a part of their program. Monsignor Dubosh reported to the 25th Congress of the Slovak League: This was a capital idea, which, naturally, our Czechoslovak 'friends' tried to exploit for their benefit just as they tried to do last year when the Slovaks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland purchased war bonds. Their propaganda machine gave credit to 'Czechs' and Czechoslovaks. Such are our so-called brothers . . . everything we have they consider their very own. 3) Warships Liberty ships, three of them, bore the names submitted by the Slovak League in recognition of its highly successful war-bond campaign. Elaborate ceremonies marked �BG SLOVAKIA the launching of the "Stephen Furdek," "Sgt. Matej Kocak," and the "General Milan R. Stefanik." Altogether this variety of activity brought the Slovak League and the American Slovaks widespread publicity and recognition. They were the most telling arguments to refute libelous propaganda aimed at the Slovak League which was unjustly smeared by its foes as anti-American and pro-nazi. The patriotic acts by the Slovak League completely vindicated the honor of the American Slovaks, and the press in America recorded them with great admiration and enthusiasm. 4) Social Action of the Slovak League Increased social and charitable deeds of the Slovak League in wartime belong to a special phase of the history of the times because this was a new form of action that vvas directly under the sponsorship of a new organizational branch, namely, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, officially known as "Slovenske Vcielky" - Slovak bees. At an executive meeting of the Slovak League on August 23, 1941, a definite plan was formulated to organize the "Slovak bees" under the leadership of Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, vice-president of the League. Accordingly, she became the president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, the official title of the 'Vcielky' group. Slovak women from all parts of America enrolled as members in the new auxiliary, which cooperated closely with the work of the Red Cross. By their unselfish service, social action and samaritan-like deeds, the American Slovak women contributed invaluable service to their country and enhanced the good name of the Slovak League and the Slovaks in America generally. Details of some of the work accomplished by the Slovak ladies auxiliary were reported at the 24th Congress of the Slovak League on February 25-26, 1943. They constitute a glorious record of achievements in the history of the American Slovaks. In one cell, alone, in Chicago more t.han 300 women were enrolled. These women presented the Red Cross with 66,900 surgical dressings, 2,246 suits of clothing for refugees ( for children and adults), 717 knitted sweaters, caps, shawls, gloves, etc. for soldiers; and �SLOVAKIA 87 455 hospital gowns. Blood was donated by 214 cells. More than 200 cells completed first-aid courses and 36 were trained in home-care of the sick. A total of 630 shipments were sent to American soldiers of Slovak ancestry. These are only a sample of the type of activities performed by the Ladies Auxiliary cells throughout the country. As soon as the war €nded, pleas for help came from Slovakia. The Ladies Auxiliary cells were the first to respond. Shipments of canned goods and clothing were immediately dispatched to the war-torn areas of Slovakia. Slovak emigrants fleeing from their war-devastated homeland were given emergency aid by the auxiliary. Value in dollars to cover this essential aid exceeds tens of thousands of American dollars that were given freely and generously for a worthy cause in the name of the Slovak League through the charitable agency of the Ladies Auxiliary of the League. This added a new chapter of charitable action to the history of the Slovak League of America. A special postwar campaign for funds under the traditional slogan, 'Za tu nasu slovencinu,' - for our Slovak mother-language-was inaugurated in the very first months after the war. This netted thousands of dollars for much needed help to the Slovaks in their home country, and to those in exile because these had lost all their worldly possessions in the war. No less important in its salutary effects, aside from the continued struggle for Slovakia's national freedom, was this social work which had as its primary source a deep American sense of patriotism and a profound Slovak and Christian philosophy of life to be of service to one's fellow man, and particularly to one's Slovak countrymen. Cultural Program of the Slovak League Versatility has marked the activity of the Slovak League of America. The cultural aspect was not neglected despite the pressure of the needs of the immediate present. In this respect a need was perceived to reach the Englishreading public for two reasons: 1) To combat the false �88 SLOVAKIA propaganda of anti-Slovak groups. 2) To furnish genuine information about the Slovak nation's history, the Slovaks in America, the Slovak League, etc. Too often, well-disposed Americans in high governmental positions were misled as to the real purpose of the Slovak League simply because they were uninformed or misinformed. The information had to be in the English language. Proposals to publish a Slovak League informational publication in English were made and approved at an executive meeting of the Slovak League on Nov. 13, 1942. It was designed both for the general American public and the young Slovak generations that no longer understood the language of their parents or grandparents. This was necessary to win the sympathy of the American public by Ehowing how important had been, and still was, the role of the Slovaks in mankind's struggle for liberty, human dignity and peace. An immediate result of this conference was the " Slovak Record " which began publication under the capable editorship of Joseph G. Prusa. The first issue appeared precisely on the 28th anniversary of the death of ~tefan Furdek, founder of the Slovak League of America. This wartime " Slovak Record" quarterly was well edited. It presented u true and clear picture of American Slovak life and thought that was reflected from its pages as if from a wellpolished mirror. The Record was listed officially as quarterly review of the Slovak League of America. Any future historian will find a wealth of material on Slovak history and the life of American Slovaks in the comparatively few issues that were published during World War II. The Slovak Record was an informative and cultural periodical, which for the first time presented a great many literary and political facts to the American public. Moreover, it acquainted many readers with the history, culture and aspirations of the Slovak nation. Congressmen and high officials in our government received the Slovak Record. So did American radio stati ons, newspaper offices and libraries. In a word, it was distributed where it would do the most good for the Slovak cause. Unfortunately, the Slovak Record ceased publication �SLOVAKIA 89 after two and a half years. But the year after its demise, ie., in 1946, the Slovak Review, a political magazine, and the Slovak Digest, a cultural quarterly, made their appearance. These, too, had a brief existence. Never-the-less, they did their work well while they lasted. Among other cultural projects inaugurated by the Slovak League was an American-Slovak museum. This was the work of the cultural committee which met in Cleveland in the spring of 1945. Benedictine High School was designated as the temporary center where Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S .B., a young, talented American-Slovak historian and journalist, had already established an extensive Slovak library under the auspices of St. Andrew's Abbey. As director of the newly-established Slovak museum, Father Pir obtained permission from Abbot Stanislaus Gmuca, O.S .B. to have a special room as the cultural center for Slovak books , historical records, museum articles, etc. at the Abbey in Cleveland. This later was destined to become the Slovak Institute established in 1952 by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S .B. who named Dr. Francis Hrusovsky as the first director. On a high cultural level were all the memoranda and other publications of the Slovak League of America; all issued in behalf of Slovak national freedom and sent to the highest American political quarters. The most important of these perhaps was "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood" in 1943. Representatives of the Slovak League at the International Conference in San Francisco 1945 This historic conference of allied nations was called to decide the national destinies of peoples all over the world, but particularly in Europe The fate of the Slovaks was also to be determined there. Never amiss where the welfare of the Slovak nation was concerned, the Slovak League was anxious to present the Slovak problem and all its ramifications at this world parley. It particularly wanted to present the just right of the Slovak nation. Although the Slovak League had the right to seek and obtain representation officially at the �90 SLOVAKIA conference, its delegates were denied entry because the Czechoslovaks usurped this right by securing official admittance as the spokesmen for Slovakia. Ironically, Jan Masaryk, one of the most prominent Czechs, was registered as a Slovak! Failure to secure official recognition for its representatives prompted the executive council of the Slovak League to send an observer. As an observer, Rev. John J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, was selected to represent the Slovak League at the San Francisco conference. He remained there in that capacity from April 25 to June 21. Msgr. Milos Mlynarovic accompanied him. It was difficult for them even to obtain entry, and impossible for a pass to attend some of the meetings . In fact, Jan Masaryk's Czechoslovak delegation sought to have them excluded entirely. Nevertheless, Father Lach ~ucceeded by skillful maneuvering to outwit his opponents. He got a registration card with full credentials as an official observer for the proceedings. Since Father Lach was not permitted a voice at the conference, he visited delegations of a number of nationality groups and informed them of the Slovak cause, stressing especially the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and nationhood. Although it did not have any influence on Jan Masaryk, Father Lach's visit to his office at least emphasized the fact that the Slovaks had their rights and that the Slovak League of America stood foursquare behind them in their struggle for freedom and nationhood. Upon his return from San Francisco, Father Lach reported the outcome of his presence at the International Conference as follows: In conclusion, I want to say that always and everywhere I emphasized the good work of the Slovak League and I explained its program as a noble and worthy endeavor that is nothing more or less than a program for the welfare of the American Slovaks and the Slovak nation's destiny as a free people in their historic homeland. I told them of my conviction that the Slovaks as a nation with an individual entity and a glorious history must have a place of honor among the nations of the world , a place that the United Nations must one day officially assign to them in the family of nations. One must not under-estimate the importance of this attempt for world recognition at an international forum �SLOVAKIA 91 by a Slovak League delegate. Had there been direct communication with Slovakia instead of being forced to rely on Jan Masaryk, self-appointed as he was to represent the Slovaks, things might have worked out differently. Yet, the fact remains the Slovak League tried, and the attempt, though unsuccessful, was, none-the-less, a noble if futile gesture in behalf of a down-trodden Slovak nation. The battle in San Francisco with the Czechoslovak faction led by Dr. Benes and Jan Masaryk was lost mainly because they used utterly false propaganda to discredit the Slovak nation and its cause. In this case truth, which Thomas Masaryk liked to talk about so much, did not prevail, instead a neatly-bound pack of Czechoslovak lies doomed the Slovak people to domination by the Czechs again in the postwar era. Perseverance in I deals - Endurance in Combat Not even when the United Nations officially granted recognition to Czecho-Slovakia did the Slovak League throw in the towel. It retained its program intact and continued its fight for the Slovak nation's cause of freedom . Attorney Peter P. Jurcak, a writer and political leader from Pennsylvania, succeeded Msgr. Dubosh as president in 1945. He discussed at great length the Slovak League's program and ideals with Husek, Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh, all former presidents. Jozef Husek soon afterwards retired from public life because of illness. But both Dr. Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh remained at the side of Jurcak, the new president, and gave him their whole-hearted cooperation in the unending fight for the rights of the Slovak nation. Like a strong tree that looses its dry branches in 8, storm but continues to grow stronger, so the Slovak League of America thrives and grows taller and more mighty than ever before. The war that subjected the Slovak League to violent attacks only tested it and proved its vitality and power. It stands a living monument to the heroic courage of the stalwart sons of Slovakia and their unceasing fight for the sacred rights to justice, truth and liberty for their nation beneath the Tatras. Once more the Slovak League takes the offensive in 1946. It addresses an appeal to the President of the United �92 SLOVAKIA States and to Congress, as well as to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The appeal in behalf of the Slovak national cause of freedom reviews the history of the Slovaks, calls attention to their struggle for freedom and explains their sad experience of trying to live with the Czechs in one state. According to the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the Slovak League makes a request for a plebiscite in Slovakia under the supervision of the United Nations to give the Slovaks the opportunity to decide in a free election whether they wish to continue to live in a political union with the Czechs, or whether they want their own independent state; or if they prefer to be incorporated in a federation of free, self-governing states in central Europe. The State Department and Congressmen are kept well informed of the injustices suffered by the Slovaks in the past and present by the Slovak League's news agency and information in the nation's capital. Finally, the true facts about the Slovak Republic are available to American statesmen in Washington, D.C. For too long a time our American leaders in public life were kept shamelessly misinformed by Dr. Benes and his cohorts of false propagandists. Genuine information b now provided from first-hand experiences of Slovak emigrants who lived under the regime of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. At long last, too, we know the true facts about the so-called Slovak revolt of 1944 and the distorted picture of wartime Slovakia is coming sharply into proper focus. Meantime, too, the Slovak League of America maintains a full-time political, cultural and social program. Culturally, the work begun by the Slovak Record quarterly is carried on by the Slovak Review and the Slovak Digest quarterlies. Moreover, President Jurcak has published his book The Slovaks-Their History and Traditions, which is doing good work in behalf of the Slovak nation by a concise review of the history of Slovakia. Slovak music is perhaps the best means to reach the young generation. In this field the Slovak League plans a score of concerts by Slovak artists. At the suggestion of Msgr. Dubosh, the Slovak League �SLOVAKIA 93 is inaugurating a National Fund campaign to which every American Slovak is asked to contribute at least a quarter a year. During its struggle the past several years, the Slovak League administration discovered that finances are essential to carry on effective work for realizing high ideals. Perhaps the most urgent task at the present is the publication of books and periodicals about the Slovak nation in the English language . Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, the president of the Slovak League's ladies auxiliary, continues to inspire greater efforts in behalf of an extensive social and charitable program to help war-torn Slovakia as well as to provide necessary funds and help to Slovak emigrants who were forced to escape to the west. Under her dynamic leadership the Slovak 'Vcielky' - bees have accomplished an incredible amount of good work by providing for immediate needs of food, shelter and clothing for the people of Slovakia and for those who had to leave their homeland to save their very lives. Truly, the 'Vcielky' have shown themselves to be loving mothers by their dedication and devotion to their Slovak children in need. The Program approaches its zenith As we follow the ideological development of the Slovak League of America, from the year of its founding, 1907, to the present, we note that it passed through several phases that ran concurrently with the evolution of the idea of Slovak independent statehood. Three cities and a trio of Slovak League Congresses are historic milestones in the gradual development of an idea and an Ideal: Slovak national freedom. They are : Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit where nation-wide Congresses of American Slovak representatives took progressive strides towards the fulfilment of the Slovak ideal of political liberty. We are justified in declaring that the struggle of all Slovak generations has been the fight for a Slovak state as the highest fulfillment of the aspirations of an entire nation, namely, the achievement of national freedom . This idea was not born on March 14, 1939. It merely became a reality on that memorable day. It had first sprung to life �94 SLOVAKIA in Svatopluk's time in the 9th century, came back to life as an ideal in the era of Bernolak. Holly, stur and Hurban, during the early 19th century, was again very much alive during the struggle led by Andrej Hlinka before and during the era of the Czecho-Slovak Republic of World War I vintage, until the idea came ultimately to full maturity on March 14, 1939, with the founding of the Slovak Republic. Ideologically, the aim of the Slovak League was always in this direction because it invariably and reliably reflected the degree of Slovak aspirations for self-government in Slovakia itself. As a happy coincidence and consequence the Slovak League of America never presented a false image of the Slovak nation. Despite the temporary set-back inflicted on the Slovak League by Dr. Benes's false propagandists, the fact that the Slovak League stood firm in defense of the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and selfgoverning statehood only confirms the amazing similarity of objectives of the Slovak nation and its great champion overseas, the Slovak League of America. There never has been, therefore, any major divergence of views or objectives between the two. Detroit (Michigan) was host to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League on October 29, 1946. It proved to be a dramatic convention. All the cards were placed on the table at this historic Detroit Congress. Dr. Benes who had promised to make Czecho-Slovakia an island of democracy had just announced that he had placed the reorganized state into the hands of Moscow, and thereby surrendered central Europe to Communism. International developments reached a crisis soon so that there was an immediate cleavage between the East and West. Dr. Benes chose the East with communism and Soviet dictatorship that seized complete control of all countries under various pretexts in the Russian orbit. The Iron Curtain was about to come down and divide Europe into two hostile camps. In direct opposition to Dr. Benes, the Slovak League made its momentous decision. Moreover, the Slovak nation, too, in the May elections of 1946 cast more than a % democratic majority vote while the communist party in �SLOVAKIA 95 Slovakia garnered considerably less than a third of the total vote in the country . Slovak statehood as the most responsible form of political organization had been cherished for ages by the Slovak nation. In modern times this ideal was upheld admirably by the Slovak League of America. At its 26th Congress in Detroit, the Slovak League unanimously adopted a declaration favoring independent statehood for the Slovaks in their historic homeland ( since the 5th century A.D . the Slovaks have lived in their present country ). Dr. Peter Hletko, M.D. headed the special committee that had drawn up this declaration: "The Committee of the future program has taken into consideration the whole world situation, and in relationship to it the present status of the Slovak nation's aspirations to liberty; also the mind of the American Slovaks. After much deliberation and discussion, therefore, this committee submits the following program with confidence that its ideas and proposals will win approval and adoption at this Congress so that all of the supreme officers, the various local officials and all the assemblies of the Slovak League throughout America will accept this program as its very own. "The proposed program for the future destiny of the Slovaks is designed to coordinate all of our efforts so that by unified action we can reach our common goal that will be of immense value to the Slovaks in their home country and to the American Slovaks, too. "Our stand in the Slovak League of America, therefore, requires that we clarify our policies on a number of issues. Consequently, we propose to express precisely what position we take in relationship to the following : The Czecho-Slovak R epublic " So far, the Slovak League of America never maintained a hostile attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We admit we criticized the government and the representatives of that country, and we came to the aid of the Slovak nation in its struggle for a recognition of its just rights, and we condemned the injustices perpetrated on the Slovak people, but we never advocated nor took any �ga SLOVAKIA steps to destroy the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia even when our detractors labelled us unjustly as the destroyers of this state. "Not even after the Slovaks established their own state six months before World War II, nor during the entire conflict when Czechoslovak adherents were busily planning to reconstruct Czecho-Slovakia, did the Slovak League in America declare itself in opposition to a renewal of that country, but it unequivocally maintained the right of selfdetermination for the Slovak nation and it openly fought for this right to be exercised by the Slovaks freely to determine what type of self-government they wished and what form of state administration they wanted as the will of the majority of the Slovak people. "We often repeated our views that if the Slovaks were granted the opportunity to express their will freely as to what form of government they wished to have, or what type of state or federation they preferred, and even if they should choose Czecho-Slovakia all over again, we said that we would be completely _satisfied and would not disagree or opposE: their choice. We insisted, however, and fought for the right of the Slovak nation during World War II that once Europe and the world would be reorganized after the conflict the Slovaks must be guaranteed a free vote, subject to no pressure, violence or force - in a word, complete freedom to express their own national will . "In spite of every assurance by the great powers, however, and contrary to various world declarations, by which all nations, particularly the small ones, were given high hopes of liberation, freedom and independence, and despite the Atlantic Charter which won the trust of all the small nations but which was discarded once the objectives for which it was proclaimed were secure, and in spite of all the promises for free expression and choice of the future destiny of the Slovaks, f:.bsolutely no opportunity was given to the Slovak nation for making a free choice at all. "Simply and definitely once more the Slovaks were thrown back into the Benes's pre-fabricated structure, namely, the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. It was explained that this was necessary in order to re-establish the pre- �SLOVAKIA 97 Munich status quo but this was sheer deceit, for the restoration of the pre-Munich status quo was only done whenever and wherever it was to the advantage of a number of world-powers, if it was not to their advantage, there was simply no restoration at all. "Neither the so-called national revolt, nor the Kosice agreement were manifestations of the Slovak nation's will, and therefore there was no obligation on the part of the Slovaks to return to Czecho-Slovakia. No one asked the Slovaks their preference - all at once they found themselves back in the old, slightly-mended Czecho-Slovakia. "As we have noted on the very first occasion that the Slovaks had to manifest their will and they did so by an overwhelming majority of more than two-thirds against communism but this was not counted in any way-and the Slovak nation was retained as an oppressed nation under communist rule . . . and has remained under communist dictatorship since 1946. "Nevertheless, the Slovaks were not granted a choice to vote on the issue if they wanted to remain in the old Czecho-Slovak Republic or not. They were forced to accept the fait accompli situation with the Czechs again in power. This injustice is all the greater since we know and are firmly convinced that the Slovak nation been given an opportunity of free choice, it certainly would have voted overwhelmingly against being re-attached to Benes's postwar creation, Czecho-Slovakia III. "Apparently the Slovaks have a semblance of autonomy in postwar Czecho-Slovakia but this does not alter the fact that they were denied their freedom of choice. Moreover, the Republic is officially named Czechoslovakia and continues to be written without the controversial hyphen (it should be Czecho-Slovakia). As it is now, this jndicates that the new government is still imbued with the spirit of the false and artificial identity of a Czechoslovak nation. A return to the 'old sins' presages a gradual taking away of self-government from the Slovaks because Benes has reiterated his belief that the Slovaks must not be permitted to have 'wild dreams of self-rule.' "Czech centralism still rules, for Slovak administration is subject to Praha. For these, and other reasons not �98 SLOVAKIA mentioned, we are forced to come to the conclusion that inevitably we must restrain our tolerant policy and favorable attitude to the Czecho-Slovak state by abandoning what we American Slovaks for so many years held as proper and hopeful for the future. The present demands another policy, hence, we stand in opposition to the new, illegal Czecho-Slovakia and we now emphasize the fact that the Slovaks were wronged as a nation. We intend to inform the great powers and the whole world of this grave injustice because the Slovaks were forced into the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. " As free American Slovaks we further protest that the Slovak nation is held in political bondage in a state that leans away from western democracy and is helping to create an anti-democratic bloc while the Slovaks are truly democratic-minded as they surely indicated by the recent vote that left no doubt of their resistance to communist influence and infiltration from the East. The Slovak State "Many good and sound reasons would prompt the Slovaks to vote against re-attaching Slovakia to the newlyre-created Czecho-Slovakia, and that by a vast majority of votes against re-union, for while the Slovaks were discriminated against in pre-war Czecho-Slovakia, the same is true today. "Under their own regime in their own Slovak Republic the Slovaks were happy and prosperous, they worked and progressed economically, politically, culturally, they built, created and developed a new life of their own. Never before were the Slovaks so content with their lot. This good fortune not even the enemies of the Slovak State can deny . The record of the Slovak Republic speaks for itself. "World conditions in wartime brought temporary prosperity not only to America but to other countries, too. Nevertheless, prosperity for the Slovak state, though necessarily stimulated by the war, had as its permanent basis the industry, ingenuity and inspiration of the Slovak nation that was vitally interested in its destiny. The Slovak people cooperated splendidly and enthusiastically in the building of their own self-governing state. �SLOVAKIA 99 "Dependence, to some extent, upon its powerful neighbor, Germany, was a natural relationship, for small nations always depend upon strong nations in time of peace or war. Here it must be noted, however, that neither England, the U.S. nor the USSR were of any assistance to the Slovak Republic . "Every small state seeks protection and security wherever it can. The Slovak state needed protection for national survival. Yet, it must be affirmed that the Slovak Republic was not a gift to the Slovaks from either the Germans or their leader, Hitler. Further, the Slovak state was not a German creation. On the contrary, the Slovaks had to defend their country against German machinations, and intrigues of other nations. The Slovak Republic was truly the result of the aspirations of the Slovak nation for freedom and their own state. A free state is the zenith and fulfillment of the highest and noblest ideals of every nation. "A return to limited rights, or a surrender of all rights of the Slovak nation by the involuntary incorporation of the Slovak people in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, is a step backwards and definitely contrary to sttir's motto: 'We cannot go backward - We must go forward.' "Our duty is to inform and influence the world in this direction, namely, the renewal of a free Slovak Republic, the existence of which is at the same time the obligation of all the nations of the world . "Unconditionally, the Slovak League of America urges the great powers to re-establish the Slovak Republic because in it the Slovak nation found its true destiny, enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom, and made unpresedented progress in every phase of its national culture. The Slovak League and Dr. Tiso "Dr. Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak Republic, had the welfare of the Slovak nation at heart. Not even his enemies can deny that he was sincere in his efforts to insure the national well-being of the Slovak people in their own, free and independent state. While many others fled to safety after resigning high positions, Dr. Tiso remained in his country to serve it in a grave crisis. To minimize �100 SLOVAKIA his virtues and magnify his faults, mistakes, methods, policies etc., is easy, but it will not change the facts that despite his real or imaginary administrative deficiencies he not only succeeded in saving the Slovak nation from destruction but supervised the Slovak state so admirably that the people in Slovakia enjoyed peace, prosperity and great cultural and economic progress. "Nobody can erase the true image of Dr. Tiso as a kind, just and wise president of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation reveres his memory today despite the attempts of the enemy to destroy that image by false propaganda spread throughout the world. We are horrified at the malice of our enemies who seek to brand President Tiso as a traitor to his Slovak nation and as such are planning to try him in a court-of-law ... the impending trial, of course, to be supervised by his enemies and the enemies of the Slovak nation. "To defend Dr. Tiso is our most solemn duty. We must arouse world opinion in his favor to offset the slanderous campaign against him. It is quite obvious that the efforts to discredit his good name is done with a vengeance, and H our enemies succeed in unjustly dishonoring him they will wreak their utmost revenge upon him. And it would be a great crime of gross injustice against a just man and the Slovak nation. "Dr. Tiso is not a war criminal. He did not torture anyone, he did not execute one person, or give orders to execute anyone. Father Tiso did not commit any crime. He was the great defender and benefactor of his country which he served with distinction and honor. The Slovak National Council "Much has been written and discussed about the socalled Slovak national council. Our position towards this organization remains unchanged. We still regard it as an agency that has usurped power and authority because it was not elected or authorized by the Slovaks, nor approved de facto by the Slovak nation, and consequently in a democratic system it is not a legal body and has no legal standing or jurisdiction. �SLOVAKIA 101 The Slovak Liberation Committee "Against no one who wishes to work conscientiously for the liberation of the Slovak nation does the Slovak League of America have any arguments. In fact it welcomes any positive action. However, to achieve success there is need for a common united front - not a faction or several factions. "Assumption of definite rights and obligations is the prerogative of the Slovak League of America because it is recognized as the highest cultural-political organization of American Slovaks, and as such it wants to retain this preeminent position and prestige by the pursuit of a prudent policy and by its charitable activities . Therefore, if anyone desires to participate in a national program involving the Slovak League must, necessarily coordinate his efforts with the program of the Slovak League. He must never misuse the name of the League, nor use the name prematurely without being properly authorized to do so. "Our organization has experienced many crises but has ultimately taken the proper stand on many intricate problems and questions mainly because it has acted discretely, carefully, and always adopted a course of action only after a thorough study of all the problems involved. It has refrained from following the opinion of this or that 5ndividual and hence has avoided being influenced by the enthusiasm of individuals, often admirable, but too often erroneous. "We do not condemn the Slovak Action Committee, nor do we suspect its aims, but because this committee has committed a number of errors of judgment and because its program does not assure us of the successful liberation of the Slovak nation at this time, and finally, because as yet we have not come to any agreement with its spokesmen, the Slovak League of America maintains its friendly attitude but continues its traditional policy of watchful waiting towards this committee. "Never has the Slovak League in America lost out in much more serious affairs by 'watchful waiting,' and we believe it will not lose anything by keeping this policy. Be it noted well, that the use of sharp and bitter phrases �l.02 SLOVAKIA against Slovak leaders in America or Europe, or the general attitude, which gives the impression that the Slovak Action Committee wants to by-pass, ignore or sabotage the action of the Slovak League of America, certainly does not constitute the best means of winning the friendship, confidence or cooperation of the League . "We are well informed that the Slovak Action Committee must come to friendly terms with other prominent persons in Europe who have the best interests of the Slovak nation at heart. These must not exclude each other by mutual disagreement or refusal to arrive at mutual understanding. "Until that time when all the responsible Slovak leaders meet and agree on a common program in behalf of the Slovak nation's fight for freedom and welfare, the Slovak League cannot give an unqualified endorsement to the Slovak Action Committee. What is far more important in this case is that the American government will not sanction our formal union with the activity of the Slovak Action Committee. The Three 'Isms "Against the trio of the present three 'isms: nazism, fascism, and communism, the Slovak League has gone on record long ago. The first two are vanquished. We, too, helped to crush them. But our stand against the third one, namely, communism, has not changed. We will not stop fighting until this one, too, is completely destroyed. "American public opinion is subject to various changes but we remain unchanged and unmoved in our position to communism. It is necessary to do everything possible in opposition to it because the sooner we get rid of this 'ism the sooner will Slovakia be liberated and the less will America suffer from its intrigues, plots and machinations. "Communism today has a death-grip on Slovakia, and the Slovaks are helpless. If it were not for this alien power, the Slovak nation would easily dispose of Benes, the Czechoslovaks and the Czech imperialists. And communist bayonets which escorted Benes to power in Praha keep the Slovaks imprisoned in their own country while they �SLOVAKIA 103 keep Benes in his position as head of the post-war Czechoslovak satellite of the Soviet Union. "As loyal Americans, as true Slovaks, and as Christians, too, it is our sacred duty to fight communism no matter where it appears, except perhaps in Moscow, if they want it there let them keep it there." When at one of its very first sessions, Vice-President Pavol Jamriska, presiding chairman, gave a brief review of the above declaration and the position taken by the Slovak League of America, there was a spontaneous outburst of applause The vote was unanimously in approval and all the subsequent sessions were conducted in this spirit. Everyone present sensed the importance of this momentous decision and when Dr . Peter P. Hletko finished reading the detailed program of the Slovak League the approval was unanimous. The Canadian Slovak League, which was holding its convention simultaneously, adopted the American Slovak League's resolution and proclamation. Embattled in their homeland, the Slovaks have found a true champion in the Slovak League of America which once again supports their noble cause of political liberty, cultural freedom, economic opportunity and, in our day, the added sacred cause of religious freedom. These foregoing facts are merely segments from many pages of the illustrious history of the Slovak League. Its history will undoubtedly some day be enshrined as a glorious chapter in the history of the Slovak nation. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA heartily commends all efforts of our governmental and other organs to ferret out and unmask all Communists and fellow travellers, as well as all persons and organizations who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism promoted by the Soviet Union. � 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 1967, Vol. 17 Description An account of the resource Special Issue: Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967. 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 1967 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 63 SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND INDEPENDENT SLOVAKIA By Mikulds Sprinc On October 6, 1938, when the Slovaks attained autonomy and the Pittsburgh Agreement was incorporated into the Constitution of Czecho-Slovakia, the Slovak League in America had a great and unquestioned share in the great event. In the days that followed there was an outburst of fresh enthusiasm. The Slovaks were beginning to build their own new national home on the pattern of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Slovakia fully appreciated the support which had been given the country by the Slovak League in America for the attainment of its self-government. The Slovak nation immediately wanted to know about the life of the American Slovaks because a mutual affection and friendship develops through knowledge and understanding. Konstantin Culen, a dynamic writer and ace newspaperman, was sent by Karol Sidor and the Slovak autonomous government to the U.S. His chief role was to establish closer cultural ties with the American Slovaks and to write a history of the Slovaks in America, - and as a secondary purpose, to act as a life-line between the Slovaks in their homeland and their fellow countrymen overseas; also, to maintain communication between the American Slovak organizations and the Slovaks at home. What the attitude of the Slovak League was towards the new form of Slovak national life in the old country was at this time we readily deduce from the special meeting of the executive committee of the Slovak League on March 2-3, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa. We read the following minutes : "President Rusek warmly welcomed the distinguished guest, Konstantin Culen, from Slovakia. The Slovak emissary thanked him sincerely and in his brief response expressed his feelings and extended the greetings of the Slovak government and parliament to all the American Slovaks. The applause was spontaneous and enthusiastic." In another section of the above minutes of the same 64 SLOVAKIA meeting, culen's impressions of the public reaction in Slovakia to the first session of the Slovak parliament in Bratislava are recorded as follows: "We were indeed sorry that there were no American Slovaks present at the opening session of the first Slovak parliament in history. The places reserved for you were vacant. But since you were absent from this historic session, I feel sure you will be represented at the next session, the second one, at which the Slovak parliament will discuss the Constitution. You must come, and others, too, from all over America." How vitally interested. the Slovak League of America was in the matter of Slovak autonomy in 1939 is evident from the same special executive meeting, for a nominating committee was named to select a delegation to visit Slovakia. This committee immediately chose the following: Ivan Bielek, J . A. Kocur, Jozef Rusek, Mrs. Gabriela Vavrek r.nd Dr. Peter P . Hletko, alternates were P . Jamriska, Rev. Klemo Hrtanek. Rev. Florian Billy, Andrej Suroviak and Michal Sincak. Jozef Rusek, the president, was designated to head the special delegation, which received unanimous approval. It was decided at the meeting that the Slovak League delegation should take the original Pittsburgh Agreement document and present it to the Slovak nation 'with due ceremonies' - and added remark in the minutes. The executive committee of the Slovak League made this decision on the basis of the previous Congress of the Slovak League which had approved the proposal to surrender the original draft of the Pittsburgh Agreement, a precious historical document, and present it officially to the Slovak parliament as soon as the political requirements guaranteed to the Slovak nation were fulfilled and carried out as outlined .3pecifically in the pact. A fund raising campaign to help Slovakia was organized, which again shows the enthusiastic support in behalf of the freedom of Slovakia by the Slovak League of America. This received the unanimous approval of all present because they realized how important it was to lend a helping hand at this particular time of the Slovak nation's history. Practically everybody pledged his aid. Mr. Kridlo res- SLOVAKIA 65 ponded first. His organization ( the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union) voted $150 and promised to contact all of its branches for donations. Virostek, Jamriska, Dlhos, Salva and Kostolnik spoke approvingly - Kostolnik presented a check from the Federation of Slovak Societies in Detroit and later sent in the sum of $270 which he had personally collected for aid to Slovakia. Good will and generosity were in evidence everywhere for this good and worthy cause. The Slovak League records show the magnanimity of our people on this occasion. One feels anew the spirit of the times of Furdek and the first campaign of the American Slovaks during World War I. It is no wonder that the Slovak League rejoiced, for this was the first time since the fall of its kingdom of Moravia (at the beginning· of the 10th century) that the Slovaks had their own national parliament and were assured self-government. The Slovak State and the Slovak League of America Slovakia's struggle of two decades ended on a triumphant note of victory and the Slovak League had had a major share in the winning of national autonomy. But Divine Providence decreed that the Slovak nation should have not only self-government but an independent Slovak state. From October, 1938, to March, 1939, the Slovak spirit of national pride reached its highest point of development and it became increasingly clear that Slovakia was ripe not only for autonomy but for a complete, self-governing state. Meantime, Slovakia was ridding itself of Czechs whom the Slovak autonomous government sent home to Prague. Treaty-breaking Czechs who bitterly assailed the emergence of a new Slovakia and plotted to take autonomy away from the Slovak nation by force of arms, even though the Constitution of the Czecho-Slovak Republic solemnly guaranteed it. Under the heavy pressure of the European political situation and subject to aggression by Germany, the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia fell apart at the seams. At the same time the Slovaks who were united under their own . national parliament and government in Bratislava 65 SLOVAKIA cheered the unanimous decision of the parliament to declare the Slovak nation's independence and the establishment of an independent Slovak state, the Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939. These events in the history of the Slovak nation are m omentous and unforgettable. No one pressurized the Slovak parliament on March 14, 1939, to its unanimous declaration to organize its own, free self-governing and sovereign state. If the idea of Slovak statehood had not been ripe, and if the legally constituted body of Slovak representatives had not grasped that this was the final phase of the Slovak struggle for self-government, if they had not realized that their unanimous vote for independence was in harmony with the will of the vast majority of the Slovak people, they would have timidly surrendered to the tragic circumstances of having their country torn asunder by neighbors who had never been true friends but covetous foes of the 8.lovak nation. Fully conscious of their opportunity, responsibility and dangers ahead, they decided to go forward as a free nation towards its destiny. Germany's hand of friendship was extended, it had not been solicited, but now that it was given, it was accepted because a refusal would have not only been inexpedient but perhaps suicidal in view of the political tension of the times. No one can justly blame the Slovaks for the acceptance cf German support. They could not know in advance that in the future their self-proclaimed champion would become barbaric and inhumane, nor could they foresee future developments when actually on March 14, 1939, the Germans solemnly announced that they had no territorial demands other than the Sudeten lands . From every angle the Slovak state was to become in reality what the Slovak nation dreamed about and fought ior through the centuries, namely, the highest development of a nation's genius as the result of the embodiment of Slovak rights to freedom and independent progress, a renewal of the glorious and triumphant tradition of Slovak princes and rulers, the fulfillment of the aspirations of all Slovak generations, the actualization of the right to SLOVAKIA 67 regulate their own affairs by themselves, and for themselves, and for their own Slovak welfare and happiness in building and maintaining their own free, national state. This was their golden destiny. At no time had the renaissance of the Slovak national spirit soared to such heights of glory as during the Slovak Republic. Never before had the country's administration been in the hands of native Slovaks and never before had the Slovaks worked so hard and so willingly, or paid their taxes so readily as then. Slovak lands for the first time in history produced everything in abundance for the benefit of the Slovaks who finally ruled and governed themselves, and were masters of their national destiny. As nothing but destruction and ruin met the eye beyond the borders of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia enjoyed a period of phenomenal growth and prosperity. The Slovaks gave their Republic a democratic Constitution while totalitarianism and dictatorship surrounded them on every side. Slovak statesmen constructed their political edifice on the foundations of God's law and providence at a time when everywhere in Europe Christian morality was being almost universally supplanted by the savage cult of force and a new pagan philosophy. Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko recalled the universal acclamation that had greeted the founding of the Slovak Republic and he spoke of the Slovak state openly at the procommunistic trial held in Bratislava after the war. His testimony clearly indicates that the declaration of Slovak independence on March 14, 1939, was the occasion for a spontaneous celebration throughout Slovakia. Catholics and Protestants rejoiced alike . Every true Slovak was genuinely pleased and happy at the turn of events that brought the Slovak nation its own free, independent state. Moreover, he began to appreciate more and more the many opportunities to develop his native talents for his individual welfare, as well as for the benefit of his own country. For too long he had been denied these opportunities because of alien rule. Slovak League archives contain the following text of a letter from a Protestant school inspector in Slovakia: 68 SLOVAKIA It was adressed to Jozef Rusek, President, Slovak League of America, Pittsburgh, Pa. The text of the letter: Teachers of the Slovak school inspectors' committee in Trencin who have taken the oath of loyalty to the Slovak state, gratefully recall your vigorous fight for the recognition of the independence of our Slovak nation. In this free Slovak state we will work with might and main, God helping us, for the spiritual and material welfare of our nation and state. We respectfully request your aid, Mr. President, so that we may succeed in our common endeavor. With the approval of the teachers I send you sincere greetings from the 'old country.' With sentiments of profound esteem, Na straz! - On Guard, Michal Balafovic, School Inspector in Trencin, Slovakia This is only one of many expressions of hope, confidence and joy that greeted the founding of the free, Slovak state, and as usual, was accompanied by a message of gratitude addressed to the Slovak League of America. Not even for a moment did the Slovak League hesitate to take its proper stand on the question of the newly-created Slovak state. Accordingly, at an executive meeting on May l 2, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pa., the officers formulated the official reaction on the basis of the recommendations made by the president, Jozef Rusek, namely: 1) Establish a special committee to draw up a Memorandum to 1e addressed to the governments of the U.S., Britain and France in the interests of and for the recognition of the Slovak state, a revision of the boundaries, and a provision to guarantee the cultural rights of 700,000 Slovaks residing inside Hungary. 2) Designate a reporter from the Slovak League and dispatch him to Slovakia to determine the situation there and investigate the exact conditions under which the Slovaks decided to terminate their alliance with the Czechs. After discussing the matter, the members at the meeting agreed to authorize the Slovak League executive officers: 1) To name the necessary committees. 2) To establish an information bureau in Washington, D.C. in order to counteract false , deceitful and slanted anti-Slovak news in the American press and furnish the American press instead with information founded on facts and the truth. 3) To edit English memoranda and pamphlets in the int.erest of the Slovak nati.on and its officially constituted SLOVAKIA 69 free state, the Slovak Republic. 4) To take the necessary steps for a hearing in the State Department in the nation's capital in order to obtair, U.S. recognition of the Slovak Republic. All these fo:re-going resolutions are duly registered and taken verbatim from the minutes of the above meeting of the Slovak League's executive committee, May 12, 1939. They prove that the Slovak League gave prompt approval to the Slovak state. and, as always, sought to lend a helping hand by seeking to obtain the diplomatic and official recognition of the Slovak state by the United States government in Washington, D.C. On the otherhand, the Slovak state was not un-mindful of the Slovak League of America. The first president of the Slovak Republic sent a greeting by cablegram addressed directly to the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The minutes of the Congress refer to this as follows: The president announced that Dr. Jozef Tiso, the president of the Slovak Republic, sent his greetings to the Congress and he asked Dr. Peter Hletko, honorary president of the Slovak League, to read the message. Whereupon, Dr. Hletko read the cablegram informing the American Slovaks of the warmth and loyalty prevailing everywhere throughout the country to the new Slovak state. The message also indicated the immediate necessity of defending the young Republic against enemy aggression and the happy outcome of events in perilous and challenging times. Moreover, there was a note of assurance anct hope for the future destiny of the Slovak nation. Prolonged applause followed the reading of the cablegram from President Tiso. This Congress of the Slovak League in Cleveland directed the administration of the League to reply with a cablegram to Dr. Jozef Tiso, the first president of the Slovak Republic. (Minutes of the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League of America, Cleveland, Ohio, May 12-14, 1939). Czechoslovakia on the Horizon While the Slovaks in their free Slovak Republic rolled up their sleeves and went to work in full strength to build their Slovak state, and while the Slovak League took the first step to secure recognition for the newly-formed Slovak Republic by the government of the United States, the defeated, cowardly ex-president of the Czecho-Slovak Re- 70 SLOVAKIA public, Dr. Benes, appeared on the scene here with his entire entourage. History repeats itself - as in World War I his gaze was directed again towards the American Slovaks who de facto had set up the Czecho-Slovak Republic financially, so now Dr. Benes sought the sympathy and support of the Slovak League of America. He did not approach the League personally but sent his faithful servant, Dr. Juraj Slavik. Dr. Slavik therefore, appeared on May 12, 1939, at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Slavik's visit is described in the minutes of the meeting as follows: Then President Josef Husek introduced Dr. Slavik, former minister in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and requested him to state the nature of his mission. The guest speaker extended his greetings and then proceeded to explain what had happened in Slovakia, especially how the Slovak state had been created, how much of his property had been confiscated by the Slovak government, and his reasons for cooperation with Dr. Benes for the re-establishment of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He further stated that it was Professor Tuka, Sano Mach, chief of propaganda, Karol Murgas, head of he Hlinka Guards (Militia) , and Dr. Ferdinand !>urcansky who were the instigators of a plot that enabled Hitler to destroy the Czecho-Slovak Republic. He referred to Sidor, a member of parliament, and declared that Sidor had been opposed to Slovak independence and for that reason the Hlinka party dismissed him from the Slovak government. Mr. Husek interrupted the Benes emissary and gave him a letter from Sidor who explained the events in an entirely different vein ; and even his account of why he was dropped from the formation of the new Slovak government differed substantially from Slavik's report. Reaction to Sidor's letter was simply a smile on Slavik's face when he returned the letter to Husek without comment. Various questions touching on discrimination, persecution and imprisonments to which loyal Slovaks were subjected at the hands of the central regime in Prague were directed at the visitor. Whereupon, Slavik made only feeble attempts to exonerate his Czechoslovak and Czech colleagues - and these, of course, were all in vain. His hearers remained unimpressed. Dr. Slavik's sweet talk did not win the Slovak League because now as never before it stood solidly behind the idea and reality of the free Slovak state. The official reply was clear as implied in the recommendation at the meeting: "To draw up a resolution that would concisely and clearly express the Slovak League's reasons to oppose Dr. Eduard Benes's program and leadership which were designed for the renewal of the old Czecho-Slovakia." SLOVAKIA 71 That was a genuinely Slovak reply of the Slovak League. Dr. Slavik's visit was merely the first of several attempts to derail the Slovak League so that the people, led by Dr. Benes, might once more get the League into their clutches. Although the Slovak League remained firm, Benes did not cease his machinatio ns. Rocky Path for the Slovak League of America In the interim, the most dreadful of wars had spread throughou t Europe. All communic ations between Slovakia and the Slovak League of America was suddenly cut off. Against its will Slovakia was dragged into the conflict. As the bitter aftermath of Dr. Benes's failure to lure the Slovak League into a position of unqualified support of the Czechoslov ak camp against the Slovak state, the Czechoslovak governmen t-in-exile simply began a campaign of revenge against the League. A nationwide Czechoslov ak apparatus hit the Slovak League with a ferocious propagand a barrage. It was the intention of Benes to destroy the League by discreditin g it in Washingto n in a vicious smear campaign that sought to put the stamp of nazism on the organizatio n, labeling the Slovak League maliciously as a loyal Hitler ally, and therefore, an enemy of the U.S. and the United Nations . Against this web of lies circulated by the Czechoslov ak propagand a agency here against the Slovak League, naturally, the latter had great difficulties in meeting charges that were made arbitrarily but which could not be adequately answered because the Slovak League lacked necessary informatio n from Slovakia to refute the malicious propagand a. With no communic ation because of the war, it seemed that the Slovak League was completely at the mercy of the merciless foes of Slovak freedom who attempted to cut the vital roots of the organizatio n and destroy it forever . In fact, matters went so far that officers in the Slovak League were subjected to federal investigation on charges of being dangerous to the national interests of the U.S. as subversive elements. The Czechs had their allies in Washingto n and they were not particular about the methods and means to be used to attain their mad objective of destroying the Slovak League. 72 SLOVAKIA This was an unequal and bitterly fought contest. Benes and his informants were the sources of information of the highest military propaganda bureaus in Washington. Jozef Rusek as president of the Slovak League had presented a Memorandum in Washington, D.C. asking for U.S. recognition of the Slovak state. It was ignored. Meanwhile, reports (false) were circulated that Slovakia got involved in the war by declaring hostilities on the U.S. There was no way for the Slovak League to verify or deny these reports . . the line of communication with Slovakia was closed tightly. If the Slovak League, in 1943, had only known one salient fact , namely, that the so-called war-declaration on the U.S. was not a legally declared state of war because neither the Slovak parliament nor President Tiso had given their assent to such a grave act, and that in actuality the reported 'state of war' between Slovakia and this country was an illegal proclamation of one man, Dr. Vojtech Tuka, who. without any authority what-so-ever simply declared war on the U.S. Extreme determination to destroy the Slovak Republic motivated Dr. Benes in his policy. Consequently, this declaration of war was utilized to the utmost in distorted form by the resigned second president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. It served Benes well to emphasize this status of an 'official act of hostility' presumably on the part of the Slovak nation, which actually was against such n declaration, as was the Slovak government with its parliament and President Tiso . Indisputably, on the face of it, without explaining the circumstances of the reported declaration of war on the U.S. by Slovakia, this was a great opportunity for Dr . Benes to exploit the occasion and he did, to the hilt. His intrigues for the despicable objective of the destruction of the Slovak nation's own free state knew no bounds. Monsignor Francis Dubosh, wartime president of the Slovak League of America, was shouldered with the heavy responsibility of defending the organization against · vilification by its enemies. Slovak League archives of 1943 contain a complete record of correspondence between Msgr. Dubosh and the OWI (Office of War Information). SLOVAKIA 73 Faced by an endless series of barefaced lies that poured into Washington from the sworn foes of Slovak freed.om, the Slovak League stood fast in its defense of the truth and freedom for Slovakia. Moreover, there was nothing to hide, for the Slovak League membership, its president and executive officers were men of personal integrity and loyal citizens of the United States. They met the challenge without flinching and withstood the test with courage and dignity. Some timid souls, it is unfortunately true, became terrorized by this vicious attack of the enemy but the leadership of such stalwart men as Monsignor Dubosh rallied the faithful under the unsullied banner of the Slovak League of America. In the end they prevailed in the fight for Slovak freedom , self-government and free statehood. Now that they sensed the type of opposition they had to contend with, they became determined to maintain the struggle until final victory over the evil forces arrayed against the gallant men they were associated with in the Slovak League . Many resolutions and statements on behalf of the Slovak nation were formulated and proclaimed by the Slovak League despite the bitter attacks levelled against its daring leaders and resolute program. Dr. Benes and his paid propagandists spent several million dollars but all their fiery and venomous darts failed to pierce the stout armor of the American Slovak champion who defended the great citadel of freedom for Slovakia, namely, the Slovak League of America. Though under tremendous tension and pressure in this struggle, the Slovak League did not falter. Its leaders addressed new resolutions that reached the highest government circles in Washington. The historic 'Memorandum', which was entitled, "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood", was sent directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Signed by Msgr. Dubosh and Jan A. Kocur, this wartime document was a review of the struggle of the Slovaks through the centuries for their national freedom and their right to determine their own national destiny on the fundamental democratic principle and tradition of self-determination. 74 SLOVAKIA Whether the Slovaks should have their own independent state, or whether they should belong to the CzechoSlovak Republic, the Slovak League, being deprived of factual news from Slovakia, did not presume to be a competent judge - and hence, it merely wished to re-emphasize President Roosevelt's proclamation and democratic creed that "every nation, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood." American statesmen are formally addressed in the prophetic and fearless appeal which deals fundamentally with the Slovak problem: We Americans of Slovak ancestry who make sacrifices and fight side by side with other nations, and have dedicated our lives to the cause of freedom, appeal to our leaders in this momentous struggle and ask them especially to have the destiny of Slovakia in mind lest the foes of Slovak rights to freedom and nationhood deceive them in an unguarded moment, we further respectfully request them to bear in mind the sacred right of the Slovak nation to its own national selfgoverning state, which, as a matter of history, the Slovak nation established after many centuries of struggle against oppression and tyranny; and finally, we ask that liberty, self-determination and the means to a democratic way of life be guaranteed to the Slovaks in the same full measure as will be guaranteed all other nations in the world. This memorable document explains quite extensively 2nd manifestly Czech treacheries aimed against the Slovaks and takes a firm, uncompromising stand against Dr. Benes and his Slovak and Czechoslovak janizaries. It remains a historic testimony that not all Slovak emigrants were on the side of Dr. Benes. The examples of Dr. Osusky and Dr. Hodfa are cited because their political programs coincided essentially with the articles of the Pittsburgh Agreement (Pact) . Remarkable in many respects, but especially amazing is the fact that the Slovak League's life and death struggle was carried on despite an empty treasury against the millions of dollars expended by Benes and his anti-Slovak confederates! Dr. Milan Hodza and the Slovak League of America Dr. Milan Hodfa was invited to be a guest speaker at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League of America. Hodfa, an emigrant political leader from Slovakia, ex- SLOVAKIA 75 pressed his regrets but sent in an extensive letter or message dated April 9, 1943, and addressed to Msgr. Dubosh, President, in which he explains, in detail, his stand on the Slovak problem and outlines his suggestions and proposals to the Slovak League which was involved vitally in the struggle for Slovakia's rights to national freedom and statehood. About American Slovaks Dr. Hodza has this opinion: First, I highly esteem the Slovak League as an institution of the American Slovaks, one that has done meritorious work in behalf of the Slovak nation and its native homeland. Hodza pays tribute to Furdek, the founder of the Slovak League, and reviews the currents of Slovak political action. He has words of praise for Slovak patriotism and pride that was inspired by the Slovak League, the great champion of the Slovak nation's struggle for freedom. On the subject of World War II , he expressed his understanding of the perilous times: Everyone who knows anything of Slovak loyalty could never have any shadow of doubt about the allegiance of American Slovaks to American democracy or deny their wholehearted dedication to the ideals of freedom and democracy - for America and Slovakia. But someone rashly has said that the majority of American Slovaks have 'fascist leanings.' To that unfounded charge I reply: When it became necessary to defend their country and the highest moral values of mankind, the American Slovaks proved themselves by their deeds and sacrifices. They purchased bonds and bombers, joined the military forces in large numbers, with their young men and women enrolling in all the services-hundreds, perhaps thousands of whom now are wounded or dead on battlefields in every corner of the globe . .. suffering death or wounds in defense of American democracy, security and freedom. Such are Slovak 'fascists.' This moving testimonial to the Slovak League's program by a leading Slovak politician and statesman excels anything that might be added on the subject. It is an honest, heartfelt evaluation of the work of the Slovak League based on firsthand observation and information. Moreover, Hodza, as he notes in his long letter to the Slovak League, considered it his solemn duty to inform the Slovaks of America of the events that occurred up to the year, 1938, in Czecho-Slovakia. He recalls the visit of the Slovak League delegation in Praha. Upon being approached to support the Pittsburgh Agreement, he ob- ?(, SLOVAKIA served that he had already drawn up his own draft for Slovak rights, which, in his personal opinion, he deemed substantially even better and proposed it as a substitute. Hodza explains that his political views were based on the fact that both economically and financially Slovakia was very weak at the conclusion of World War I. He goes on record: In a public statement of May 17, 1938, I spoke about the Pittsburgh Agreement, and in the discussion I urged that the time for criticizing it was long past. Now was the time to actualize it in reality, I said. Finally, at the end of June or the beginning of July, 1938, I succeeded in securing a virtual promise of the government to recognize it and put it into effect, namely, the official extension of self government and the establishment of a parliament in Bratislava for Slovakia. Subsequent remarks by Hodza emphasized his advocating the international political continuity of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and the self-same continuity of the internal political policies and acts of the Republic. Since the legality of the Zilina Agreement was nullified on the grounds that it had been drawn up a week after Munich, the legality of the decisions of the constitutional government of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in June and July, 1938, could not be questioned, and therefore he favored guarantees for self-rule and the rights of the Slovak nation in their native home country. Under all circumstances Hodza stood his ground in this manifest policy. He added: What type of federal or political system we will decide upon, that will be our domestic problem. But to be specific: No longer shall we tolerate the machinery of the Czecho-Slovak Assembly in Prague to dominate by its majority vote. Why not? Because in a total of some 300 members the Czechs have approximately 150 votes, the Slovaks scarcely 60. Thus a 2/3 or a 3/ 5 majority vote would automatically determine Slovak policy with or without a small Slovak minority. No longer can we allow this government monopoly by a Czech regime in Praha. The new reorganization of the state must take into consideration a constitutional measure respecting a Slovak national majority as well as a Czech national majority correspondingly in their own national assembly or parliament. This is the principle and policy that was enunciated and approved by the Czecho-Slovak National Committee on January 1, 1940. In the future, Hodza believed, that the vast majority of the Czechs would abandon centralism as a national policy and accept the new effective policy of mutual Czech SLOVAKIA 77 and Slovak cooperation through proper Slovak representation on the basis of a federative status of national equality. "I am continuing my efforts in behalf of Slovakia today on the basis of international law," Dr. Hodza declared, "and in accord with England which in March, 1939, of its own volition, and on the basis of fundamental reasons, refused to recognize German dis-memberm ent of the Czecho-Slova k Republic." Both the U.S and the Soviet Union, according to Hodza, adhered to this view of continuity, and he, therefore, thought this was the only sure foundation for future action in behalf of Slovakia. Peace in Europe Hodza envisioned as the development of an intimate association of America, England and Russia and the creation of a central European federation to which Yugoslavia and Romania should belong also. This federation, he believed, would be an effective defensive bloc against any possible future German aggression. "Slavonic democracy' --, in Hodza's opinion, "in which the Slovaks must have a role, must guarantee both national and religious freedom, human dignity, the rights of the individual, provide social and economic security, preserve representativ e government that is based on the free expression of each nation's will." American Slovaks, through its Slovak League, demanded all the guarantees of democratic freedom and the free exercise of natural rights for the Slovak nation on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, namely, the Four Freedoms, self-determin ation and the right to choose their own national destiny. Conclusion of Dr. Hodza's message reads: "Continue as you have begun. You are on the right road." All Slovaks with few exceptions at home and abroad Hnanimously agree that the Slovaks are entitled as a nation to the rights of freedom and self-determin ation, the cardinal principles of the victorious united nations of World War II. There were no substantial differences between his political doctrine and the Slovak League's program, Hodza 78 SLOVAKIA contended. Nevertheless, there was one difference, and it was that the Slovak League of America maintained the belief that it is the Slovak nation's prerogative to decide whether it wants to rejoin the Czechs in a newly-recreated Czecho-Slovakia, or remain in its own separate independent state. As a matter of fact, Hodza, at one time a centralist, could not free himself from the personal conviction that the Czechs and Slova,ks belong indubitably in a united state. Hodza lacked the experience and enlightenment of being a citizen in his own native Slovak political state. Very interesting, indeed, would have been Hodza's views, and relationship with the Slovak League, after Benes' treasonable act in Moscow (1943) and the aftermath of the 'paper agreement' in Kosice with the Slovak national council (1945). We can presume, in view of the sad events in the second Czecho-Slovak Republic, that the Slovak political leader would have followed the leadership of the Slovak League and the vast majority of the Slovaks in their home country in demanding a plebiscite in postwar Slovakia to determine: 1) Whether the Slovak nation wanted to be an integral part of Czecho-Slovakia. 2) Or whether it wanted to be an independent state. 3) Or whether it wanted to join a federation. Death ended any further speculation, and because of the situation in Czecho-Slovakia after the war, the Prague regime refused to grant permission to the Hodza family tc have the body of an eminent Slovak political figure to be returned to his native Slovakia for burial. A Final Break with Benes Intrigues and slanders, coarse and cynical comments marked the careers and attitudes of Dr. Benes and his colleagues. As immediate consequences of their ignoble activities there was a complete disregard of Slovak rights in U.S. State Department circles that determined our international policy while a cloud of dark suspicion hovered over the Slovak League. Refusal to bow down under the crushing pressure exerted by Benes and his clique maddened the Czech plotter and his slanderous propagandists. All of their plans to destroy the Slovak League of America failed miserably. SLOVAKIA 79 After reviewing the activities of Dr. Benes in World War I and World War II, the Slovak League of America went on record as being irrevocably opposed to Dr. Benes and his ideology. Monsignor Dubosh, the president, declared publicly in his report at the 25th Congress of the Slovak League in October, 1943: I have explained the situation of the Slovak League in relationship to Dr. Benes and his intrigues. Now, where shall we go? What should we do ? Well, Dr. Benes, acknowledged as a skillful diplomat, has refused to negotiate with us. He seems to think that if he looks down upon us with disdain, we 'stupid Slovaks' will shake with trepidation and run to him seeking his help. It is unfortunate that he, a diplomat and political leader, never learned to know the Slovaks better. Perhaps the Slovaks were somewhat naive for tolerating him so long. He forgets that in America, the sons of Slovak immigrants who escaped to America had the opportunity for an education. One of the lessons they learned well was not to take abuse from anybody. He acts as if the Slovaks had no rights whatsoever, not even the right to speak up and say whether they want to live with the Czechs or not. Dr. Benes is sadly mistaken if he thinks the Slovaks were given to the Czechs by divine decree. The Slovaks voluntarily entered into partnership with the Czechs, and they can voluntarily dissolve that partnership. If this is not true, then the Slovaks are not human beings, but slaves, even worse, for then they are but mere animals. That we refuse to accept. We will never allow the Slovaks to be treated as brutes, not even for the price of a million Beneses! Msgr. Dubosh concluded his statement: Truly wise would Benes have been had he and his disciples finally realized that they cannot act as if the Slovaks had no rights at all, that they cannot destroy the Slovak nation which has survived so many centuries, that the Slovak was, is, and will always remain a Slovak, that there will be no peace between the Czechs and Slovaks until justice and equality are established between the two, that nobody will ever convince the Slovak he is anything than what he is: a Slovak. A number of renegades among the Slovaks may be found, as in the case of the Magyar era, and these will agree with Benes and propagate his ideas. But the vast majority of the Slovaks here and in their historic homeland have remained unmoved and unconvinced because they know the true history of the Slovak nation. This is a clear-cut view and a definite stand. Andrej Hlinka would have spoken the same way - and every loyal Slovak agrees with this unqualified view that refuses to surrender the rights of the Slovak nation to freedom and nationhood. The year, 1943, definitely witnessed another resurgence of dynamic and invincible spirit of Slovak national pride in the Slovak League of America. 8Li SLOVAKIA The Slovak League of America and the Slovak National Council in Slovakia War was slowly coming to an end and it was clear who would win by this time. For the Slovak League serious problems and grave responsibilities were anticipated. At the beginning of autum, 1944, the first news from Slovakia reported a revolt. The information was incomplete, distorted, and, therefore, confusing and unreliable. As might be expected the Slovak Republic was presented in a bad light by hostile propaganda forces. There was no direct connection with Slovakia to counteract the highly distorted image of the Slovaks who deserved a better fate. Moreover, the Slovak League was not aware of the many instances of official and unofficial opposition to German policies in Slovakia. Awaiting the outcome of the war and hoping for reliable reports from Slovakia, the Slovak League, meanwhile, had to ward off the Benes propagandists. Laboring under a terrible disadvantage, the Slovak League president, Msgr. Dubosh, told the Slovak League Congress on October 18-19, 1944, that "we have assured the state department in Washington the Slovaks will be heard from as soon as they get the opportunity. Our hope has not been in vain as current events prove. The Slovaks, we are told, have revolted . . .but not the Czechs ... and they are now fighting the Germans . How fortunate I am to be able to report that en my last visit to the state department in Washington I pointed out this latest development. Moreover, we had the happy occasion of launching a new warship, the General Milan R. Stefanik, at the time." Such was the first reaction to the report of the socalled Slovak revolt in the early days of September 1944. But it is interesting to note that during the 26th Congress resolutions were adopted against the Slovak national council and its self-assumed program. In this instance, again, sound Slovak instinct guided the Slovak League leadership. A special proclamation on Slovakia was issued, to wit, With great caution and intense interest we have followed and are following progress of events in Slovakia day by day. We have read a declaration, greetings, etc. from the so-called Slovak national council SLOVAK!.'. 81 which under its own authority has assumed or rather usurped the exclusive right to speak in the name of the Slovak nation and seeks to take over the legislative and executive power into its hands for the complete control of Slovakia. We replied that the Slovak League could hardly be expected to decide what position to take in this matter when there was doubt about the background to the so-called Slovak uprising since the sources of information were not checked out but appeared unreliable because they were inaccurate and incomplete. What made the American Slovaks suspicious from the start was t.lle declaration of the Slovak national council that seemed at first ~o defend the sovereignity of the Slovak nation but later to have tipped its hand by extending greetings to the Benes government in exile . . . and the greetings ended with a promise of loyalty and aid to the Czechoslovak resistance movement - to all intents and purposes an indication of the ultimate return of Slovakia to re-union with the Czechs in a new, reconstructed postwar Czechoslovakia! Without consulting the will of the Slovak nation the so-called Slovak national council placed the country into a definite state organization, thereby denying the Slovak nation the right of self-determination for which we are fighting and presumed to associate the Slovak nation with actions to which we American Slovaks have no sympathy, and to which we are not at all attracted, and which we believe to be completely unfavorable to the Slovaks in their own historic homeland. All these circumstances prompt us to maintain the utmost reserve towards the activity of the so-called national council because we fear that this activity instead of helping to liberate the Slovak nation leads to disruption, disintegration and ultimately to the weakening of the Slovak cause. Neither the leadership nor the aims of the Slovak national council, combined with the names of those who are cooperating with it, give us any assurance that the interests of Slovakia are in capable hands since the so-called Slovak uprising. People whose names we have noted are connected with the national council so-called, as well as in association with the so-called Slovak revolt, do not have our confidence er trust, and for those reasons we must proceed with caution if not entirely in opposition to these so-called representatives of the Slovak nation. Finally, it is quite obvious that the Slovak national council does not represent all classes of Slovak society. It does not represent either the .democratic or progressive elements in the Slovak nation, and hence, in our opinion, the council is not a qualified representative body of the Slovak people in whose name it presumes to speak, has taken over all law-enforcement agencies and assumed executive authority, and even has already decided arbitrarily that the Slovaks must give their allegiance to a pre-determined state re-organization, namely, Czechoslovakia again. Clear and concise was this formulation of official Slovak League policy in this situation, and it coincides with the refusal of the Slovak government and its president to join the revolt for precisely the same reasons. This judgment will always remain the true analysis of the will of the Slovak nation and its duly-constituted government of the Slovak Republic as opposed to the so-called national council. The latter's blunders and many crimes will one day be justly 82 SLOVAKIA attributed to its personnel when the genuinely true history of Slovakia may once again be written in freedom when a new era of truth, justice and peace will prevail. Zeroing in the Slovak nation as a victim to be re-assigned to a postwar re-creation of Czechoslovakia was a colossal historic blunder and crime of the so-called Slovak national council against the sovereignity of the Slovak nation, against its just rights to freedom, self-determination and democracy, and against truth and justice. The 1945 Washington Resolution of the Slovak League of America During the last months of the war from October, 1944, to April, 1945, the situation changed rapidly and essentially. The Russians had captured Bratislava and the war in Europe was just about ended. Sources of information for the Slovak League at this time were controlled completely by the U.S. Office of War Information agencies. And these were under the full censorship of Benes and his staff that had succeeded in winning the Slovak national council, so-called, to their side. Naturally, all information from them was favorable to the council . . . another Czechoslovak agency. What made the Slovak League officials anxious to get in contact with the Slovaks overseas was their desire to help them get on their feet after the most devastating of wars ... and since this was the only source of news available, they were forced to rely on it with reservations, however. These first news indicated that the Slovak national council had persuaded Benes ( who was in Moscow at the time ) to recognize the individuality of the Slovak nation and to grant extensive self-government to the Slovak nation in a new post-war Czecho-Slovakia. At first glance this program of the Slovak national council so-called ran parallel with the objectives of the Slovak League of America. That is what prompted the Slovak League to express its desire to get in touch with the council ... this fact enemies of both the Slovak nation and its champion, the Slovak League of America, take delight in citing when explaining their own policies. Before condemning this resolution it is well to take into consideration all the circumstances in which it was made and then study its contents. The entire first half of the resolution deals with the program and aspirations of SLOVAKIA 83 the Slovak League designed to guarantee the Slovak nation the absolute right of self-determination. Then follows this controversial paragraph: Let it be further resolved that to realize these aforementioned objectives, the Slovak League in America is willing to establish communication with the Slovak national council for the purpose of cooperating in matters that would benefit the Slovak nation and actualize the above program. Other 'insurance clauses' are also incorporated in the message in order to be on the safe side when dealing with the Slovak national council. In no manner was this a de facto recognition of the Slovak national council by the Slovak League but merely a statement of willingness to discuss mutually all phases of the Slovak problem, one may speak with someone without adopting his views or accepting his proposals, and in this case it was an expression of mere willingness to sit down and discuss the Slovak nation's problems of the present and map the future destiny of Slovakia. Personally, Msgr. Dubosh, the president of the Slovak League, described the entire affair as a resolution declaring a willingness to discuss the matter, nothing less, nothing more. Confirmation of the motives and genuine approach to the problem by the Slovak League of America on this occasion is made on the basis of the fact that as soon as the Slovak League administration got the record straight from Slovakia and diagnosed the case correctly, the Slovak League did not make any further attempts to get in touch officially with the so-called Slovak national council. Among the Slovaks in America this episode caused a. great deal of excitement and the Slovak League had to issue a public statement to clarify the matter. In its public statement, the Slovak League declared the Slovak national council guilty of deceit, and since it showed no inclination of guaranteeing freedom for the Slovak nation for which the League had always fought and would continue to fight, the traditional position of the Slovak League was emphatically repeated, namely, that the platform adopted at the 26th Congress of the Slovak League was still the guideline for the future policy of the League. A policy of 84 SLOVAKIA 'watchful waiting' would be pursued and the League officers would be more than wary where the Slovak national council was concerned. American Activity of the Slovak League The Slovak League of America is an organization of American citizens of Slovak ancestry. Consequently , it invariably coordinates its program and activities with the program and political policy of the United States. Beginning in 1907 and continuing up to now, the Slovak League, uesides its avowed program for the welfare of the Slovak nation in its homeland, was always actively engaged in work that was exclusively designed for the benefit and national interests of America. What was true in World War I, as far as the activity of the Slovak League was concerned, was more than doubly true in World War II. Perhaps Dr. Hodza's description of this united program suffices (as quoted above) to prove this. His words of commendatio n in the message to the Slovak League Congress constitute a remarkable testimony of its manifold contributions . Loyalty and fidelity, Hodza listed as among the foremost virtues of the American Slovaks because his fellow countrymen always felt that their faithfulness to the U.S., their adopted country, must ever be profound and complete. When, therefore, this country became involved in the war against nazism, the Slovak League joined America with all its resources for the strife. Never has the Slovak League boasted of this American activity. Actually it was a duty to be performed and no need to publicize it. But Benes and his alien propagandists incessantly attacked the Slovak League in American circles and assailed it as a nazi agency, and therefore, an enemy to the national interests of America, and even contrary to the Slovak League's program in behalf of Slovakia! Monsignor Dubosh, who had to combat the malicious propaganda levelled at the Slovak League of America, had to swallow many a bitter pill on this account, and only because of his devotion to America - and his love for the Slovak nation . Undoubtedly, the best argument in favor of the Slovak SLOVAKIA 85 League was its activity for the welfare of America. This action included the following: 1) The Slovak League Campaign for U.S. War Bonds Merely to have a birds-eye view of the gigantic patriotic efforts of the Slovak League in behalf of the U.S., it is sufficient to cite a few facts and figures. Under the dynamic leadership of the patriotic Father John J. Lach the Slovak League gave full support to a war-bond campaign. From the report by Father Lach at the Slovak League executive meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. on October 17-18, 1944, we learn that under Slovak League sponsorship approximately 53 million dollars' worth of bonds were purchased during World War II. This and similar cases attest to the loyalty of Slovak individuals and their societies throughout the country. Who can doubt the sincere patriotism of the American Slovaks or deny their loyalty? 2) Airplanes War bonds were not the only means by which American Slovaks supported the war effort. One of its activities was the purchase of airplanes for the U.S. Airforce. First, the Slovensk<i Obrana, edited and published by Michael Bosak, Jr., Scranton, Pa., opened the campaign for three airplanes. Chicago's Osadne Hlasy weekly joined the campaign. The fund brought in $31,000. The ceremony of presenting a trio of training planes to the U.S. armed forces occured at the Cleveland airport on May 29, 1943. Each plane bore the slogan, "Spirit of the Slovak League of America," but even on this occasion the Czech propagandists tried to reap undeserved honors by claiming this act to be a part of their program. Monsignor Dubosh reported to the 25th Congress of the Slovak League: This was a capital idea, which, naturally, our Czechoslovak 'friends' tried to exploit for their benefit just as they tried to do last year when the Slovaks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland purchased war bonds. Their propaganda machine gave credit to 'Czechs' and Czechoslovaks. Such are our so-called brothers . . . everything we have they consider their very own. 3) Warships Liberty ships, three of them, bore the names submitted by the Slovak League in recognition of its highly successful war-bond campaign. Elaborate ceremonies marked BG SLOVAKIA the launching of the "Stephen Furdek," "Sgt. Matej Kocak," and the "General Milan R. Stefanik." Altogether this variety of activity brought the Slovak League and the American Slovaks widespread publicity and recognition. They were the most telling arguments to refute libelous propaganda aimed at the Slovak League which was unjustly smeared by its foes as anti-American and pro-nazi. The patriotic acts by the Slovak League completely vindicated the honor of the American Slovaks, and the press in America recorded them with great admiration and enthusiasm. 4) Social Action of the Slovak League Increased social and charitable deeds of the Slovak League in wartime belong to a special phase of the history of the times because this was a new form of action that vvas directly under the sponsorship of a new organizational branch, namely, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, officially known as "Slovenske Vcielky" - Slovak bees. At an executive meeting of the Slovak League on August 23, 1941, a definite plan was formulated to organize the "Slovak bees" under the leadership of Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, vice-president of the League. Accordingly, she became the president of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Slovak League, the official title of the 'Vcielky' group. Slovak women from all parts of America enrolled as members in the new auxiliary, which cooperated closely with the work of the Red Cross. By their unselfish service, social action and samaritan-like deeds, the American Slovak women contributed invaluable service to their country and enhanced the good name of the Slovak League and the Slovaks in America generally. Details of some of the work accomplished by the Slovak ladies auxiliary were reported at the 24th Congress of the Slovak League on February 25-26, 1943. They constitute a glorious record of achievements in the history of the American Slovaks. In one cell, alone, in Chicago more t.han 300 women were enrolled. These women presented the Red Cross with 66,900 surgical dressings, 2,246 suits of clothing for refugees ( for children and adults), 717 knitted sweaters, caps, shawls, gloves, etc. for soldiers; and SLOVAKIA 87 455 hospital gowns. Blood was donated by 214 cells. More than 200 cells completed first-aid courses and 36 were trained in home-care of the sick. A total of 630 shipments were sent to American soldiers of Slovak ancestry. These are only a sample of the type of activities performed by the Ladies Auxiliary cells throughout the country. As soon as the war €nded, pleas for help came from Slovakia. The Ladies Auxiliary cells were the first to respond. Shipments of canned goods and clothing were immediately dispatched to the war-torn areas of Slovakia. Slovak emigrants fleeing from their war-devastated homeland were given emergency aid by the auxiliary. Value in dollars to cover this essential aid exceeds tens of thousands of American dollars that were given freely and generously for a worthy cause in the name of the Slovak League through the charitable agency of the Ladies Auxiliary of the League. This added a new chapter of charitable action to the history of the Slovak League of America. A special postwar campaign for funds under the traditional slogan, 'Za tu nasu slovencinu,' - for our Slovak mother-language-was inaugurated in the very first months after the war. This netted thousands of dollars for much needed help to the Slovaks in their home country, and to those in exile because these had lost all their worldly possessions in the war. No less important in its salutary effects, aside from the continued struggle for Slovakia's national freedom, was this social work which had as its primary source a deep American sense of patriotism and a profound Slovak and Christian philosophy of life to be of service to one's fellow man, and particularly to one's Slovak countrymen. Cultural Program of the Slovak League Versatility has marked the activity of the Slovak League of America. The cultural aspect was not neglected despite the pressure of the needs of the immediate present. In this respect a need was perceived to reach the Englishreading public for two reasons: 1) To combat the false 88 SLOVAKIA propaganda of anti-Slovak groups. 2) To furnish genuine information about the Slovak nation's history, the Slovaks in America, the Slovak League, etc. Too often, well-disposed Americans in high governmental positions were misled as to the real purpose of the Slovak League simply because they were uninformed or misinformed. The information had to be in the English language. Proposals to publish a Slovak League informational publication in English were made and approved at an executive meeting of the Slovak League on Nov. 13, 1942. It was designed both for the general American public and the young Slovak generations that no longer understood the language of their parents or grandparents. This was necessary to win the sympathy of the American public by Ehowing how important had been, and still was, the role of the Slovaks in mankind's struggle for liberty, human dignity and peace. An immediate result of this conference was the " Slovak Record " which began publication under the capable editorship of Joseph G. Prusa. The first issue appeared precisely on the 28th anniversary of the death of ~tefan Furdek, founder of the Slovak League of America. This wartime " Slovak Record" quarterly was well edited. It presented u true and clear picture of American Slovak life and thought that was reflected from its pages as if from a wellpolished mirror. The Record was listed officially as quarterly review of the Slovak League of America. Any future historian will find a wealth of material on Slovak history and the life of American Slovaks in the comparatively few issues that were published during World War II. The Slovak Record was an informative and cultural periodical, which for the first time presented a great many literary and political facts to the American public. Moreover, it acquainted many readers with the history, culture and aspirations of the Slovak nation. Congressmen and high officials in our government received the Slovak Record. So did American radio stati ons, newspaper offices and libraries. In a word, it was distributed where it would do the most good for the Slovak cause. Unfortunately, the Slovak Record ceased publication SLOVAKIA 89 after two and a half years. But the year after its demise, ie., in 1946, the Slovak Review, a political magazine, and the Slovak Digest, a cultural quarterly, made their appearance. These, too, had a brief existence. Never-the-less, they did their work well while they lasted. Among other cultural projects inaugurated by the Slovak League was an American-Slovak museum. This was the work of the cultural committee which met in Cleveland in the spring of 1945. Benedictine High School was designated as the temporary center where Rev. Andrej Pir, O.S .B., a young, talented American-Slovak historian and journalist, had already established an extensive Slovak library under the auspices of St. Andrew's Abbey. As director of the newly-established Slovak museum, Father Pir obtained permission from Abbot Stanislaus Gmuca, O.S .B. to have a special room as the cultural center for Slovak books , historical records, museum articles, etc. at the Abbey in Cleveland. This later was destined to become the Slovak Institute established in 1952 by Abbot Theodore Kojis, O.S .B. who named Dr. Francis Hrusovsky as the first director. On a high cultural level were all the memoranda and other publications of the Slovak League of America; all issued in behalf of Slovak national freedom and sent to the highest American political quarters. The most important of these perhaps was "The Slovaks and their Rights to Nationhood" in 1943. Representatives of the Slovak League at the International Conference in San Francisco 1945 This historic conference of allied nations was called to decide the national destinies of peoples all over the world, but particularly in Europe The fate of the Slovaks was also to be determined there. Never amiss where the welfare of the Slovak nation was concerned, the Slovak League was anxious to present the Slovak problem and all its ramifications at this world parley. It particularly wanted to present the just right of the Slovak nation. Although the Slovak League had the right to seek and obtain representation officially at the 90 SLOVAKIA conference, its delegates were denied entry because the Czechoslovaks usurped this right by securing official admittance as the spokesmen for Slovakia. Ironically, Jan Masaryk, one of the most prominent Czechs, was registered as a Slovak! Failure to secure official recognition for its representatives prompted the executive council of the Slovak League to send an observer. As an observer, Rev. John J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, was selected to represent the Slovak League at the San Francisco conference. He remained there in that capacity from April 25 to June 21. Msgr. Milos Mlynarovic accompanied him. It was difficult for them even to obtain entry, and impossible for a pass to attend some of the meetings . In fact, Jan Masaryk's Czechoslovak delegation sought to have them excluded entirely. Nevertheless, Father Lach ~ucceeded by skillful maneuvering to outwit his opponents. He got a registration card with full credentials as an official observer for the proceedings. Since Father Lach was not permitted a voice at the conference, he visited delegations of a number of nationality groups and informed them of the Slovak cause, stressing especially the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and nationhood. Although it did not have any influence on Jan Masaryk, Father Lach's visit to his office at least emphasized the fact that the Slovaks had their rights and that the Slovak League of America stood foursquare behind them in their struggle for freedom and nationhood. Upon his return from San Francisco, Father Lach reported the outcome of his presence at the International Conference as follows: In conclusion, I want to say that always and everywhere I emphasized the good work of the Slovak League and I explained its program as a noble and worthy endeavor that is nothing more or less than a program for the welfare of the American Slovaks and the Slovak nation's destiny as a free people in their historic homeland. I told them of my conviction that the Slovaks as a nation with an individual entity and a glorious history must have a place of honor among the nations of the world , a place that the United Nations must one day officially assign to them in the family of nations. One must not under-estimate the importance of this attempt for world recognition at an international forum SLOVAKIA 91 by a Slovak League delegate. Had there been direct communication with Slovakia instead of being forced to rely on Jan Masaryk, self-appointed as he was to represent the Slovaks, things might have worked out differently. Yet, the fact remains the Slovak League tried, and the attempt, though unsuccessful, was, none-the-less, a noble if futile gesture in behalf of a down-trodden Slovak nation. The battle in San Francisco with the Czechoslovak faction led by Dr. Benes and Jan Masaryk was lost mainly because they used utterly false propaganda to discredit the Slovak nation and its cause. In this case truth, which Thomas Masaryk liked to talk about so much, did not prevail, instead a neatly-bound pack of Czechoslovak lies doomed the Slovak people to domination by the Czechs again in the postwar era. Perseverance in I deals - Endurance in Combat Not even when the United Nations officially granted recognition to Czecho-Slovakia did the Slovak League throw in the towel. It retained its program intact and continued its fight for the Slovak nation's cause of freedom . Attorney Peter P. Jurcak, a writer and political leader from Pennsylvania, succeeded Msgr. Dubosh as president in 1945. He discussed at great length the Slovak League's program and ideals with Husek, Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh, all former presidents. Jozef Husek soon afterwards retired from public life because of illness. But both Dr. Hletko and Msgr. Dubosh remained at the side of Jurcak, the new president, and gave him their whole-hearted cooperation in the unending fight for the rights of the Slovak nation. Like a strong tree that looses its dry branches in 8, storm but continues to grow stronger, so the Slovak League of America thrives and grows taller and more mighty than ever before. The war that subjected the Slovak League to violent attacks only tested it and proved its vitality and power. It stands a living monument to the heroic courage of the stalwart sons of Slovakia and their unceasing fight for the sacred rights to justice, truth and liberty for their nation beneath the Tatras. Once more the Slovak League takes the offensive in 1946. It addresses an appeal to the President of the United 92 SLOVAKIA States and to Congress, as well as to the General Assembly of the United Nations. The appeal in behalf of the Slovak national cause of freedom reviews the history of the Slovaks, calls attention to their struggle for freedom and explains their sad experience of trying to live with the Czechs in one state. According to the principles of the Atlantic Charter, the Slovak League makes a request for a plebiscite in Slovakia under the supervision of the United Nations to give the Slovaks the opportunity to decide in a free election whether they wish to continue to live in a political union with the Czechs, or whether they want their own independent state; or if they prefer to be incorporated in a federation of free, self-governing states in central Europe. The State Department and Congressmen are kept well informed of the injustices suffered by the Slovaks in the past and present by the Slovak League's news agency and information in the nation's capital. Finally, the true facts about the Slovak Republic are available to American statesmen in Washington, D.C. For too long a time our American leaders in public life were kept shamelessly misinformed by Dr. Benes and his cohorts of false propagandists. Genuine information b now provided from first-hand experiences of Slovak emigrants who lived under the regime of the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945. At long last, too, we know the true facts about the so-called Slovak revolt of 1944 and the distorted picture of wartime Slovakia is coming sharply into proper focus. Meantime, too, the Slovak League of America maintains a full-time political, cultural and social program. Culturally, the work begun by the Slovak Record quarterly is carried on by the Slovak Review and the Slovak Digest quarterlies. Moreover, President Jurcak has published his book The Slovaks-Their History and Traditions, which is doing good work in behalf of the Slovak nation by a concise review of the history of Slovakia. Slovak music is perhaps the best means to reach the young generation. In this field the Slovak League plans a score of concerts by Slovak artists. At the suggestion of Msgr. Dubosh, the Slovak League SLOVAKIA 93 is inaugurating a National Fund campaign to which every American Slovak is asked to contribute at least a quarter a year. During its struggle the past several years, the Slovak League administration discovered that finances are essential to carry on effective work for realizing high ideals. Perhaps the most urgent task at the present is the publication of books and periodicals about the Slovak nation in the English language . Mrs. Julia Krajcovic, the president of the Slovak League's ladies auxiliary, continues to inspire greater efforts in behalf of an extensive social and charitable program to help war-torn Slovakia as well as to provide necessary funds and help to Slovak emigrants who were forced to escape to the west. Under her dynamic leadership the Slovak 'Vcielky' - bees have accomplished an incredible amount of good work by providing for immediate needs of food, shelter and clothing for the people of Slovakia and for those who had to leave their homeland to save their very lives. Truly, the 'Vcielky' have shown themselves to be loving mothers by their dedication and devotion to their Slovak children in need. The Program approaches its zenith As we follow the ideological development of the Slovak League of America, from the year of its founding, 1907, to the present, we note that it passed through several phases that ran concurrently with the evolution of the idea of Slovak independent statehood. Three cities and a trio of Slovak League Congresses are historic milestones in the gradual development of an idea and an Ideal: Slovak national freedom. They are : Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit where nation-wide Congresses of American Slovak representatives took progressive strides towards the fulfilment of the Slovak ideal of political liberty. We are justified in declaring that the struggle of all Slovak generations has been the fight for a Slovak state as the highest fulfillment of the aspirations of an entire nation, namely, the achievement of national freedom . This idea was not born on March 14, 1939. It merely became a reality on that memorable day. It had first sprung to life 94 SLOVAKIA in Svatopluk's time in the 9th century, came back to life as an ideal in the era of Bernolak. Holly, stur and Hurban, during the early 19th century, was again very much alive during the struggle led by Andrej Hlinka before and during the era of the Czecho-Slovak Republic of World War I vintage, until the idea came ultimately to full maturity on March 14, 1939, with the founding of the Slovak Republic. Ideologically, the aim of the Slovak League was always in this direction because it invariably and reliably reflected the degree of Slovak aspirations for self-government in Slovakia itself. As a happy coincidence and consequence the Slovak League of America never presented a false image of the Slovak nation. Despite the temporary set-back inflicted on the Slovak League by Dr. Benes's false propagandists, the fact that the Slovak League stood firm in defense of the Slovak nation's rights to freedom and selfgoverning statehood only confirms the amazing similarity of objectives of the Slovak nation and its great champion overseas, the Slovak League of America. There never has been, therefore, any major divergence of views or objectives between the two. Detroit (Michigan) was host to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League on October 29, 1946. It proved to be a dramatic convention. All the cards were placed on the table at this historic Detroit Congress. Dr. Benes who had promised to make Czecho-Slovakia an island of democracy had just announced that he had placed the reorganized state into the hands of Moscow, and thereby surrendered central Europe to Communism. International developments reached a crisis soon so that there was an immediate cleavage between the East and West. Dr. Benes chose the East with communism and Soviet dictatorship that seized complete control of all countries under various pretexts in the Russian orbit. The Iron Curtain was about to come down and divide Europe into two hostile camps. In direct opposition to Dr. Benes, the Slovak League made its momentous decision. Moreover, the Slovak nation, too, in the May elections of 1946 cast more than a % democratic majority vote while the communist party in SLOVAKIA 95 Slovakia garnered considerably less than a third of the total vote in the country . Slovak statehood as the most responsible form of political organization had been cherished for ages by the Slovak nation. In modern times this ideal was upheld admirably by the Slovak League of America. At its 26th Congress in Detroit, the Slovak League unanimously adopted a declaration favoring independent statehood for the Slovaks in their historic homeland ( since the 5th century A.D . the Slovaks have lived in their present country ). Dr. Peter Hletko, M.D. headed the special committee that had drawn up this declaration: "The Committee of the future program has taken into consideration the whole world situation, and in relationship to it the present status of the Slovak nation's aspirations to liberty; also the mind of the American Slovaks. After much deliberation and discussion, therefore, this committee submits the following program with confidence that its ideas and proposals will win approval and adoption at this Congress so that all of the supreme officers, the various local officials and all the assemblies of the Slovak League throughout America will accept this program as its very own. "The proposed program for the future destiny of the Slovaks is designed to coordinate all of our efforts so that by unified action we can reach our common goal that will be of immense value to the Slovaks in their home country and to the American Slovaks, too. "Our stand in the Slovak League of America, therefore, requires that we clarify our policies on a number of issues. Consequently, we propose to express precisely what position we take in relationship to the following : The Czecho-Slovak R epublic " So far, the Slovak League of America never maintained a hostile attitude towards the Czecho-Slovak Republic. We admit we criticized the government and the representatives of that country, and we came to the aid of the Slovak nation in its struggle for a recognition of its just rights, and we condemned the injustices perpetrated on the Slovak people, but we never advocated nor took any ga SLOVAKIA steps to destroy the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia even when our detractors labelled us unjustly as the destroyers of this state. "Not even after the Slovaks established their own state six months before World War II, nor during the entire conflict when Czechoslovak adherents were busily planning to reconstruct Czecho-Slovakia, did the Slovak League in America declare itself in opposition to a renewal of that country, but it unequivocally maintained the right of selfdetermination for the Slovak nation and it openly fought for this right to be exercised by the Slovaks freely to determine what type of self-government they wished and what form of state administration they wanted as the will of the majority of the Slovak people. "We often repeated our views that if the Slovaks were granted the opportunity to express their will freely as to what form of government they wished to have, or what type of state or federation they preferred, and even if they should choose Czecho-Slovakia all over again, we said that we would be completely _satisfied and would not disagree or opposE: their choice. We insisted, however, and fought for the right of the Slovak nation during World War II that once Europe and the world would be reorganized after the conflict the Slovaks must be guaranteed a free vote, subject to no pressure, violence or force - in a word, complete freedom to express their own national will . "In spite of every assurance by the great powers, however, and contrary to various world declarations, by which all nations, particularly the small ones, were given high hopes of liberation, freedom and independence, and despite the Atlantic Charter which won the trust of all the small nations but which was discarded once the objectives for which it was proclaimed were secure, and in spite of all the promises for free expression and choice of the future destiny of the Slovaks, f:.bsolutely no opportunity was given to the Slovak nation for making a free choice at all. "Simply and definitely once more the Slovaks were thrown back into the Benes's pre-fabricated structure, namely, the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. It was explained that this was necessary in order to re-establish the pre- SLOVAKIA 97 Munich status quo but this was sheer deceit, for the restoration of the pre-Munich status quo was only done whenever and wherever it was to the advantage of a number of world-powers, if it was not to their advantage, there was simply no restoration at all. "Neither the so-called national revolt, nor the Kosice agreement were manifestations of the Slovak nation's will, and therefore there was no obligation on the part of the Slovaks to return to Czecho-Slovakia. No one asked the Slovaks their preference - all at once they found themselves back in the old, slightly-mended Czecho-Slovakia. "As we have noted on the very first occasion that the Slovaks had to manifest their will and they did so by an overwhelming majority of more than two-thirds against communism but this was not counted in any way-and the Slovak nation was retained as an oppressed nation under communist rule . . . and has remained under communist dictatorship since 1946. "Nevertheless, the Slovaks were not granted a choice to vote on the issue if they wanted to remain in the old Czecho-Slovak Republic or not. They were forced to accept the fait accompli situation with the Czechs again in power. This injustice is all the greater since we know and are firmly convinced that the Slovak nation been given an opportunity of free choice, it certainly would have voted overwhelmingly against being re-attached to Benes's postwar creation, Czecho-Slovakia III. "Apparently the Slovaks have a semblance of autonomy in postwar Czecho-Slovakia but this does not alter the fact that they were denied their freedom of choice. Moreover, the Republic is officially named Czechoslovakia and continues to be written without the controversial hyphen (it should be Czecho-Slovakia). As it is now, this jndicates that the new government is still imbued with the spirit of the false and artificial identity of a Czechoslovak nation. A return to the 'old sins' presages a gradual taking away of self-government from the Slovaks because Benes has reiterated his belief that the Slovaks must not be permitted to have 'wild dreams of self-rule.' "Czech centralism still rules, for Slovak administration is subject to Praha. For these, and other reasons not 98 SLOVAKIA mentioned, we are forced to come to the conclusion that inevitably we must restrain our tolerant policy and favorable attitude to the Czecho-Slovak state by abandoning what we American Slovaks for so many years held as proper and hopeful for the future. The present demands another policy, hence, we stand in opposition to the new, illegal Czecho-Slovakia and we now emphasize the fact that the Slovaks were wronged as a nation. We intend to inform the great powers and the whole world of this grave injustice because the Slovaks were forced into the postwar Czecho-Slovak Republic. " As free American Slovaks we further protest that the Slovak nation is held in political bondage in a state that leans away from western democracy and is helping to create an anti-democratic bloc while the Slovaks are truly democratic-minded as they surely indicated by the recent vote that left no doubt of their resistance to communist influence and infiltration from the East. The Slovak State "Many good and sound reasons would prompt the Slovaks to vote against re-attaching Slovakia to the newlyre-created Czecho-Slovakia, and that by a vast majority of votes against re-union, for while the Slovaks were discriminated against in pre-war Czecho-Slovakia, the same is true today. "Under their own regime in their own Slovak Republic the Slovaks were happy and prosperous, they worked and progressed economically, politically, culturally, they built, created and developed a new life of their own. Never before were the Slovaks so content with their lot. This good fortune not even the enemies of the Slovak State can deny . The record of the Slovak Republic speaks for itself. "World conditions in wartime brought temporary prosperity not only to America but to other countries, too. Nevertheless, prosperity for the Slovak state, though necessarily stimulated by the war, had as its permanent basis the industry, ingenuity and inspiration of the Slovak nation that was vitally interested in its destiny. The Slovak people cooperated splendidly and enthusiastically in the building of their own self-governing state. SLOVAKIA 99 "Dependence, to some extent, upon its powerful neighbor, Germany, was a natural relationship, for small nations always depend upon strong nations in time of peace or war. Here it must be noted, however, that neither England, the U.S. nor the USSR were of any assistance to the Slovak Republic . "Every small state seeks protection and security wherever it can. The Slovak state needed protection for national survival. Yet, it must be affirmed that the Slovak Republic was not a gift to the Slovaks from either the Germans or their leader, Hitler. Further, the Slovak state was not a German creation. On the contrary, the Slovaks had to defend their country against German machinations, and intrigues of other nations. The Slovak Republic was truly the result of the aspirations of the Slovak nation for freedom and their own state. A free state is the zenith and fulfillment of the highest and noblest ideals of every nation. "A return to limited rights, or a surrender of all rights of the Slovak nation by the involuntary incorporation of the Slovak people in the Czecho-Slovak Republic, is a step backwards and definitely contrary to sttir's motto: 'We cannot go backward - We must go forward.' "Our duty is to inform and influence the world in this direction, namely, the renewal of a free Slovak Republic, the existence of which is at the same time the obligation of all the nations of the world . "Unconditionally, the Slovak League of America urges the great powers to re-establish the Slovak Republic because in it the Slovak nation found its true destiny, enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom, and made unpresedented progress in every phase of its national culture. The Slovak League and Dr. Tiso "Dr. Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak Republic, had the welfare of the Slovak nation at heart. Not even his enemies can deny that he was sincere in his efforts to insure the national well-being of the Slovak people in their own, free and independent state. While many others fled to safety after resigning high positions, Dr. Tiso remained in his country to serve it in a grave crisis. To minimize 100 SLOVAKIA his virtues and magnify his faults, mistakes, methods, policies etc., is easy, but it will not change the facts that despite his real or imaginary administrative deficiencies he not only succeeded in saving the Slovak nation from destruction but supervised the Slovak state so admirably that the people in Slovakia enjoyed peace, prosperity and great cultural and economic progress. "Nobody can erase the true image of Dr. Tiso as a kind, just and wise president of the Slovak Republic. The Slovak nation reveres his memory today despite the attempts of the enemy to destroy that image by false propaganda spread throughout the world. We are horrified at the malice of our enemies who seek to brand President Tiso as a traitor to his Slovak nation and as such are planning to try him in a court-of-law ... the impending trial, of course, to be supervised by his enemies and the enemies of the Slovak nation. "To defend Dr. Tiso is our most solemn duty. We must arouse world opinion in his favor to offset the slanderous campaign against him. It is quite obvious that the efforts to discredit his good name is done with a vengeance, and H our enemies succeed in unjustly dishonoring him they will wreak their utmost revenge upon him. And it would be a great crime of gross injustice against a just man and the Slovak nation. "Dr. Tiso is not a war criminal. He did not torture anyone, he did not execute one person, or give orders to execute anyone. Father Tiso did not commit any crime. He was the great defender and benefactor of his country which he served with distinction and honor. The Slovak National Council "Much has been written and discussed about the socalled Slovak national council. Our position towards this organization remains unchanged. We still regard it as an agency that has usurped power and authority because it was not elected or authorized by the Slovaks, nor approved de facto by the Slovak nation, and consequently in a democratic system it is not a legal body and has no legal standing or jurisdiction. SLOVAKIA 101 The Slovak Liberation Committee "Against no one who wishes to work conscientiously for the liberation of the Slovak nation does the Slovak League of America have any arguments. In fact it welcomes any positive action. However, to achieve success there is need for a common united front - not a faction or several factions. "Assumption of definite rights and obligations is the prerogative of the Slovak League of America because it is recognized as the highest cultural-political organization of American Slovaks, and as such it wants to retain this preeminent position and prestige by the pursuit of a prudent policy and by its charitable activities . Therefore, if anyone desires to participate in a national program involving the Slovak League must, necessarily coordinate his efforts with the program of the Slovak League. He must never misuse the name of the League, nor use the name prematurely without being properly authorized to do so. "Our organization has experienced many crises but has ultimately taken the proper stand on many intricate problems and questions mainly because it has acted discretely, carefully, and always adopted a course of action only after a thorough study of all the problems involved. It has refrained from following the opinion of this or that 5ndividual and hence has avoided being influenced by the enthusiasm of individuals, often admirable, but too often erroneous. "We do not condemn the Slovak Action Committee, nor do we suspect its aims, but because this committee has committed a number of errors of judgment and because its program does not assure us of the successful liberation of the Slovak nation at this time, and finally, because as yet we have not come to any agreement with its spokesmen, the Slovak League of America maintains its friendly attitude but continues its traditional policy of watchful waiting towards this committee. "Never has the Slovak League in America lost out in much more serious affairs by 'watchful waiting,' and we believe it will not lose anything by keeping this policy. Be it noted well, that the use of sharp and bitter phrases l.02 SLOVAKIA against Slovak leaders in America or Europe, or the general attitude, which gives the impression that the Slovak Action Committee wants to by-pass, ignore or sabotage the action of the Slovak League of America, certainly does not constitute the best means of winning the friendship, confidence or cooperation of the League . "We are well informed that the Slovak Action Committee must come to friendly terms with other prominent persons in Europe who have the best interests of the Slovak nation at heart. These must not exclude each other by mutual disagreement or refusal to arrive at mutual understanding. "Until that time when all the responsible Slovak leaders meet and agree on a common program in behalf of the Slovak nation's fight for freedom and welfare, the Slovak League cannot give an unqualified endorsement to the Slovak Action Committee. What is far more important in this case is that the American government will not sanction our formal union with the activity of the Slovak Action Committee. The Three 'Isms "Against the trio of the present three 'isms: nazism, fascism, and communism, the Slovak League has gone on record long ago. The first two are vanquished. We, too, helped to crush them. But our stand against the third one, namely, communism, has not changed. We will not stop fighting until this one, too, is completely destroyed. "American public opinion is subject to various changes but we remain unchanged and unmoved in our position to communism. It is necessary to do everything possible in opposition to it because the sooner we get rid of this 'ism the sooner will Slovakia be liberated and the less will America suffer from its intrigues, plots and machinations. "Communism today has a death-grip on Slovakia, and the Slovaks are helpless. If it were not for this alien power, the Slovak nation would easily dispose of Benes, the Czechoslovaks and the Czech imperialists. And communist bayonets which escorted Benes to power in Praha keep the Slovaks imprisoned in their own country while they SLOVAKIA 103 keep Benes in his position as head of the post-war Czechoslovak satellite of the Soviet Union. "As loyal Americans, as true Slovaks, and as Christians, too, it is our sacred duty to fight communism no matter where it appears, except perhaps in Moscow, if they want it there let them keep it there." When at one of its very first sessions, Vice-President Pavol Jamriska, presiding chairman, gave a brief review of the above declaration and the position taken by the Slovak League of America, there was a spontaneous outburst of applause The vote was unanimously in approval and all the subsequent sessions were conducted in this spirit. Everyone present sensed the importance of this momentous decision and when Dr . Peter P. Hletko finished reading the detailed program of the Slovak League the approval was unanimous. The Canadian Slovak League, which was holding its convention simultaneously, adopted the American Slovak League's resolution and proclamation. Embattled in their homeland, the Slovaks have found a true champion in the Slovak League of America which once again supports their noble cause of political liberty, cultural freedom, economic opportunity and, in our day, the added sacred cause of religious freedom. These foregoing facts are merely segments from many pages of the illustrious history of the Slovak League. Its history will undoubtedly some day be enshrined as a glorious chapter in the history of the Slovak nation. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA heartily commends all efforts of our governmental and other organs to ferret out and unmask all Communists and fellow travellers, as well as all persons and organizations who wittingly or unwittingly give aid and comfort to the conspiracy of Communism promoted by the Soviet Union.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak League of America and Independent Slovakia Description An account of the resource Mikuláš Šprinc Slovakia, Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967 pp. 63-103 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Šprinc, Mikuláš, 1914-1986 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 Relation A related resource This article is one of five from this special issue republished as a monograph: Paučo, Jozef, ed. 1967. <em>Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America.</em> Middletown Pennsylvania: Slovak League of America. <a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616" target="_blank" title="Link to WorldCat" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://worldcat.org/en/title/36616</a> 60years SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/fefdf2fe65fb24a9917b93ddea621275.pdf 54e1381f4acdff07d80d6fa6302c06c6 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 9 Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir JOSEPH STASKO The following is the recollection of my experiences as a young Slovak student in Paris during the critical years 1938-1939. Although this "first person narrative" is necessarily somewhat colored by subjective impressions, it should nonetheless shed light on some hithertofore undisclosed and/or unanalyzed information relating to events and personalities of the period. 1 On the international scene, Hitler's daring diplomatic moves, combined with military pressure , brought about not only the Munich Agreement (September 29/ 30 , 1938) but also the resignation of President Edvard Benes (October 5, 1938), followed by the Zilina Agreement (October 6, 1938), by virtue of which the Slovaks achieved political autonomy . For me , as a politically active federalist (autonomist), the Zilina Agreement represented the fulfillment of the Slovak political struggle , the federation of Czecho-Slovakia. In the second half of October, 1938 , I returned to Slovakia to witness the implementation of Slovak autonomy. The new autonomous government of Slovakia had commenced with enthusiasm, national pride , and hope . This euphoric atmosphere, however , did not last for long. The loss of a large part of Slovak territory to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 2 , 1938 was a tragic blow to the promising beginnings of Slovak self-rule . The overall mood in Slovakia was overshadowed by national grief, anger , and a feeling of powerlessness. �10 SLOVAKIA In the official circles of the Slovak government and among the general public there was no serious talk of separating Slovakia from the Czech lands. Both the government and judicial public viewed the Munich Agreement and the Vienna Award as diplomatic safeguards against Hitler's further penetration in Central Europe and also as an international guaranty against Hungarian territorial rapacity. There were, however, radical elements grouped around Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas, Jozef Jostiak, Jan Farkas , and Jan Dafc':lk who fomented anti-Czech feeling by ascribing the loss of Slovak territory to Benes and his policy toward Slovakia. In November, 1938, I returned to France convinced that the Slovaks considered their autonomy the satisfactory solution of their national and political interests. Before I left I was offered the assignment of foreign correspondent for the newspapers Slovak and Slovenska pravda , which I gladly accepted. By the end of November the Czechoslovak ambassador in France, Dr. Stefan Osusky, was returning to Paris from his visit to the newlyTelected president of Czecho-Slovakia , Dr. Emil Hacha and to the new foreign minister, Dr. Frantisek Chvalkovsky. As a foreign correspondent for the newspaper Slovak, I asked Osusky for an interview regarding his impressions of Czecho-Slovakia. Prior to the interview, he gave me a copy of his aide-memoire submitted to the French Foreign Office as a supplement to his official report. The main topics, as I recall, were descriptions of his audiences with President Hacha and Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky and of the apathy of the Czech people toward the latest tragic dismemberment of Bohemia in the Munich Agreement. Included in it was also a statement concerning the Slovak autonomous government's assurances of its wholehearted support for the Czecho-Slovak state. In my subsequent interview with Osusky he maintained that the French government had pledged to guarantee the security of the new Czecho-Slovakia. This part of the interview _was later published in the newspaper Slovak. After this interview with Osusky, my contacts with him became more frequent and proved to be very useful to me as a student and as a journalist. He encouraged me to study the question of minorities in Central Europe , offered me access to the embassy 's library, and invited me to the "five o'clock tea" on a �SLOVAKIA 11 regular weekly basis. He also arranged for me contacts with the Havas Press Agency, as well as with the newspaper Epoque, L'Oeuvre, and Le Temps . 2 In December, 1938, I was back in Slovakia on a journalistic assignment from Osusky to report on the Slovak parliamentary elections , held on December 18, 1938. After the opening of the first session of the new Slovak Parliament on January 19, 1939, I returned the next day to France. At one of our ''five o'clock tea'' meetings, Osusky explained his political views not only on international questions but on the internal problems of Czecho-Slovakia as well. He told me that although his position as the envoy of Czecho-Slovakia in Paris precluded his interference in the internal affairs of the state, he kept close contacts with many prominent politicians and expressed his political views freely. However, since he was unable to make public his own views, he suggested that I should try to put them in writing . I interpreted this as a mandate and asked 'him to set up dates for interviews on his position regarding political developments in Europe with a special focus on Central Europe and Czecho-Slovakia. On the basis of these interviews I submitted to him in February, 1939, a draft of "Dr. Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' He approved my draft and asked me to supplement it with philosophical statements from his acceptance speech, delivered on February 5, 1936, on the occasion of his receipt of an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Dijon. I complied with his request. The resulting paper was reproduced for his Slovak friends; later a part of it was included in his booklet Cesko-Slovensko a jeho buducnost', which appeared in 1939. After the crisis of March, 1939, Osusky was looked upon as the only representative of Czecho-Slovakia in the free world who could claim the authority of a co-founder of the state. Following his refusal to deliver the Czecho-Slovak embassy in Paris to the Germans, he espoused the so-called ambassadorial theory of continuity, according to which he was the only legal representative of Czechoslovakia . Osusky's theory conflicted with the " presidential theory of continuity" of Benes, who considered himself the victim of Hitler's brutality and the sacrificial lamb of �12 SLOVAKIA the military and psychological weakness of France and Great Britain. The French government confirmed Osusky's legal status and continued to recognize him as the diplomatic representative of Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia. Osusky felt himself destined for the leading role in the resistance against Hitler. At this historical juncture , however, Osusky found himself isolated, without trustworthy collaborators at the embassy and with no close connections with the Slovaks and their organizations in France. His relations with his Slovak countrymen in France were sparse and those with the Czechs lacked mutual trust. The only employee at the embassy who devotedly served Osusky was Stefan Moncek, the treasurer. Other Slovaks at the embassy - Dr. Vladimir Palic, Dr. Alexander Kunosi, and later Dr. Fedor Hodza - either stayed there for only a short time or tendered their allegiance to others. All other personnel at the embassy espoused Benes' views and conspired against Osusky. This politically precarious situation necessitated an immediate remedy in two directions: Osusky's relations with the Slovaks and their organizations in France; and the reshaping of his staff at the embassy. In the first half of April, 1939 , Osusky inquired about my connections with Slovak organizations in France and in Slovakia. He needed broader support for his leadership. For this purpose he planned to secure the confidence of his Slovak co-nationals in France. In order to improve his image as the representative, not only of the Czechs, but also of the Slovaks (who now lived in the Slovak state), he intended to attract political friends from Slovakia. To help carry out the first part of his plan I offered my assistance in arranging a gathering of Slovaks in Argenteuil , near Paris. There Osusky would deliver his first campaign speech on political issues in general and on Czech-Slovak relations in particular. The timing was opportune. After March 14, 1939 , the majority of Slovaks in France, who expressed their trust in Prime Minister Jozef Tiso's government, were denounced by the Czechs as traitors and as such were reported to the French authorities who then persecuted them as pro-Nazis. The presence of Ambassador Osusky at the gathering was an occasion to present Slovak complaints to him and to ask for protection. �SLOVAKIA 13 The gathering of French Slovaks took place in April, 1939, and was quite successful. Osusky's speech was reproduced in special leaflets, and parts were published in his Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost'. On the whole, Osusky's address was favorably accepted by the Slovaks, especially his promise to protect thqse Slovaks who did not spread anti-French or anti-Czech propaganda. 3 The daily influx into France of Czech political and military emigrants caused Osusky much concern because practically all of them supported Benes. This may have been one of the main reasons why he entrusted me with a secret mission to visit Slovakia to contact his friends, former political leaders, many government officials, and leading personalities in the cultural and economic life of the Slovak state. Osusky indicated that he would like me to bring personal messages to some of his friends and inquire into the possibility of having contacts with them through Budapest. He also suggested that I travel to Hungary to survey the situation of the Slovaks in occupied Southern Slovakia and contact their leaders. I accepted this mission as a sign of personal trust and asked for a few days to prepare a more detailed program for his approval. At the outset of our discussion Osusky had pointed out that this trip was supposed to appear as if it were my own undertaking, but he promised to inform the French authorities of my status and procure a diplomatic visa for me. He did so promptly. Among the persons I was to see and deliver messages to were: Dr. Anton Stefanek, Professor at the University of Bratislava; General Rudolf Viest, Inspector-General of the Slovak Army; Dr. Samuel Osusky, Lutheran Bishop and cousin of Osusky; Lutheran Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt; Dr. Matej Murtin at the Hypotecna a komunalna banka in Bratislava; the lawyer Dr. Ivan Pietor; economists Dr. Peter Zat'ko and Dr. Vladimir Fajnor; and the General Director of the Slovenska narodna banka, Dr. Imrich Karvas . My assignment included also contacts with Dr. Milos Vanco, Dr. Jan Spisiak, and Jan Teplansky. Osusky explained his wish to build communications with Bratislava through a liaison in Budapest to be funded half by him and the other half by the Slovak side . As for possible discussions with government officials, I could act in my name only. Osusky 's name could be mentioned in con- �14 SLOVAKIA nection with his warning about the risk of war and the need for the cooperation of Slovakia with the West. All other questions that Osusky gave me were for Prime Minister Tiso alone. Among them was the question of the Slovaks in France and their eventual mobilization in case of war in military units of a Czecho-Slovak Army. Another question of importance for both Slovakia and Osusky was the establishing of Slovak diplomatic missions in the West equipped with proper personalities and far-reaching political perspectives. He suggested also that I discuss some matters with Foreign Minister Ferdinand Durcansky . Before I left France on April 27 , 1939 , I helped to organize the participation of Slovaks at the Second Reunion of the Czechs and Slovaks in France, which was planned for April 29-30 at the Czechoslovak Colony in Paris . Benes 's adherents planned to declare him the leader of the '' Second Czechoslovak Struggle Abroad ,'' thus eliminating Osusky for good from any leading role in the exile movement. The outcome of that meeting was transmitted to me in Bratislava by Stefan Moncek, who had been given my telephone number. This information was important to my mission because success depended on Osusky 's retention of his leadership position abroad. In Bratislava I met freely with my friends and colleagues . Some of them already held high state offices and enjoyed their positions in the full swing of their zeal, devotion , and industry . They seemed to be unaware of the danger of war and believed that their happy days would have no end. To my surprise, some of them thought that Hitler was satisfied with his annexations and that the risk of war had been thus eliminated . This naive credulity was confirmed by my visits with Propaganda Chief Sano Mach, the Hlinka Guard leaders Karol Murgas and Jan Dafcik, and the majority of my own friends. The glorification of Hitler by Dr. Vojtech Tuka in his May 1, 1939, speech at Primizial Plaza in Bratislava was an ominous sign, as was the elimination of Karol Sidor from Slovak political affairs. The next day I was granted an audience with Prime Minister Tiso. It was arranged through Dr. Juraj Rajec , whom I knew when he was the educational counselor in the student residence Svoradov. I was admitted to Tiso as a reporter for the newspaper Slovak in France . �SLOVAKIA 15 Sitting in the corner of his office , overlooking the Danube, Tiso looked tired and somewhat restrained. He asked me about my studies and my journalistic experience in France. After I answered those questions I described the difficult position of the Slovaks in France as outlined earlier. This led me to Ambassador Osusky and his activities. I reported to Tiso the full details of Osusky 's speech in Argenteuil, handed him the leaflets of the Center of the Czechs and Slovaks Abroad concerning recruitment in the event of war, and finally submitted to him the document ' 'Dr. Osusky 's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' With regard to the possibility of war, I indicated that there were about 50 ,000 Slovaks in France who could be recruited into a Czechoslovak Army and who would have to fight against the Slovak state for Benes' type of Czechoslovakia. I also told Tiso that Osusky favored a federated Czecho-Slovakia but faced the determined opposition of the Czechs and of some Slovak centralists, the so-called Czechoslovaks. Osusky had a few friends among the Czechs, and not many among the Slovaks. He was willing to set up separate Slovak military units in France, alongside the Czech ones, under a unified command, but there were no Slovak officers. Tiso listened to my briefing and then remarked that he did not consider Osusky to be the representative of the Slovak cause in the West because Osusky did not know Slovakia and the Slovaks did not know Osusky. Next I inquired whether it was true that the situation of Slovakia after the Treaty of Protection with Germany , which had been characterized in France as total dependence upon Germany, was similar to the situation in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He rose from his chair, approached the window facing the Danube , and asked me if I could see the cannons on the other side of the Danube, which were aimed directly at his windows . This ''protection,'' he said, did not prevent the Slovaks from losing Petrzalka (part of Bratislava), but it was still preferable to their being divided between the Magyars and the Poles. To my querry about the limits of Slovak freedom in making foreign contacts, he responded that the new government expected to be recognized by most European states very quickly. This would make it difficult for the Germans to interfere and would provide �16 SLOVAKIA a legal basis for foreign contacts. Durcansky would give me more details on this point. I was curious about relations with the Magyars, for I had heard that there was no reaction from the Slovak side to the atrocities committed by the Magyars in Komjatice, Slovensky Meder, and Surany. Tiso replied that according to the Treaty of Protection with Germany, the Slovaks could not unilaterally decide on retaliatory measures against the Magyars in Slovakia; the Slovaks were thus denied the right of reprisal, he said . On the other hand , the Treaty provided for German protection of Slovak territory against constant Magyar incursions. And so the Slovak position toward Hungary was dictated by those factors. I inquired if it would be possible to use the Slovaks in France for some kind of support of a Slovak cause in the West in the event of war. Tiso said that that was not an immediate worry. First France would have to recognize the Slovak State , after which there would be more time for such discussions. I told him that Osusky would have no objection to the French government granting the Slovak state de facto recognition. He saw such circumstances as being favorable for building a bridge between France and Slovakia, provided that the proper person were appointed as head of the Slovak consulate. Tiso indicated that I would receive the answer to this question from f>urcansky. Tiso suggested publishing a Slovak-French bulletin in France and the possibility of a cultural exchange. He referred me to Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga , who would take care of it. In summarizing our discussion, Tiso reiterated his views , stressed the confidentiality of some of his remarks , and asked me about my immediate and future plans . I mentioned that I intended to visit Hungary to speak with Slovak representatives. He asked me if this had already been planned in Paris, which I affirmed. He concluded the interview with an invitation to contact him again before I left for France. That same day, in the Cafe Carlton, I was introduced by Vlado Houdek to Peter Pares , the British consul in Bratislava. He expressed a keen interest in my studies in France and my evaluation of the French political scene. He was eager to see me the next day at the same place, and I gladly consented. �SLOVAKIA 17 Later that day I was invited for dinner by Foreign Minister Durcansky at his private residence. To my surprise, he had already been informed of the issues discussed with the prime minister. Our friendly personal relations, based on close cooperation in the autonomist movement, allowed us to be absolutely frank with each other. After giving him an overall picture of French public opinion, I touched on the question of the Slovaks in France and also on Ambassador Osusky's actions. To this Durcansky added his brief analysis of the Slovak situation on the international level and outlined Slovak diplomatic ambitions. The discussion that followed could be summarized in the following points: I said that according to what I knew from Osusky and from the Polish embassy in Paris , the French and the British were hurridly mobilizing raw materials, increasing production of military hardware , building up public opinion against Hitler; in short they were preparing for war. In the diplomatic field , the French were repeating their pledges to stand by their treaties with Poland and Romania. Durcansky accepted the possibility of war but not earlier than in two years. As for the Slovaks in France, I asked if it could f10t be possible to organize them into a Slovak Legion and have them fight against Hitler and for the preservation of the Slovak state. Osusky, I continued, was opposed to Benes. He recognized a federated Czecho-Slovakia as the best form of government which would guarantee Slovak self-rule . Durcansky replied that he did not believe that France would agree on the formation of a Slovak Legion with the proviso that it fight for the preservation of the Slovak state. He, therefore, would accept the organization of Czech and Slovak military units under a unified command. This reasoning was parallel in general terms with that of Osusky 's. One of the most difficult questions , however, was where to find and how to commission 20 to 30 Slovak officers for this duty . This would be a political question of unforseeable complications. According to Durcansky , this could be done under different pretexts , such as through a cultural delegation, correspondents , students, businessmen, and the like. Under the present conditions, two things were required immediately: official recognition of Slovakia by the French government and money . As for the first �18 SLOVAKIA condition, Durcansky said that he had been already told by the French consul that recognition was on its way. The question of money would be solved by creation of the Institute for Slovaks Abroad , which for the time being would be associated with the Foreign Ministry. The money could be put aside from the ministerial budget. To do so , it would be necessary to prepare the statutes of the proposed Institute . He instructed me to meet the next day with Dr. Jozef Cieker, Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Emil Rusko , and their experts to prepare the final text of the statutes. After Durcansky had read "Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis" and gone through the material I had brought with me, he indicated that Osusky 's position might help the Slovak cause in the West if he would be willing to cooperate with the Slovak consul in Paris , using him as a liaison with Slovakia . I asked Durcansky if he already had in mind such a person for such a delicate mission; he mentioned the name of Ing. Milan Harminic. More explicitly than Tiso , Durcansky gave me details regarding his dealings with the Germans. This I later put in writing and sent to Ambassador Osusky through the French consulate in Bratislava. From the organizational point of view, Durcansky considered the existing Catholic mission in France an excellent focus for rallying the Slovaks , not only on religious, but also on cultural and political grounds. He knew the Reverend Jan Futak, the Head of the mission, vaguely but expressed confidence in him. He promised to send money to France from the planned Institute to help publish a periodical bulletin in French and Slovak. As the editor he planned to appoint the Reverend Vojtech Klein, a Catholic priest known for his work in the social field and in the publishing trade. Before taking leave of Durcansky I informed him of my trip to Hungary and asked for his advice as to whom I should contact and what concrete steps I should take to gather detailed information on the situation of the Slovaks there . He referred me to Dr. Ludovit Obtulovic , a lawyer in Nave Zamky who was the leader of the Slovaks in the occupied territory of Southern Slovakia, and to the Reverand Imrich Ko sec , a Catholic priest in the nearby village of Banovska Kesa . �SLOVAKIA 19 Durcansky planned to build a direct line of communication between Bratislava and Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest . During the discussion it became apparent to me that this communication was supposed to be rather a personal link between Durcansky and the Catholic mission in Argenteuil. Consequently, I did not mention at this point that Osusky too was looking for a liaison with Slovakia through a confidant in Budapest. While Durcansky hoped to build bridges to the West without the intermediary link of Osusky , the latter planned to use his contacts with Slovakia for bringing his political friends into exile. Before I left for Hungary I learned that on May 4, 1939 Great Britain had extended de facto recognition to the Slovak state and had confirmed the present British consul in Bratislava, Pares , as its official representative. This greatly furthered Slovak self-confidence. A special permit to cross the Slovak-Hungariaii border was given to me at the Hungarian consulate in Bratislava at the recommendation of Monsignor Augustin Hladik, Canon of the Cathedral of St. Martin in Bratislava, with whom I had been in contact for some years. He also made the arrangement for my travel to Hungary by car with Count Janos Eszterhazy, who was the official representative of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, in which capacity he was also a member of the Slovak Parliament. My first stop was at Dr. Obtulovic's office in Nave Zamky . With Obtulovic we visited the Reverend Imrich Kasee in Banovska Kesa and then traveled to Slovensky Meder and Komjatice; the next day we called on the Director of the Slovak gymnazium, Professor Jozef Hudec , and his colleague Professor lgnac Safar in the town of Surany. In all these villages I interviewed the Slovaks regarding the alleged atrocities committed by the Hungarian gendarmes against them for singing the Slovak national anthem and holding cultural meetings. After two days in Budapest , where I met with Professor Stefan Buran and others in the administration of Slovenska jednota, the Slovak newspaper which we wanted to become the journal of all Slovaks abroad and as such to be distributed also in France, I returned with Obtulovic to Bratislava. �20 SLOVAKIA I telephoned Durcansky to congratulate him on the British recognition of Slovakia. He sounded optimistic and explored possible ways to prompt the French government to recognize Slovakia as early as possible and thus establish legal contact with one more Western state. He invited Obtulovic and myself to see him the same day . At this meeting Durcansky suggested that Obtulovic go to Paris to investigate the possibility of obtaining early recognition of Slovakia and the accreditation of a Slovak consul in Paris. Through the intercession of Moncek, for whom I had prepared a confidential personal note, Obtulovic was to see Osusky and discuss with him the following: 1) The legal position of the Slovaks in France then and in case of war . Would Slovaks in France be mobilized into a Czechoslovak Army, or would they be recruited under the banner of a Slovak Legion? 2) A Slovak consulate in Paris and its relations to Osusky. 3) Would Osusky agree to communicate with Slovakia through the Slovak consulate in Paris , or would he suggest some other manner? 4) Distribution of Slovenska jednota among the Slovaks in France and possible cooperation with the editors of Slovenska jednota in Budapest. 5) ,'Publication of a Slovak-French Bulletin, by a neutral body , which could develop into a cultural and political organ for all Slovaks in France. For the time being it could be issued as a supplement to (Nas] Krajan, the organ of the Catholic mission in France. 6) Consider closer working relations between Osusky and the leadership of the Slovaks in Hungary. Obtulovic should propose to gather documentary. material on the Hungarian-German secret alliance with subsequent reference to Hitler's consent of the occupation of Southern Slovakia by the Hungarians. At this time I met with the British consul , Peter Pares , at the Hotel Carlton in Bratislava . I congratulated him on his confirmation as the British representative to the Slovak government. In response he mentioned that his French colleague had enjoyed very �SLOVAKIA 21 much talking with me. I was really surprized how quickly newsgathering in Bratislava functioned, because I had hardly returned from the French consulate. 4 The British rightly conjectured that my visit with Tiso and my trip to Hungary were somewhat connected with my mission from Osusky. He wanted to know more about these undertakings. Because of the risk involved. I remained cautious. A few days later I was invited by Obtulovic to join a ''fishing party" organized by him for Pares. This was a pleasant car trip from Bratislava to my native Orava and to Oravice, the region with brooks full of trout, a real haven for such a passionate fisherman as Pares. The three-day party was kept secret. We discussed mainly Slovak relations with the West. I was impressed by Pares' knowledge of the Slovak internal political scene. He showed a full understanding of the difficult international position of Slovakia and promised to keep his government informed about the real anti-Nazi feelings of the Slovaks. In his characterization of the leading Slovak politicians, he disapproved of Durcansky's precipitous acts and evident endeavors to prove the independence of Slovak diplomacy. On the other hand, Pares appreciated Tiso's policy and skill as shown in his dealings with internal as well as external affairs of state. Two communications sent by Pares to his superiors in London indicate the British consul's acute perceptions of the situation at this time and are worth quoting. 5 The first is a letter dated May 23, 1939 and reads as follows: Dear Troutbeck, Certain information has reached me from a reliable source which will, I think, interest you, but nevertheless, does not seem suitable for inclusion in a formal dispatch. I have been told by Dr. Obtulovic , who apparently enjoys the confidence of Dr. Tiso , that the Slovak government is keeping in contact with the group of Slovak exiles in Paris who are led by Dr. Osusky. A young student named Josef Stasko, who is studying at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, has recently been in Bratislava and had an interview with Dr. Tiso. He has now returned to Paris and I understand that he is a bearer of a message �22 SLOVAKIA from the Slovak government. My French colleague knows that the young man is in touch with Slovaks in Paris, but I doubt if he is aware of his connection with the Slovak government. I understand that Dr. Tiso has given formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France and that this is the message conveyed by Stasko to Paris . The object of these maneuvers seems to be to maintain contact with the Western powers whilst pursuing a policy of co-operation with the Germans for as long as is necessary - in other words, the policy of the Czechs before and during the Great War. The Slovaks are growing very apprehensive now about the possibility of war. They do not expect Germany to win, but realize that they are powerless to refuse anything she might ask in the event of war. So they are trying to ensure the good will of the Western powers in advance by secretly approving the plans of the exiles. That this is not a policy favoured by a small group, but rather the concerted action of the Slovak leaders as a whole is, I think , shown by the fact that the persons concerned in it are not only Dr. Tiso , but also Dr. Obtulovic, the official Slovak minority leader in Hungary, and the partisan of Sidor. My knowledge of Slovak is not very reliable, but from something said in a convention at which I was present, I gained the impression that Dr. Durcansky, the proGerman Foreign Minister, also knows of Stasko's mission. There have been reports that Durcansky is dissatisfied with Germany's treatment of Slovakia so it is possible that my impression may be correct. Yours ever, P. Pares A few comments on Pares ' report are in order. First, the French consul could not tell his British colleague the full story about my connection with the Slovak government because I was warned by Osusky that he was in the service of Benes , and �SLOVAKIA 23 therefore, there could have been a risk of political intrigue . Second, in my talks with Pares I never mentioned to him the essence of my discussion with Tiso, so I presume Obtulovic had informed him about it. It is also true that Tiso did not give formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France; but it had been my personal feeling that he considered the possibility of such a need later, and that is why he had referred me to Durcansky for more discussion about this matter. The following telegram by the British consul in Bratislava to his superiors in London presumes a discrete and confidential discussion of Pares with Obtulovic and clearly confirms that the Paris-Bratislava connection was still alive. The two-hour conversation of Obtulovic with the French consul also suggests the importance of the issues discussed. Here is the full text of the telegram: Telegram (en clair) from His Majesty's Consul (Bratislava) 3rd June , 1939. Dr. Obtulovic , who accompanied Stasko to Paris (see my porvate [sic] letter to Mr. Troutbeck, dated 23rd May, a copy of which was sent to the Foreign Office under cover of my dispatch No. 39 of 23rd May) has just returned to Bratislava. He had an interview with Osusky, who appears to have succeeded in convincing him that the French treatment of Czecho-Slovakia last autumn was not a betrayal, but the result of the pressure of circumstances. Dr. Obtulovic seems to have returned a Francophil and his report will no doubt influence the Slovak Government in favour of the Western Powers. Osusky's arguments have also convinced him that Germany is not strong enough to break the forces confronting her and he is therefore concerned for the future of Slovakia in the event of a German collapse. He says that he is to return to Paris once more and will visit also Belgium. I presume that he will make contact with the Slovak colony in that country which is fairly numerous. Today he had a conversation lasting two hours with the French consul here, in the course of which it must be �24 SLOVAKIA assumed that he discussed the standpoint of the Slovak Government to the Slovak exiles in Paris . Copy sent to Paris. I have to add that Obtulovic traveled to Paris alone , because I still expected an audience with Prime Minister Tiso and a meeting with Foreign Minister Durcansky. It is not true that Obtulovic returned from Paris a Francophil, thanks to Osusky . Obtulovic was a Francophil before his trip. The same could be said about the statement that only Osusky's arguments had convinced Obtulovic of the possible German defeat. It was precisely this presumption of the Slovak government - that in the event of war, Germany would not win - which had prompted Obtulovic's trip to Paris. The plan was that Obtulovic would return to Paris and would visit his countrymen in Belgium. This did not take place , however , because the Germans took notice of his travels, tracked his whereabouts , and inquired about his motives at the Slovak Foreign Ministry. The details of the German intervention in this matter were sent to me by the Reverend Kasee at my address at the Slovak Catholic mission in Argenteuil. A few days later Obtul6vic and Kasee were expelled from Hungary and returned to Bratislava. Back in Bratislava, after the fishing trip , I contacted Dr. Anton Stefanek, for whom I had a letter and an oral message from Osusky. He seemed to have little confidence in Osusky and was totally dismayed by Benes . Concerning the situation in Slovakia , it was his view that for the time being Slovakia was thriving and was much better off than the Czech lands . Of course , all this was relative to Hitler's plans . In the event of war, Slovakia would be eradicated as a state and much damage would be done to the nation . He confessed that he did not intend to go into exile and that he had no advice as to what course of action to take. He did not believe that the future form of life in Central Europe would be the same as before and stated that even Czecho-Slovakia would have to be restructured if it wished to survive. He asked me about Hodza, who he expected to come forward with his idea of a Central European Federation. �SLOVAKIA 25 My message from Osusky concerned the possibility of a mutual exchange of reports on international and domestic developments. To this Stefanek did not react. He wanted me to meet his colleagues at the university, and he set up a date for this meeting in his office . As I recall, this took place two days later. At that meeting only four of these colleagues were present: Dr. Peter Gula, Dr. Branislav Varsik, Dr. Jan Stanislav, and Dr. J. K. (still living in Bratislava). The only positive suggestion made at that meeting was to organize an exchange of professors and students with France and then to create a clearing-house at the Institut Slave in Paris for Slovak literature. All those present considered the war inevitable; all believed that Hitler would not win; and all were willing to accept the Czecho-Slovak state only in a federal form. My report from this meeting was sent in a diplomatic pouch to Osusky through the French consulate . Another letter and message I delivered was to General Rudolf Viest, who was Inspector-General of the Slovak Army. He asked me first for my credentials, then told me to see him the next day. At our subsequent meeting I informed him that Ambassador Osusky would be glad to see him in Paris in order to organize a Czecho-Slovak Army. To this General Viest answered that he did not believe war would break out and that he would stay where he was. (I did not know at that time that he had already promised Benes that he would soon join him). 6 In the remaining days I busied myself seeing personalities from Slovak political, cultural, and economic life . Among others , I visited Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga in Bratislava, who promised to send books, periodicals , films, pictures, and other cultural items to Paris. He also gave me some financial help and asked me to work in France for the Slovenska liga, represented then by Klement Sichmak. In Trnava I visited Monsignor Jan Pi:istenyi , the Director of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, who warmly received me. He gave me two packages of books for the Reverend Jan Futak in Argenteuil and also some financial assistance for lecturing among the Slovaks in France on behalf of Slovak religious awareness. At the "Slovensky klub" in the Cafe Redoute in Bratislava I met with the Minister of Economy , Dr. Gejza Medricky; Dr. Peter �26 SLOVAKIA Zat'ko of the Centrale of Slovak Industry; Dr. Alexander Hrncar of the Ministry of Finance; Dr. Imrich Karvas of the Slovak National Bank, and other economists. The invitation of this meeting had come from Medricky, whom I had known for some years in connection with autonomist political actions. The discussion concerned mostly the economy but also touched on politics. I included the main points of this debate in the report for Osusky. One of the most interesting, and at the same time most informative, meetings I had had in Bratislava was in the student residence Svoradov, where I met many of my colleagues. In their discussions they portrayed the events of March 14, 1939 with the utmost frankness. Most of them were adherents of Sidor and only a few supported the radical wing headed by Mach and Murgas. From their heated debate I learned that they did not consider Hitler to be a culprit but rather a ruthless politician. They expressed their doubts about the Western concept of European order. The West, they argued, had lost cultural preeminence, failed in political initiative , and)acked overall vitality. They dismissed the immediate danger of war and were quite philosophical about the future. To my outline of the Western mood of the public and a resolute resistance toward further concessions to Hitler, they offered a picture of Slovakia built on Christian principles and rallied politically around Tiso a·s the best safeguard against the eventualities of an armed peace. In sum, I was struck by two elements in Slovak political life: one was a real ambition to build the Slovak state as if it were an independent entity outside of the complexities of the European theater; the other was the unbelievable credulity in a simplified version of their capability for survival. There was an almost palpable feeling of nationalistic fervor everywhere . Listening to Foreign Minister Durcansky 's self-confidence and to his broadlybased diplomatic ambitions , I could not believe that he had taken the Treaty of Protection with Germany seriously. The German minority in Slovakia was small, their Nazism in most localities questionable, and as a political factor they did not play as yet a visible role. The overall mood of rural Slovakia was optimistic , almost careless in its disregard of international embroglios . �SLOVAKIA 27 Based on these experiences, it was difficult for me to draw a gloomy picture of the future, especially among those who achieved personal and material satisfaction, e.g., young Slovak intellectuals or businessmen who exploited fully the occasion of the revolutionary change. The Jewish question had been in the minds of the radicals in their newspapers or speeches , but their zealotry was tamed by the government's promotion of constructive primary economic projects . Prime Minister Tiso was considered a man of moral integrity , wise , and moderate. Sidor, on the other hand , was severely judged by both radicals for his lack of courage and by the '' old guard" for his indecisiveness. Durcansky was a "political technician,'' whose ideological armory supplied the energy for the running of the state machinery. He had a few followers and even fewer personal friends . Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas , Jan Farkas, Jozef Jostiak , Jan Dafcik, and others had some credit in the nation and among the students for their sacrifices in the past, but in this stage of rebuilding the Slovak society they represented a group of malcontents - radicals whose fighting spirit was not out of focus. Their pro-German leanings pushed them to the margin of the political stream. After Obtulovic left for Paris I remained a few more days in Slovakia for my second audience with Tiso and a meeting with Durcansky . In his monologue Tiso talked about the preservation of the Slovak state and believed that the West would concur with him in the self-determination principle , which, in his opinion, would respect the will of the people. He did not believe that Osusky would be willing to accept the existence of the Slovak state , but his struggle for a federal Czecho-Slovakia underlined the principle of self-determination. Tiso saw my point in stressing the political importance of the Slovak soldiers in France fighting against Hitler, but he hastened to add " and for the Slovak state .'' He repeated his original wish to send a '' cultural delegation " to France and advised me to remain in touch w ith the Slovak League in America , especially with Monsignor Francis Dubas . With these recommendations my audience with the prime minister ended. �28 SLOVAKIA With Foreign Minister Durcansky I discussed all the issues that had arisen during my visit to Slovakia. Durcansky planned to remain in contact with Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest, whose official assignment would be to communicate with the Slovak consulate in Paris. For the time being he intended to send some literature and messages to the Catholic mission in Argenteuil for the Reverend Futak. We also discussed at length the question of a Slovak Legion in France . Durcansky envisaged such a possible development . To this end he promised to send 15 to 20 ''students'' to Paris for the fall semester who could eventually become available for action in organizing the Slovaks as an independent military unit. The main object of my "mission" was to contact Osusky's friends and eventually to encourage them to go into exile. I talked with many of those whom Osusky suggested ! but none of them was willing to emigrate. This was the case with Emil Boleslav Lukac , Dr. Milos Vanco, Jan Teplansky, Dr. Martin Micura, Dr. Anton Stefanek, Dr. Peter Zat'ko, Dr. Alexander Hrncar , and Dr. Imrich Karvas. When asked to prepare and send to Osusky a statement on the situation in Slovakia and on plans for the future , not a single one of these individuals manifested any interest. I did not meet Bishops Osusky or Ruppeldt and those persons listed in the letters which they had picked up at the French consulate in Bratislava. I gathered all possible documents from Slovakia and sent them to Osusky in a diplomatic pouch through the French consul. Among the documents were a copy of the Schutzvertrag and the secret Protocols concerning the German claims in the territorial , economic, financial, or military field . Also included were my diary, packages for the Reverend Futak, photographs from occupied Southern Slovakia, brochures, proclamations, pamphlets , Hlinka Guard "orders," and various books and clippings from the daily press . Although I had planned to see Karol Sidor, I had no opportunity to do so. My message to him from Osusky was oral and involved a request for his comments on the March 14th events along with an invitation to join him in Paris. Sidor kept himself aloof from the public , and I was told that his movements were �SLOVAKIA 29 being monitored by the Gestapo. He therefore would not welcome my visit or interview. I had my passport restamped with the stamp of the Slovak Republic and returned safely to France. There I met Obtulovic, who had already spoken to the officials of the French Foreign Office and also with Osusky. The next day I gave Osusky a full report of my experiences in Slovakia and Hungary and also described my meetings with Osusky's friends and acquaintances. Osusky did not accept the idea that the Slovak consulate in Paris should be the communication link between him and Bratislava. He also was not in favor of a Slovak office in Paris, like Slovakotour, which could be used as a cover for the contacts with Bratislava. He did not make any qualified statement on mobilizing Slovaks in France into an independent Slovak military unit , but promised to fight for the right of the Slovaks to form their own units under Slovak officers in the framework of a CzechoSlovak Army. He touched vaguely on the question of the Slovaks in Hungary, postponing diplomatic steps for the postwar reshaping of Europe. Osusky was totally disappointed that there were no political leaders in Slovakia, especially from among the former officials of Czechoslo~akia, who manifested any interest of cooperation with the West and with him . Together with Obtulovic I visited Osusky the next evening. After repeating what he had told me, he openly asked Obtulovic if one of the leading Slovaks would be willing to join him. He stressed the diplomatic realities: the British and also the French might differentiate the fate of the Czechs and the Slovaks ; once war was declared, they would fight for the restoration of CzechoSlovakia. It was necessary, he said, on the part of the Slovak government to prepare an official memorandum indicating that the Slovaks had been acting under German pressure and that the Slovak state had been forced upon the Slovaks. Such a document could be interpreted as proof that whatever it did was justified to save the nation. He repeated again and again that he was resolutely opposed to the centralized form of Czechoslovakia and that his concept for the future was favorable to the Slovaks and acceptable to the West. This concept included the return of the occupied Southern Slovakia to the homeland. �30 SLOVAKIA Obtulovic responded with a more detailed explanation of the Slovak position and asked for time to reevaluate all aspects of the discussions with Tiso and Durcansky. It was agreed that Osusky would not hinder the work of the Slovak consul in Paris and that the Slovak government would send to Paris a persona grata to Osusky. Obtulovic stressed the question of the Slovaks in France in case of war, considering them to be an outpost of the Slovaks' true anti-Nazis feelings . He indicated that the Slovak government would send a "cultural delegation" and some " students" to France who would be advised to cooperate with the Slovaks in the United States organized in the Slovak League of America. Osusky did not reject the idea, but he claimed the allegiance of the Slovaks in the event of war to the leadership of the resistance. The contacts with Bratislava would continue, and Obtulovic would return to Paris as soon as the Slovak government , or rather Tiso and Durcansky, would consider it useful. There was a tacit understand.ing that Obtulovic would talk to Sidor and that both would meet Osusky's emissary in Budapest. There were, of course, differences in positions, but they were not insurmountable. One of them was the choice and location of the Slovak diplomatic personnel in the West, the other the insistence of Tiso on the preservation of the Slovak state . The surprisingly rapid development of the international crisis , however, prevented both the Slovak government and Osusky from establishing any direct contacts. Although France recognized the Slovak government de facto on July 14 , 1939, no Slovak consul in Paris was accredited. The contemplated candidate for this position, Ing . Milan Harminc , who presented himself personally at the French Foreign Office and was considered a leading pretender, had been in the meantime accredited as Slovak consul in London. Suggested for the Slovak consul in Paris was Dr. Bohdan Galvanek, whose proGerman leanings were generally known and who was flatly rejected by the French Foreign Office. Time lost in the protection of the accreditation process had been sufficiently long for the successful negative intervention of Czech politicians at the French Foreign Office . �SLOVAKIA 31 Gradually, with the arrival of more pro-Benes exiles in Paris, Osusky was losing hold of the leadership. By the end of August, 1939, after his discussion with Benes in London (August 24), he abandoned his firm Slovak stand on the independent Slovak military units and was instrumental in reaching an agreement with the French government (August 28) on the creation of a Czechoslovak Army in France with no independent Slovak units. The political consequences of this development buried Osusky as the leader of the Slovaks abroad and abolished all possible contacts with Slovakia. At this point my "mission" and my efforts to demonstrate Slovak anti-Nazi feelings to the West lost all meaning. NOTES 1 A more detailed discussion of this period will follow in further personal memoirs to be published by the author. 2 Dr. Stefan Osusky was born in Brezova pod Bradlom, Slovakia, on March 31, 1889 into a distinguished Lutheran family . After some harassment by the Magyars while in secondary school, he emigrated to the United States in 1906. He joined his sister in Chicago, where in 1915 he earned a doctorate in law from the University of Chicago . In 1916 he was named, together with Gustav Kosik, as a special delegate of the Slovak League of America to the CzechoSlovak Committee in Paris , headed by Dr. Edvard Benes. Next to Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, Osusky was the second leading Slovak who participated in winning recognition for the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. After the war Osusky represented Czechoslovakia at different international committees in Europe and eventually became the Czechoslovak ambassador in France (1921-1940) . His political views echoed in large part those of the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas G. Masaryk , whom Osusky greatly admired. He differed with Masaryk , however, on the question of the Czech and Slovak constitutional arrangement. Osusky was proud of his Slovak nationality and was sympathetic toward the Slovak movement for national self-determination . When Benes became president in 1935, Osusky expected to replace him as foreign minister. Benes, who disliked Osusky, named instead Dr. Kami! Krofta. Osusky remained in Paris bitterly resenting this " injustice. " Part of Osusky's political action in Paris after March , 1939 , is described in this memoir. While in Paris he enjoyed the political support of the French government, especially in his antagonism toward Benes. In London , however, he became totally isolated . His altercations with Benes in the London Czechoslovak exile government ended with a total break and animosity. After �32 SLOVAKIA the war Osusky emigrated to the United States , where he lectured occasionally and wrote an analysis of the democratic process in a thinking society entitled The Way of the Free (New York , 1951) . Among his earlier publications are Les Magyars et Pangermanistes (Paris , 1918) and George D. Herron , d6vernik Wilsonov pocas vojny (Brno, 1925) . While in Great Britain during World War II Osusky wrote political pamphlets - Pravda vit'azi (1942). "Rizena demokracie" pri praci (1942), Benes a Slovensko (1943). and Triedenie duchov nastalo (1943) - in which he sharply criticized Benes for his stubborn insistence on adhering to the old, centralized structure of Czechoslovakia . 3 The pertinent passage from Osusky's speech in Argenteuil reads as follows : '' . .. I hereby declare that a policy depriving the Slovak nation of its inalienable rights will never get my consent. Those Czechs and Slovaks who pursued such excessive centralism must publicly admit that their political conception has failed , is dead and rests in a tomb. Otherwise, the Slovaks will face similar ambitions for Czechoslovak unity with justified resistance . What matters now is the existence and future of Czecho-Slovakia . He who would threaten the Slovaks with centralism and persecution is the enemy of the restoration of the Republic , because without Slovakia there could nor would be Czecho-Slovakia. Finally, I must say to the Slovaks that the French authorities will tolerate no propaganda against France and for Nazism. As for myself, as an official representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic , I will not protect those Slovaks who calumniate the Czechs, the Czecho-Slovak authorities and CzechoSlovakia. The Slovaks who look for the salvation of Slovakia in Hitler, should address themselves to him for livelihood and protection. They will fall into slavery instead of remaining free citizens . Only the Czecho-Slovak Republic will bring b.;ick freedom , independence, and the right to a dignified life to the Czechs and 'Slovaks. This is our conviction and our national belief.'' As quoted in Stefan Osusky, Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost' (Paris , 1939). pp. 50-51 . 4 At the French consulate I picked up the mail sent to me from Paris . Osusky sent several personal letters to be delivered to Bishop Samuel Osusky , Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt , and Dr. Anton Stefanek, and a thick envelope of letters to be picked up later by someone mentioned in the delivered letters. There were also two reports: one , official from the embassy, dealing with the international situation; the other, a sketchy outline of the planned communication between Paris and Bratislava. 5 Documents FO 371 /22903 /338-39 and FO 371 /22903 /341 , British Foreign Office Files, Public Record Office, London. Copies of these documents were made available to me by Frantisek Vnuk . A Slovak translation of them can be found in Vnuk's Slovenska otazka na Zapade v rokoch 1939-1940 (Cleveland , 1974). pp. 54-56. 6 I met General Viest in Paris in the late summer of 1939 . He visited the " Political Club" Madame Sis. Once a week she received at her home invited guests of different political affiliations for open discussion. At such a friendly meeting General Viest made known his political allegiance to Benes . �SLOVAKIA 33 My next meeting with General Viest was in Beziers in Southern France at the Headquarters of the Czechoslovak Army. As a soldier at the nearby Czechoslovak Army Camp in Agde, I visited the Headquarters to plead for the Slovaks in the military prison, because they refused to fight for Benes's type of Czechoslovakia. (the "Fryvaldovsky Case"). General Viest did not allow me to see Fryvaldovsky and dismissed me without any answer. I submitted the complaint to the French Military Command . Although the outcome of this intervention was never revealed to me, Fryvaldovsky was repatriated to Slovakia in 1941. � SLOVAKIA 9 Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir JOSEPH STASKO The following is the recollection of my experiences as a young Slovak student in Paris during the critical years 1938-1939. Although this "first person narrative" is necessarily somewhat colored by subjective impressions, it should nonetheless shed light on some hithertofore undisclosed and/or unanalyzed information relating to events and personalities of the period. 1 On the international scene, Hitler's daring diplomatic moves, combined with military pressure , brought about not only the Munich Agreement (September 29/ 30 , 1938) but also the resignation of President Edvard Benes (October 5, 1938), followed by the Zilina Agreement (October 6, 1938), by virtue of which the Slovaks achieved political autonomy . For me , as a politically active federalist (autonomist), the Zilina Agreement represented the fulfillment of the Slovak political struggle , the federation of Czecho-Slovakia. In the second half of October, 1938 , I returned to Slovakia to witness the implementation of Slovak autonomy. The new autonomous government of Slovakia had commenced with enthusiasm, national pride , and hope . This euphoric atmosphere, however , did not last for long. The loss of a large part of Slovak territory to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 2 , 1938 was a tragic blow to the promising beginnings of Slovak self-rule . The overall mood in Slovakia was overshadowed by national grief, anger , and a feeling of powerlessness. �10 SLOVAKIA In the official circles of the Slovak government and among the general public there was no serious talk of separating Slovakia from the Czech lands. Both the government and judicial public viewed the Munich Agreement and the Vienna Award as diplomatic safeguards against Hitler's further penetration in Central Europe and also as an international guaranty against Hungarian territorial rapacity. There were, however, radical elements grouped around Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas, Jozef Jostiak, Jan Farkas , and Jan Dafc':lk who fomented anti-Czech feeling by ascribing the loss of Slovak territory to Benes and his policy toward Slovakia. In November, 1938, I returned to France convinced that the Slovaks considered their autonomy the satisfactory solution of their national and political interests. Before I left I was offered the assignment of foreign correspondent for the newspapers Slovak and Slovenska pravda , which I gladly accepted. By the end of November the Czechoslovak ambassador in France, Dr. Stefan Osusky, was returning to Paris from his visit to the newlyTelected president of Czecho-Slovakia , Dr. Emil Hacha and to the new foreign minister, Dr. Frantisek Chvalkovsky. As a foreign correspondent for the newspaper Slovak, I asked Osusky for an interview regarding his impressions of Czecho-Slovakia. Prior to the interview, he gave me a copy of his aide-memoire submitted to the French Foreign Office as a supplement to his official report. The main topics, as I recall, were descriptions of his audiences with President Hacha and Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky and of the apathy of the Czech people toward the latest tragic dismemberment of Bohemia in the Munich Agreement. Included in it was also a statement concerning the Slovak autonomous government's assurances of its wholehearted support for the Czecho-Slovak state. In my subsequent interview with Osusky he maintained that the French government had pledged to guarantee the security of the new Czecho-Slovakia. This part of the interview _was later published in the newspaper Slovak. After this interview with Osusky, my contacts with him became more frequent and proved to be very useful to me as a student and as a journalist. He encouraged me to study the question of minorities in Central Europe , offered me access to the embassy 's library, and invited me to the "five o'clock tea" on a �SLOVAKIA 11 regular weekly basis. He also arranged for me contacts with the Havas Press Agency, as well as with the newspaper Epoque, L'Oeuvre, and Le Temps . 2 In December, 1938, I was back in Slovakia on a journalistic assignment from Osusky to report on the Slovak parliamentary elections , held on December 18, 1938. After the opening of the first session of the new Slovak Parliament on January 19, 1939, I returned the next day to France. At one of our ''five o'clock tea'' meetings, Osusky explained his political views not only on international questions but on the internal problems of Czecho-Slovakia as well. He told me that although his position as the envoy of Czecho-Slovakia in Paris precluded his interference in the internal affairs of the state, he kept close contacts with many prominent politicians and expressed his political views freely. However, since he was unable to make public his own views, he suggested that I should try to put them in writing . I interpreted this as a mandate and asked 'him to set up dates for interviews on his position regarding political developments in Europe with a special focus on Central Europe and Czecho-Slovakia. On the basis of these interviews I submitted to him in February, 1939, a draft of "Dr. Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' He approved my draft and asked me to supplement it with philosophical statements from his acceptance speech, delivered on February 5, 1936, on the occasion of his receipt of an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Dijon. I complied with his request. The resulting paper was reproduced for his Slovak friends; later a part of it was included in his booklet Cesko-Slovensko a jeho buducnost', which appeared in 1939. After the crisis of March, 1939, Osusky was looked upon as the only representative of Czecho-Slovakia in the free world who could claim the authority of a co-founder of the state. Following his refusal to deliver the Czecho-Slovak embassy in Paris to the Germans, he espoused the so-called ambassadorial theory of continuity, according to which he was the only legal representative of Czechoslovakia . Osusky's theory conflicted with the " presidential theory of continuity" of Benes, who considered himself the victim of Hitler's brutality and the sacrificial lamb of �12 SLOVAKIA the military and psychological weakness of France and Great Britain. The French government confirmed Osusky's legal status and continued to recognize him as the diplomatic representative of Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia. Osusky felt himself destined for the leading role in the resistance against Hitler. At this historical juncture , however, Osusky found himself isolated, without trustworthy collaborators at the embassy and with no close connections with the Slovaks and their organizations in France. His relations with his Slovak countrymen in France were sparse and those with the Czechs lacked mutual trust. The only employee at the embassy who devotedly served Osusky was Stefan Moncek, the treasurer. Other Slovaks at the embassy - Dr. Vladimir Palic, Dr. Alexander Kunosi, and later Dr. Fedor Hodza - either stayed there for only a short time or tendered their allegiance to others. All other personnel at the embassy espoused Benes' views and conspired against Osusky. This politically precarious situation necessitated an immediate remedy in two directions: Osusky's relations with the Slovaks and their organizations in France; and the reshaping of his staff at the embassy. In the first half of April, 1939 , Osusky inquired about my connections with Slovak organizations in France and in Slovakia. He needed broader support for his leadership. For this purpose he planned to secure the confidence of his Slovak co-nationals in France. In order to improve his image as the representative, not only of the Czechs, but also of the Slovaks (who now lived in the Slovak state), he intended to attract political friends from Slovakia. To help carry out the first part of his plan I offered my assistance in arranging a gathering of Slovaks in Argenteuil , near Paris. There Osusky would deliver his first campaign speech on political issues in general and on Czech-Slovak relations in particular. The timing was opportune. After March 14, 1939 , the majority of Slovaks in France, who expressed their trust in Prime Minister Jozef Tiso's government, were denounced by the Czechs as traitors and as such were reported to the French authorities who then persecuted them as pro-Nazis. The presence of Ambassador Osusky at the gathering was an occasion to present Slovak complaints to him and to ask for protection. �SLOVAKIA 13 The gathering of French Slovaks took place in April, 1939, and was quite successful. Osusky's speech was reproduced in special leaflets, and parts were published in his Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost'. On the whole, Osusky's address was favorably accepted by the Slovaks, especially his promise to protect thqse Slovaks who did not spread anti-French or anti-Czech propaganda. 3 The daily influx into France of Czech political and military emigrants caused Osusky much concern because practically all of them supported Benes. This may have been one of the main reasons why he entrusted me with a secret mission to visit Slovakia to contact his friends, former political leaders, many government officials, and leading personalities in the cultural and economic life of the Slovak state. Osusky indicated that he would like me to bring personal messages to some of his friends and inquire into the possibility of having contacts with them through Budapest. He also suggested that I travel to Hungary to survey the situation of the Slovaks in occupied Southern Slovakia and contact their leaders. I accepted this mission as a sign of personal trust and asked for a few days to prepare a more detailed program for his approval. At the outset of our discussion Osusky had pointed out that this trip was supposed to appear as if it were my own undertaking, but he promised to inform the French authorities of my status and procure a diplomatic visa for me. He did so promptly. Among the persons I was to see and deliver messages to were: Dr. Anton Stefanek, Professor at the University of Bratislava; General Rudolf Viest, Inspector-General of the Slovak Army; Dr. Samuel Osusky, Lutheran Bishop and cousin of Osusky; Lutheran Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt; Dr. Matej Murtin at the Hypotecna a komunalna banka in Bratislava; the lawyer Dr. Ivan Pietor; economists Dr. Peter Zat'ko and Dr. Vladimir Fajnor; and the General Director of the Slovenska narodna banka, Dr. Imrich Karvas . My assignment included also contacts with Dr. Milos Vanco, Dr. Jan Spisiak, and Jan Teplansky. Osusky explained his wish to build communications with Bratislava through a liaison in Budapest to be funded half by him and the other half by the Slovak side . As for possible discussions with government officials, I could act in my name only. Osusky 's name could be mentioned in con- �14 SLOVAKIA nection with his warning about the risk of war and the need for the cooperation of Slovakia with the West. All other questions that Osusky gave me were for Prime Minister Tiso alone. Among them was the question of the Slovaks in France and their eventual mobilization in case of war in military units of a Czecho-Slovak Army. Another question of importance for both Slovakia and Osusky was the establishing of Slovak diplomatic missions in the West equipped with proper personalities and far-reaching political perspectives. He suggested also that I discuss some matters with Foreign Minister Ferdinand Durcansky . Before I left France on April 27 , 1939 , I helped to organize the participation of Slovaks at the Second Reunion of the Czechs and Slovaks in France, which was planned for April 29-30 at the Czechoslovak Colony in Paris . Benes 's adherents planned to declare him the leader of the '' Second Czechoslovak Struggle Abroad ,'' thus eliminating Osusky for good from any leading role in the exile movement. The outcome of that meeting was transmitted to me in Bratislava by Stefan Moncek, who had been given my telephone number. This information was important to my mission because success depended on Osusky 's retention of his leadership position abroad. In Bratislava I met freely with my friends and colleagues . Some of them already held high state offices and enjoyed their positions in the full swing of their zeal, devotion , and industry . They seemed to be unaware of the danger of war and believed that their happy days would have no end. To my surprise, some of them thought that Hitler was satisfied with his annexations and that the risk of war had been thus eliminated . This naive credulity was confirmed by my visits with Propaganda Chief Sano Mach, the Hlinka Guard leaders Karol Murgas and Jan Dafcik, and the majority of my own friends. The glorification of Hitler by Dr. Vojtech Tuka in his May 1, 1939, speech at Primizial Plaza in Bratislava was an ominous sign, as was the elimination of Karol Sidor from Slovak political affairs. The next day I was granted an audience with Prime Minister Tiso. It was arranged through Dr. Juraj Rajec , whom I knew when he was the educational counselor in the student residence Svoradov. I was admitted to Tiso as a reporter for the newspaper Slovak in France . �SLOVAKIA 15 Sitting in the corner of his office , overlooking the Danube, Tiso looked tired and somewhat restrained. He asked me about my studies and my journalistic experience in France. After I answered those questions I described the difficult position of the Slovaks in France as outlined earlier. This led me to Ambassador Osusky and his activities. I reported to Tiso the full details of Osusky 's speech in Argenteuil, handed him the leaflets of the Center of the Czechs and Slovaks Abroad concerning recruitment in the event of war, and finally submitted to him the document ' 'Dr. Osusky 's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' With regard to the possibility of war, I indicated that there were about 50 ,000 Slovaks in France who could be recruited into a Czechoslovak Army and who would have to fight against the Slovak state for Benes' type of Czechoslovakia. I also told Tiso that Osusky favored a federated Czecho-Slovakia but faced the determined opposition of the Czechs and of some Slovak centralists, the so-called Czechoslovaks. Osusky had a few friends among the Czechs, and not many among the Slovaks. He was willing to set up separate Slovak military units in France, alongside the Czech ones, under a unified command, but there were no Slovak officers. Tiso listened to my briefing and then remarked that he did not consider Osusky to be the representative of the Slovak cause in the West because Osusky did not know Slovakia and the Slovaks did not know Osusky. Next I inquired whether it was true that the situation of Slovakia after the Treaty of Protection with Germany , which had been characterized in France as total dependence upon Germany, was similar to the situation in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He rose from his chair, approached the window facing the Danube , and asked me if I could see the cannons on the other side of the Danube, which were aimed directly at his windows . This ''protection,'' he said, did not prevent the Slovaks from losing Petrzalka (part of Bratislava), but it was still preferable to their being divided between the Magyars and the Poles. To my querry about the limits of Slovak freedom in making foreign contacts, he responded that the new government expected to be recognized by most European states very quickly. This would make it difficult for the Germans to interfere and would provide �16 SLOVAKIA a legal basis for foreign contacts. Durcansky would give me more details on this point. I was curious about relations with the Magyars, for I had heard that there was no reaction from the Slovak side to the atrocities committed by the Magyars in Komjatice, Slovensky Meder, and Surany. Tiso replied that according to the Treaty of Protection with Germany, the Slovaks could not unilaterally decide on retaliatory measures against the Magyars in Slovakia; the Slovaks were thus denied the right of reprisal, he said . On the other hand , the Treaty provided for German protection of Slovak territory against constant Magyar incursions. And so the Slovak position toward Hungary was dictated by those factors. I inquired if it would be possible to use the Slovaks in France for some kind of support of a Slovak cause in the West in the event of war. Tiso said that that was not an immediate worry. First France would have to recognize the Slovak State , after which there would be more time for such discussions. I told him that Osusky would have no objection to the French government granting the Slovak state de facto recognition. He saw such circumstances as being favorable for building a bridge between France and Slovakia, provided that the proper person were appointed as head of the Slovak consulate. Tiso indicated that I would receive the answer to this question from f>urcansky. Tiso suggested publishing a Slovak-French bulletin in France and the possibility of a cultural exchange. He referred me to Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga , who would take care of it. In summarizing our discussion, Tiso reiterated his views , stressed the confidentiality of some of his remarks , and asked me about my immediate and future plans . I mentioned that I intended to visit Hungary to speak with Slovak representatives. He asked me if this had already been planned in Paris, which I affirmed. He concluded the interview with an invitation to contact him again before I left for France. That same day, in the Cafe Carlton, I was introduced by Vlado Houdek to Peter Pares , the British consul in Bratislava. He expressed a keen interest in my studies in France and my evaluation of the French political scene. He was eager to see me the next day at the same place, and I gladly consented. �SLOVAKIA 17 Later that day I was invited for dinner by Foreign Minister Durcansky at his private residence. To my surprise, he had already been informed of the issues discussed with the prime minister. Our friendly personal relations, based on close cooperation in the autonomist movement, allowed us to be absolutely frank with each other. After giving him an overall picture of French public opinion, I touched on the question of the Slovaks in France and also on Ambassador Osusky's actions. To this Durcansky added his brief analysis of the Slovak situation on the international level and outlined Slovak diplomatic ambitions. The discussion that followed could be summarized in the following points: I said that according to what I knew from Osusky and from the Polish embassy in Paris , the French and the British were hurridly mobilizing raw materials, increasing production of military hardware , building up public opinion against Hitler; in short they were preparing for war. In the diplomatic field , the French were repeating their pledges to stand by their treaties with Poland and Romania. Durcansky accepted the possibility of war but not earlier than in two years. As for the Slovaks in France, I asked if it could f10t be possible to organize them into a Slovak Legion and have them fight against Hitler and for the preservation of the Slovak state. Osusky, I continued, was opposed to Benes. He recognized a federated Czecho-Slovakia as the best form of government which would guarantee Slovak self-rule . Durcansky replied that he did not believe that France would agree on the formation of a Slovak Legion with the proviso that it fight for the preservation of the Slovak state. He, therefore, would accept the organization of Czech and Slovak military units under a unified command. This reasoning was parallel in general terms with that of Osusky 's. One of the most difficult questions , however, was where to find and how to commission 20 to 30 Slovak officers for this duty . This would be a political question of unforseeable complications. According to Durcansky , this could be done under different pretexts , such as through a cultural delegation, correspondents , students, businessmen, and the like. Under the present conditions, two things were required immediately: official recognition of Slovakia by the French government and money . As for the first �18 SLOVAKIA condition, Durcansky said that he had been already told by the French consul that recognition was on its way. The question of money would be solved by creation of the Institute for Slovaks Abroad , which for the time being would be associated with the Foreign Ministry. The money could be put aside from the ministerial budget. To do so , it would be necessary to prepare the statutes of the proposed Institute . He instructed me to meet the next day with Dr. Jozef Cieker, Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Emil Rusko , and their experts to prepare the final text of the statutes. After Durcansky had read "Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis" and gone through the material I had brought with me, he indicated that Osusky 's position might help the Slovak cause in the West if he would be willing to cooperate with the Slovak consul in Paris , using him as a liaison with Slovakia . I asked Durcansky if he already had in mind such a person for such a delicate mission; he mentioned the name of Ing. Milan Harminic. More explicitly than Tiso , Durcansky gave me details regarding his dealings with the Germans. This I later put in writing and sent to Ambassador Osusky through the French consulate in Bratislava. From the organizational point of view, Durcansky considered the existing Catholic mission in France an excellent focus for rallying the Slovaks , not only on religious, but also on cultural and political grounds. He knew the Reverend Jan Futak, the Head of the mission, vaguely but expressed confidence in him. He promised to send money to France from the planned Institute to help publish a periodical bulletin in French and Slovak. As the editor he planned to appoint the Reverend Vojtech Klein, a Catholic priest known for his work in the social field and in the publishing trade. Before taking leave of Durcansky I informed him of my trip to Hungary and asked for his advice as to whom I should contact and what concrete steps I should take to gather detailed information on the situation of the Slovaks there . He referred me to Dr. Ludovit Obtulovic , a lawyer in Nave Zamky who was the leader of the Slovaks in the occupied territory of Southern Slovakia, and to the Reverand Imrich Ko sec , a Catholic priest in the nearby village of Banovska Kesa . �SLOVAKIA 19 Durcansky planned to build a direct line of communication between Bratislava and Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest . During the discussion it became apparent to me that this communication was supposed to be rather a personal link between Durcansky and the Catholic mission in Argenteuil. Consequently, I did not mention at this point that Osusky too was looking for a liaison with Slovakia through a confidant in Budapest. While Durcansky hoped to build bridges to the West without the intermediary link of Osusky , the latter planned to use his contacts with Slovakia for bringing his political friends into exile. Before I left for Hungary I learned that on May 4, 1939 Great Britain had extended de facto recognition to the Slovak state and had confirmed the present British consul in Bratislava, Pares , as its official representative. This greatly furthered Slovak self-confidence. A special permit to cross the Slovak-Hungariaii border was given to me at the Hungarian consulate in Bratislava at the recommendation of Monsignor Augustin Hladik, Canon of the Cathedral of St. Martin in Bratislava, with whom I had been in contact for some years. He also made the arrangement for my travel to Hungary by car with Count Janos Eszterhazy, who was the official representative of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, in which capacity he was also a member of the Slovak Parliament. My first stop was at Dr. Obtulovic's office in Nave Zamky . With Obtulovic we visited the Reverend Imrich Kasee in Banovska Kesa and then traveled to Slovensky Meder and Komjatice; the next day we called on the Director of the Slovak gymnazium, Professor Jozef Hudec , and his colleague Professor lgnac Safar in the town of Surany. In all these villages I interviewed the Slovaks regarding the alleged atrocities committed by the Hungarian gendarmes against them for singing the Slovak national anthem and holding cultural meetings. After two days in Budapest , where I met with Professor Stefan Buran and others in the administration of Slovenska jednota, the Slovak newspaper which we wanted to become the journal of all Slovaks abroad and as such to be distributed also in France, I returned with Obtulovic to Bratislava. �20 SLOVAKIA I telephoned Durcansky to congratulate him on the British recognition of Slovakia. He sounded optimistic and explored possible ways to prompt the French government to recognize Slovakia as early as possible and thus establish legal contact with one more Western state. He invited Obtulovic and myself to see him the same day . At this meeting Durcansky suggested that Obtulovic go to Paris to investigate the possibility of obtaining early recognition of Slovakia and the accreditation of a Slovak consul in Paris. Through the intercession of Moncek, for whom I had prepared a confidential personal note, Obtulovic was to see Osusky and discuss with him the following: 1) The legal position of the Slovaks in France then and in case of war . Would Slovaks in France be mobilized into a Czechoslovak Army, or would they be recruited under the banner of a Slovak Legion? 2) A Slovak consulate in Paris and its relations to Osusky. 3) Would Osusky agree to communicate with Slovakia through the Slovak consulate in Paris , or would he suggest some other manner? 4) Distribution of Slovenska jednota among the Slovaks in France and possible cooperation with the editors of Slovenska jednota in Budapest. 5) ,'Publication of a Slovak-French Bulletin, by a neutral body , which could develop into a cultural and political organ for all Slovaks in France. For the time being it could be issued as a supplement to (Nas] Krajan, the organ of the Catholic mission in France. 6) Consider closer working relations between Osusky and the leadership of the Slovaks in Hungary. Obtulovic should propose to gather documentary. material on the Hungarian-German secret alliance with subsequent reference to Hitler's consent of the occupation of Southern Slovakia by the Hungarians. At this time I met with the British consul , Peter Pares , at the Hotel Carlton in Bratislava . I congratulated him on his confirmation as the British representative to the Slovak government. In response he mentioned that his French colleague had enjoyed very �SLOVAKIA 21 much talking with me. I was really surprized how quickly newsgathering in Bratislava functioned, because I had hardly returned from the French consulate. 4 The British rightly conjectured that my visit with Tiso and my trip to Hungary were somewhat connected with my mission from Osusky. He wanted to know more about these undertakings. Because of the risk involved. I remained cautious. A few days later I was invited by Obtulovic to join a ''fishing party" organized by him for Pares. This was a pleasant car trip from Bratislava to my native Orava and to Oravice, the region with brooks full of trout, a real haven for such a passionate fisherman as Pares. The three-day party was kept secret. We discussed mainly Slovak relations with the West. I was impressed by Pares' knowledge of the Slovak internal political scene. He showed a full understanding of the difficult international position of Slovakia and promised to keep his government informed about the real anti-Nazi feelings of the Slovaks. In his characterization of the leading Slovak politicians, he disapproved of Durcansky's precipitous acts and evident endeavors to prove the independence of Slovak diplomacy. On the other hand, Pares appreciated Tiso's policy and skill as shown in his dealings with internal as well as external affairs of state. Two communications sent by Pares to his superiors in London indicate the British consul's acute perceptions of the situation at this time and are worth quoting. 5 The first is a letter dated May 23, 1939 and reads as follows: Dear Troutbeck, Certain information has reached me from a reliable source which will, I think, interest you, but nevertheless, does not seem suitable for inclusion in a formal dispatch. I have been told by Dr. Obtulovic , who apparently enjoys the confidence of Dr. Tiso , that the Slovak government is keeping in contact with the group of Slovak exiles in Paris who are led by Dr. Osusky. A young student named Josef Stasko, who is studying at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, has recently been in Bratislava and had an interview with Dr. Tiso. He has now returned to Paris and I understand that he is a bearer of a message �22 SLOVAKIA from the Slovak government. My French colleague knows that the young man is in touch with Slovaks in Paris, but I doubt if he is aware of his connection with the Slovak government. I understand that Dr. Tiso has given formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France and that this is the message conveyed by Stasko to Paris . The object of these maneuvers seems to be to maintain contact with the Western powers whilst pursuing a policy of co-operation with the Germans for as long as is necessary - in other words, the policy of the Czechs before and during the Great War. The Slovaks are growing very apprehensive now about the possibility of war. They do not expect Germany to win, but realize that they are powerless to refuse anything she might ask in the event of war. So they are trying to ensure the good will of the Western powers in advance by secretly approving the plans of the exiles. That this is not a policy favoured by a small group, but rather the concerted action of the Slovak leaders as a whole is, I think , shown by the fact that the persons concerned in it are not only Dr. Tiso , but also Dr. Obtulovic, the official Slovak minority leader in Hungary, and the partisan of Sidor. My knowledge of Slovak is not very reliable, but from something said in a convention at which I was present, I gained the impression that Dr. Durcansky, the proGerman Foreign Minister, also knows of Stasko's mission. There have been reports that Durcansky is dissatisfied with Germany's treatment of Slovakia so it is possible that my impression may be correct. Yours ever, P. Pares A few comments on Pares ' report are in order. First, the French consul could not tell his British colleague the full story about my connection with the Slovak government because I was warned by Osusky that he was in the service of Benes , and �SLOVAKIA 23 therefore, there could have been a risk of political intrigue . Second, in my talks with Pares I never mentioned to him the essence of my discussion with Tiso, so I presume Obtulovic had informed him about it. It is also true that Tiso did not give formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France; but it had been my personal feeling that he considered the possibility of such a need later, and that is why he had referred me to Durcansky for more discussion about this matter. The following telegram by the British consul in Bratislava to his superiors in London presumes a discrete and confidential discussion of Pares with Obtulovic and clearly confirms that the Paris-Bratislava connection was still alive. The two-hour conversation of Obtulovic with the French consul also suggests the importance of the issues discussed. Here is the full text of the telegram: Telegram (en clair) from His Majesty's Consul (Bratislava) 3rd June , 1939. Dr. Obtulovic , who accompanied Stasko to Paris (see my porvate [sic] letter to Mr. Troutbeck, dated 23rd May, a copy of which was sent to the Foreign Office under cover of my dispatch No. 39 of 23rd May) has just returned to Bratislava. He had an interview with Osusky, who appears to have succeeded in convincing him that the French treatment of Czecho-Slovakia last autumn was not a betrayal, but the result of the pressure of circumstances. Dr. Obtulovic seems to have returned a Francophil and his report will no doubt influence the Slovak Government in favour of the Western Powers. Osusky's arguments have also convinced him that Germany is not strong enough to break the forces confronting her and he is therefore concerned for the future of Slovakia in the event of a German collapse. He says that he is to return to Paris once more and will visit also Belgium. I presume that he will make contact with the Slovak colony in that country which is fairly numerous. Today he had a conversation lasting two hours with the French consul here, in the course of which it must be �24 SLOVAKIA assumed that he discussed the standpoint of the Slovak Government to the Slovak exiles in Paris . Copy sent to Paris. I have to add that Obtulovic traveled to Paris alone , because I still expected an audience with Prime Minister Tiso and a meeting with Foreign Minister Durcansky. It is not true that Obtulovic returned from Paris a Francophil, thanks to Osusky . Obtulovic was a Francophil before his trip. The same could be said about the statement that only Osusky's arguments had convinced Obtulovic of the possible German defeat. It was precisely this presumption of the Slovak government - that in the event of war, Germany would not win - which had prompted Obtulovic's trip to Paris. The plan was that Obtulovic would return to Paris and would visit his countrymen in Belgium. This did not take place , however , because the Germans took notice of his travels, tracked his whereabouts , and inquired about his motives at the Slovak Foreign Ministry. The details of the German intervention in this matter were sent to me by the Reverend Kasee at my address at the Slovak Catholic mission in Argenteuil. A few days later Obtul6vic and Kasee were expelled from Hungary and returned to Bratislava. Back in Bratislava, after the fishing trip , I contacted Dr. Anton Stefanek, for whom I had a letter and an oral message from Osusky. He seemed to have little confidence in Osusky and was totally dismayed by Benes . Concerning the situation in Slovakia , it was his view that for the time being Slovakia was thriving and was much better off than the Czech lands . Of course , all this was relative to Hitler's plans . In the event of war, Slovakia would be eradicated as a state and much damage would be done to the nation . He confessed that he did not intend to go into exile and that he had no advice as to what course of action to take. He did not believe that the future form of life in Central Europe would be the same as before and stated that even Czecho-Slovakia would have to be restructured if it wished to survive. He asked me about Hodza, who he expected to come forward with his idea of a Central European Federation. �SLOVAKIA 25 My message from Osusky concerned the possibility of a mutual exchange of reports on international and domestic developments. To this Stefanek did not react. He wanted me to meet his colleagues at the university, and he set up a date for this meeting in his office . As I recall, this took place two days later. At that meeting only four of these colleagues were present: Dr. Peter Gula, Dr. Branislav Varsik, Dr. Jan Stanislav, and Dr. J. K. (still living in Bratislava). The only positive suggestion made at that meeting was to organize an exchange of professors and students with France and then to create a clearing-house at the Institut Slave in Paris for Slovak literature. All those present considered the war inevitable; all believed that Hitler would not win; and all were willing to accept the Czecho-Slovak state only in a federal form. My report from this meeting was sent in a diplomatic pouch to Osusky through the French consulate . Another letter and message I delivered was to General Rudolf Viest, who was Inspector-General of the Slovak Army. He asked me first for my credentials, then told me to see him the next day. At our subsequent meeting I informed him that Ambassador Osusky would be glad to see him in Paris in order to organize a Czecho-Slovak Army. To this General Viest answered that he did not believe war would break out and that he would stay where he was. (I did not know at that time that he had already promised Benes that he would soon join him). 6 In the remaining days I busied myself seeing personalities from Slovak political, cultural, and economic life . Among others , I visited Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga in Bratislava, who promised to send books, periodicals , films, pictures, and other cultural items to Paris. He also gave me some financial help and asked me to work in France for the Slovenska liga, represented then by Klement Sichmak. In Trnava I visited Monsignor Jan Pi:istenyi , the Director of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, who warmly received me. He gave me two packages of books for the Reverend Jan Futak in Argenteuil and also some financial assistance for lecturing among the Slovaks in France on behalf of Slovak religious awareness. At the "Slovensky klub" in the Cafe Redoute in Bratislava I met with the Minister of Economy , Dr. Gejza Medricky; Dr. Peter �26 SLOVAKIA Zat'ko of the Centrale of Slovak Industry; Dr. Alexander Hrncar of the Ministry of Finance; Dr. Imrich Karvas of the Slovak National Bank, and other economists. The invitation of this meeting had come from Medricky, whom I had known for some years in connection with autonomist political actions. The discussion concerned mostly the economy but also touched on politics. I included the main points of this debate in the report for Osusky. One of the most interesting, and at the same time most informative, meetings I had had in Bratislava was in the student residence Svoradov, where I met many of my colleagues. In their discussions they portrayed the events of March 14, 1939 with the utmost frankness. Most of them were adherents of Sidor and only a few supported the radical wing headed by Mach and Murgas. From their heated debate I learned that they did not consider Hitler to be a culprit but rather a ruthless politician. They expressed their doubts about the Western concept of European order. The West, they argued, had lost cultural preeminence, failed in political initiative , and)acked overall vitality. They dismissed the immediate danger of war and were quite philosophical about the future. To my outline of the Western mood of the public and a resolute resistance toward further concessions to Hitler, they offered a picture of Slovakia built on Christian principles and rallied politically around Tiso a·s the best safeguard against the eventualities of an armed peace. In sum, I was struck by two elements in Slovak political life: one was a real ambition to build the Slovak state as if it were an independent entity outside of the complexities of the European theater; the other was the unbelievable credulity in a simplified version of their capability for survival. There was an almost palpable feeling of nationalistic fervor everywhere . Listening to Foreign Minister Durcansky 's self-confidence and to his broadlybased diplomatic ambitions , I could not believe that he had taken the Treaty of Protection with Germany seriously. The German minority in Slovakia was small, their Nazism in most localities questionable, and as a political factor they did not play as yet a visible role. The overall mood of rural Slovakia was optimistic , almost careless in its disregard of international embroglios . �SLOVAKIA 27 Based on these experiences, it was difficult for me to draw a gloomy picture of the future, especially among those who achieved personal and material satisfaction, e.g., young Slovak intellectuals or businessmen who exploited fully the occasion of the revolutionary change. The Jewish question had been in the minds of the radicals in their newspapers or speeches , but their zealotry was tamed by the government's promotion of constructive primary economic projects . Prime Minister Tiso was considered a man of moral integrity , wise , and moderate. Sidor, on the other hand , was severely judged by both radicals for his lack of courage and by the '' old guard" for his indecisiveness. Durcansky was a "political technician,'' whose ideological armory supplied the energy for the running of the state machinery. He had a few followers and even fewer personal friends . Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas , Jan Farkas, Jozef Jostiak , Jan Dafcik, and others had some credit in the nation and among the students for their sacrifices in the past, but in this stage of rebuilding the Slovak society they represented a group of malcontents - radicals whose fighting spirit was not out of focus. Their pro-German leanings pushed them to the margin of the political stream. After Obtulovic left for Paris I remained a few more days in Slovakia for my second audience with Tiso and a meeting with Durcansky . In his monologue Tiso talked about the preservation of the Slovak state and believed that the West would concur with him in the self-determination principle , which, in his opinion, would respect the will of the people. He did not believe that Osusky would be willing to accept the existence of the Slovak state , but his struggle for a federal Czecho-Slovakia underlined the principle of self-determination. Tiso saw my point in stressing the political importance of the Slovak soldiers in France fighting against Hitler, but he hastened to add " and for the Slovak state .'' He repeated his original wish to send a '' cultural delegation " to France and advised me to remain in touch w ith the Slovak League in America , especially with Monsignor Francis Dubas . With these recommendations my audience with the prime minister ended. �28 SLOVAKIA With Foreign Minister Durcansky I discussed all the issues that had arisen during my visit to Slovakia. Durcansky planned to remain in contact with Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest, whose official assignment would be to communicate with the Slovak consulate in Paris. For the time being he intended to send some literature and messages to the Catholic mission in Argenteuil for the Reverend Futak. We also discussed at length the question of a Slovak Legion in France . Durcansky envisaged such a possible development . To this end he promised to send 15 to 20 ''students'' to Paris for the fall semester who could eventually become available for action in organizing the Slovaks as an independent military unit. The main object of my "mission" was to contact Osusky's friends and eventually to encourage them to go into exile. I talked with many of those whom Osusky suggested ! but none of them was willing to emigrate. This was the case with Emil Boleslav Lukac , Dr. Milos Vanco, Jan Teplansky, Dr. Martin Micura, Dr. Anton Stefanek, Dr. Peter Zat'ko, Dr. Alexander Hrncar , and Dr. Imrich Karvas. When asked to prepare and send to Osusky a statement on the situation in Slovakia and on plans for the future , not a single one of these individuals manifested any interest. I did not meet Bishops Osusky or Ruppeldt and those persons listed in the letters which they had picked up at the French consulate in Bratislava. I gathered all possible documents from Slovakia and sent them to Osusky in a diplomatic pouch through the French consul. Among the documents were a copy of the Schutzvertrag and the secret Protocols concerning the German claims in the territorial , economic, financial, or military field . Also included were my diary, packages for the Reverend Futak, photographs from occupied Southern Slovakia, brochures, proclamations, pamphlets , Hlinka Guard "orders," and various books and clippings from the daily press . Although I had planned to see Karol Sidor, I had no opportunity to do so. My message to him from Osusky was oral and involved a request for his comments on the March 14th events along with an invitation to join him in Paris. Sidor kept himself aloof from the public , and I was told that his movements were �SLOVAKIA 29 being monitored by the Gestapo. He therefore would not welcome my visit or interview. I had my passport restamped with the stamp of the Slovak Republic and returned safely to France. There I met Obtulovic, who had already spoken to the officials of the French Foreign Office and also with Osusky. The next day I gave Osusky a full report of my experiences in Slovakia and Hungary and also described my meetings with Osusky's friends and acquaintances. Osusky did not accept the idea that the Slovak consulate in Paris should be the communication link between him and Bratislava. He also was not in favor of a Slovak office in Paris, like Slovakotour, which could be used as a cover for the contacts with Bratislava. He did not make any qualified statement on mobilizing Slovaks in France into an independent Slovak military unit , but promised to fight for the right of the Slovaks to form their own units under Slovak officers in the framework of a CzechoSlovak Army. He touched vaguely on the question of the Slovaks in Hungary, postponing diplomatic steps for the postwar reshaping of Europe. Osusky was totally disappointed that there were no political leaders in Slovakia, especially from among the former officials of Czechoslo~akia, who manifested any interest of cooperation with the West and with him . Together with Obtulovic I visited Osusky the next evening. After repeating what he had told me, he openly asked Obtulovic if one of the leading Slovaks would be willing to join him. He stressed the diplomatic realities: the British and also the French might differentiate the fate of the Czechs and the Slovaks ; once war was declared, they would fight for the restoration of CzechoSlovakia. It was necessary, he said, on the part of the Slovak government to prepare an official memorandum indicating that the Slovaks had been acting under German pressure and that the Slovak state had been forced upon the Slovaks. Such a document could be interpreted as proof that whatever it did was justified to save the nation. He repeated again and again that he was resolutely opposed to the centralized form of Czechoslovakia and that his concept for the future was favorable to the Slovaks and acceptable to the West. This concept included the return of the occupied Southern Slovakia to the homeland. �30 SLOVAKIA Obtulovic responded with a more detailed explanation of the Slovak position and asked for time to reevaluate all aspects of the discussions with Tiso and Durcansky. It was agreed that Osusky would not hinder the work of the Slovak consul in Paris and that the Slovak government would send to Paris a persona grata to Osusky. Obtulovic stressed the question of the Slovaks in France in case of war, considering them to be an outpost of the Slovaks' true anti-Nazis feelings . He indicated that the Slovak government would send a "cultural delegation" and some " students" to France who would be advised to cooperate with the Slovaks in the United States organized in the Slovak League of America. Osusky did not reject the idea, but he claimed the allegiance of the Slovaks in the event of war to the leadership of the resistance. The contacts with Bratislava would continue, and Obtulovic would return to Paris as soon as the Slovak government , or rather Tiso and Durcansky, would consider it useful. There was a tacit understand.ing that Obtulovic would talk to Sidor and that both would meet Osusky's emissary in Budapest. There were, of course, differences in positions, but they were not insurmountable. One of them was the choice and location of the Slovak diplomatic personnel in the West, the other the insistence of Tiso on the preservation of the Slovak state . The surprisingly rapid development of the international crisis , however, prevented both the Slovak government and Osusky from establishing any direct contacts. Although France recognized the Slovak government de facto on July 14 , 1939, no Slovak consul in Paris was accredited. The contemplated candidate for this position, Ing . Milan Harminc , who presented himself personally at the French Foreign Office and was considered a leading pretender, had been in the meantime accredited as Slovak consul in London. Suggested for the Slovak consul in Paris was Dr. Bohdan Galvanek, whose proGerman leanings were generally known and who was flatly rejected by the French Foreign Office. Time lost in the protection of the accreditation process had been sufficiently long for the successful negative intervention of Czech politicians at the French Foreign Office . �SLOVAKIA 31 Gradually, with the arrival of more pro-Benes exiles in Paris, Osusky was losing hold of the leadership. By the end of August, 1939, after his discussion with Benes in London (August 24), he abandoned his firm Slovak stand on the independent Slovak military units and was instrumental in reaching an agreement with the French government (August 28) on the creation of a Czechoslovak Army in France with no independent Slovak units. The political consequences of this development buried Osusky as the leader of the Slovaks abroad and abolished all possible contacts with Slovakia. At this point my "mission" and my efforts to demonstrate Slovak anti-Nazi feelings to the West lost all meaning. NOTES 1 A more detailed discussion of this period will follow in further personal memoirs to be published by the author. 2 Dr. Stefan Osusky was born in Brezova pod Bradlom, Slovakia, on March 31, 1889 into a distinguished Lutheran family . After some harassment by the Magyars while in secondary school, he emigrated to the United States in 1906. He joined his sister in Chicago, where in 1915 he earned a doctorate in law from the University of Chicago . In 1916 he was named, together with Gustav Kosik, as a special delegate of the Slovak League of America to the CzechoSlovak Committee in Paris , headed by Dr. Edvard Benes. Next to Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, Osusky was the second leading Slovak who participated in winning recognition for the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. After the war Osusky represented Czechoslovakia at different international committees in Europe and eventually became the Czechoslovak ambassador in France (1921-1940) . His political views echoed in large part those of the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas G. Masaryk , whom Osusky greatly admired. He differed with Masaryk , however, on the question of the Czech and Slovak constitutional arrangement. Osusky was proud of his Slovak nationality and was sympathetic toward the Slovak movement for national self-determination . When Benes became president in 1935, Osusky expected to replace him as foreign minister. Benes, who disliked Osusky, named instead Dr. Kami! Krofta. Osusky remained in Paris bitterly resenting this " injustice. " Part of Osusky's political action in Paris after March , 1939 , is described in this memoir. While in Paris he enjoyed the political support of the French government, especially in his antagonism toward Benes. In London , however, he became totally isolated . His altercations with Benes in the London Czechoslovak exile government ended with a total break and animosity. After �32 SLOVAKIA the war Osusky emigrated to the United States , where he lectured occasionally and wrote an analysis of the democratic process in a thinking society entitled The Way of the Free (New York , 1951) . Among his earlier publications are Les Magyars et Pangermanistes (Paris , 1918) and George D. Herron , d6vernik Wilsonov pocas vojny (Brno, 1925) . While in Great Britain during World War II Osusky wrote political pamphlets - Pravda vit'azi (1942). "Rizena demokracie" pri praci (1942), Benes a Slovensko (1943). and Triedenie duchov nastalo (1943) - in which he sharply criticized Benes for his stubborn insistence on adhering to the old, centralized structure of Czechoslovakia . 3 The pertinent passage from Osusky's speech in Argenteuil reads as follows : '' . .. I hereby declare that a policy depriving the Slovak nation of its inalienable rights will never get my consent. Those Czechs and Slovaks who pursued such excessive centralism must publicly admit that their political conception has failed , is dead and rests in a tomb. Otherwise, the Slovaks will face similar ambitions for Czechoslovak unity with justified resistance . What matters now is the existence and future of Czecho-Slovakia . He who would threaten the Slovaks with centralism and persecution is the enemy of the restoration of the Republic , because without Slovakia there could nor would be Czecho-Slovakia. Finally, I must say to the Slovaks that the French authorities will tolerate no propaganda against France and for Nazism. As for myself, as an official representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic , I will not protect those Slovaks who calumniate the Czechs, the Czecho-Slovak authorities and CzechoSlovakia. The Slovaks who look for the salvation of Slovakia in Hitler, should address themselves to him for livelihood and protection. They will fall into slavery instead of remaining free citizens . Only the Czecho-Slovak Republic will bring b.;ick freedom , independence, and the right to a dignified life to the Czechs and 'Slovaks. This is our conviction and our national belief.'' As quoted in Stefan Osusky, Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost' (Paris , 1939). pp. 50-51 . 4 At the French consulate I picked up the mail sent to me from Paris . Osusky sent several personal letters to be delivered to Bishop Samuel Osusky , Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt , and Dr. Anton Stefanek, and a thick envelope of letters to be picked up later by someone mentioned in the delivered letters. There were also two reports: one , official from the embassy, dealing with the international situation; the other, a sketchy outline of the planned communication between Paris and Bratislava. 5 Documents FO 371 /22903 /338-39 and FO 371 /22903 /341 , British Foreign Office Files, Public Record Office, London. Copies of these documents were made available to me by Frantisek Vnuk . A Slovak translation of them can be found in Vnuk's Slovenska otazka na Zapade v rokoch 1939-1940 (Cleveland , 1974). pp. 54-56. 6 I met General Viest in Paris in the late summer of 1939 . He visited the " Political Club" Madame Sis. Once a week she received at her home invited guests of different political affiliations for open discussion. At such a friendly meeting General Viest made known his political allegiance to Benes . �SLOVAKIA 33 My next meeting with General Viest was in Beziers in Southern France at the Headquarters of the Czechoslovak Army. As a soldier at the nearby Czechoslovak Army Camp in Agde, I visited the Headquarters to plead for the Slovaks in the military prison, because they refused to fight for Benes's type of Czechoslovakia. (the "Fryvaldovsky Case"). General Viest did not allow me to see Fryvaldovsky and dismissed me without any answer. I submitted the complaint to the French Military Command . Although the outcome of this intervention was never revealed to me, Fryvaldovsky was repatriated to Slovakia in 1941. � 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 1985-86, Vol. 32 Description An account of the resource Vol. 32 (No. 58-59), 1985-86. 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 1985-86 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 9 Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir JOSEPH STASKO The following is the recollection of my experiences as a young Slovak student in Paris during the critical years 1938-1939. Although this "first person narrative" is necessarily somewhat colored by subjective impressions, it should nonetheless shed light on some hithertofore undisclosed and/or unanalyzed information relating to events and personalities of the period. 1 On the international scene, Hitler's daring diplomatic moves, combined with military pressure , brought about not only the Munich Agreement (September 29/ 30 , 1938) but also the resignation of President Edvard Benes (October 5, 1938), followed by the Zilina Agreement (October 6, 1938), by virtue of which the Slovaks achieved political autonomy . For me , as a politically active federalist (autonomist), the Zilina Agreement represented the fulfillment of the Slovak political struggle , the federation of Czecho-Slovakia. In the second half of October, 1938 , I returned to Slovakia to witness the implementation of Slovak autonomy. The new autonomous government of Slovakia had commenced with enthusiasm, national pride , and hope . This euphoric atmosphere, however , did not last for long. The loss of a large part of Slovak territory to Hungary by the Vienna Award of November 2 , 1938 was a tragic blow to the promising beginnings of Slovak self-rule . The overall mood in Slovakia was overshadowed by national grief, anger , and a feeling of powerlessness. 10 SLOVAKIA In the official circles of the Slovak government and among the general public there was no serious talk of separating Slovakia from the Czech lands. Both the government and judicial public viewed the Munich Agreement and the Vienna Award as diplomatic safeguards against Hitler's further penetration in Central Europe and also as an international guaranty against Hungarian territorial rapacity. There were, however, radical elements grouped around Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas, Jozef Jostiak, Jan Farkas , and Jan Dafc':lk who fomented anti-Czech feeling by ascribing the loss of Slovak territory to Benes and his policy toward Slovakia. In November, 1938, I returned to France convinced that the Slovaks considered their autonomy the satisfactory solution of their national and political interests. Before I left I was offered the assignment of foreign correspondent for the newspapers Slovak and Slovenska pravda , which I gladly accepted. By the end of November the Czechoslovak ambassador in France, Dr. Stefan Osusky, was returning to Paris from his visit to the newlyTelected president of Czecho-Slovakia , Dr. Emil Hacha and to the new foreign minister, Dr. Frantisek Chvalkovsky. As a foreign correspondent for the newspaper Slovak, I asked Osusky for an interview regarding his impressions of Czecho-Slovakia. Prior to the interview, he gave me a copy of his aide-memoire submitted to the French Foreign Office as a supplement to his official report. The main topics, as I recall, were descriptions of his audiences with President Hacha and Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky and of the apathy of the Czech people toward the latest tragic dismemberment of Bohemia in the Munich Agreement. Included in it was also a statement concerning the Slovak autonomous government's assurances of its wholehearted support for the Czecho-Slovak state. In my subsequent interview with Osusky he maintained that the French government had pledged to guarantee the security of the new Czecho-Slovakia. This part of the interview _was later published in the newspaper Slovak. After this interview with Osusky, my contacts with him became more frequent and proved to be very useful to me as a student and as a journalist. He encouraged me to study the question of minorities in Central Europe , offered me access to the embassy 's library, and invited me to the "five o'clock tea" on a SLOVAKIA 11 regular weekly basis. He also arranged for me contacts with the Havas Press Agency, as well as with the newspaper Epoque, L'Oeuvre, and Le Temps . 2 In December, 1938, I was back in Slovakia on a journalistic assignment from Osusky to report on the Slovak parliamentary elections , held on December 18, 1938. After the opening of the first session of the new Slovak Parliament on January 19, 1939, I returned the next day to France. At one of our ''five o'clock tea'' meetings, Osusky explained his political views not only on international questions but on the internal problems of Czecho-Slovakia as well. He told me that although his position as the envoy of Czecho-Slovakia in Paris precluded his interference in the internal affairs of the state, he kept close contacts with many prominent politicians and expressed his political views freely. However, since he was unable to make public his own views, he suggested that I should try to put them in writing . I interpreted this as a mandate and asked 'him to set up dates for interviews on his position regarding political developments in Europe with a special focus on Central Europe and Czecho-Slovakia. On the basis of these interviews I submitted to him in February, 1939, a draft of "Dr. Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' He approved my draft and asked me to supplement it with philosophical statements from his acceptance speech, delivered on February 5, 1936, on the occasion of his receipt of an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Dijon. I complied with his request. The resulting paper was reproduced for his Slovak friends; later a part of it was included in his booklet Cesko-Slovensko a jeho buducnost', which appeared in 1939. After the crisis of March, 1939, Osusky was looked upon as the only representative of Czecho-Slovakia in the free world who could claim the authority of a co-founder of the state. Following his refusal to deliver the Czecho-Slovak embassy in Paris to the Germans, he espoused the so-called ambassadorial theory of continuity, according to which he was the only legal representative of Czechoslovakia . Osusky's theory conflicted with the " presidential theory of continuity" of Benes, who considered himself the victim of Hitler's brutality and the sacrificial lamb of 12 SLOVAKIA the military and psychological weakness of France and Great Britain. The French government confirmed Osusky's legal status and continued to recognize him as the diplomatic representative of Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia. Osusky felt himself destined for the leading role in the resistance against Hitler. At this historical juncture , however, Osusky found himself isolated, without trustworthy collaborators at the embassy and with no close connections with the Slovaks and their organizations in France. His relations with his Slovak countrymen in France were sparse and those with the Czechs lacked mutual trust. The only employee at the embassy who devotedly served Osusky was Stefan Moncek, the treasurer. Other Slovaks at the embassy - Dr. Vladimir Palic, Dr. Alexander Kunosi, and later Dr. Fedor Hodza - either stayed there for only a short time or tendered their allegiance to others. All other personnel at the embassy espoused Benes' views and conspired against Osusky. This politically precarious situation necessitated an immediate remedy in two directions: Osusky's relations with the Slovaks and their organizations in France; and the reshaping of his staff at the embassy. In the first half of April, 1939 , Osusky inquired about my connections with Slovak organizations in France and in Slovakia. He needed broader support for his leadership. For this purpose he planned to secure the confidence of his Slovak co-nationals in France. In order to improve his image as the representative, not only of the Czechs, but also of the Slovaks (who now lived in the Slovak state), he intended to attract political friends from Slovakia. To help carry out the first part of his plan I offered my assistance in arranging a gathering of Slovaks in Argenteuil , near Paris. There Osusky would deliver his first campaign speech on political issues in general and on Czech-Slovak relations in particular. The timing was opportune. After March 14, 1939 , the majority of Slovaks in France, who expressed their trust in Prime Minister Jozef Tiso's government, were denounced by the Czechs as traitors and as such were reported to the French authorities who then persecuted them as pro-Nazis. The presence of Ambassador Osusky at the gathering was an occasion to present Slovak complaints to him and to ask for protection. SLOVAKIA 13 The gathering of French Slovaks took place in April, 1939, and was quite successful. Osusky's speech was reproduced in special leaflets, and parts were published in his Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost'. On the whole, Osusky's address was favorably accepted by the Slovaks, especially his promise to protect thqse Slovaks who did not spread anti-French or anti-Czech propaganda. 3 The daily influx into France of Czech political and military emigrants caused Osusky much concern because practically all of them supported Benes. This may have been one of the main reasons why he entrusted me with a secret mission to visit Slovakia to contact his friends, former political leaders, many government officials, and leading personalities in the cultural and economic life of the Slovak state. Osusky indicated that he would like me to bring personal messages to some of his friends and inquire into the possibility of having contacts with them through Budapest. He also suggested that I travel to Hungary to survey the situation of the Slovaks in occupied Southern Slovakia and contact their leaders. I accepted this mission as a sign of personal trust and asked for a few days to prepare a more detailed program for his approval. At the outset of our discussion Osusky had pointed out that this trip was supposed to appear as if it were my own undertaking, but he promised to inform the French authorities of my status and procure a diplomatic visa for me. He did so promptly. Among the persons I was to see and deliver messages to were: Dr. Anton Stefanek, Professor at the University of Bratislava; General Rudolf Viest, Inspector-General of the Slovak Army; Dr. Samuel Osusky, Lutheran Bishop and cousin of Osusky; Lutheran Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt; Dr. Matej Murtin at the Hypotecna a komunalna banka in Bratislava; the lawyer Dr. Ivan Pietor; economists Dr. Peter Zat'ko and Dr. Vladimir Fajnor; and the General Director of the Slovenska narodna banka, Dr. Imrich Karvas . My assignment included also contacts with Dr. Milos Vanco, Dr. Jan Spisiak, and Jan Teplansky. Osusky explained his wish to build communications with Bratislava through a liaison in Budapest to be funded half by him and the other half by the Slovak side . As for possible discussions with government officials, I could act in my name only. Osusky 's name could be mentioned in con- 14 SLOVAKIA nection with his warning about the risk of war and the need for the cooperation of Slovakia with the West. All other questions that Osusky gave me were for Prime Minister Tiso alone. Among them was the question of the Slovaks in France and their eventual mobilization in case of war in military units of a Czecho-Slovak Army. Another question of importance for both Slovakia and Osusky was the establishing of Slovak diplomatic missions in the West equipped with proper personalities and far-reaching political perspectives. He suggested also that I discuss some matters with Foreign Minister Ferdinand Durcansky . Before I left France on April 27 , 1939 , I helped to organize the participation of Slovaks at the Second Reunion of the Czechs and Slovaks in France, which was planned for April 29-30 at the Czechoslovak Colony in Paris . Benes 's adherents planned to declare him the leader of the '' Second Czechoslovak Struggle Abroad ,'' thus eliminating Osusky for good from any leading role in the exile movement. The outcome of that meeting was transmitted to me in Bratislava by Stefan Moncek, who had been given my telephone number. This information was important to my mission because success depended on Osusky 's retention of his leadership position abroad. In Bratislava I met freely with my friends and colleagues . Some of them already held high state offices and enjoyed their positions in the full swing of their zeal, devotion , and industry . They seemed to be unaware of the danger of war and believed that their happy days would have no end. To my surprise, some of them thought that Hitler was satisfied with his annexations and that the risk of war had been thus eliminated . This naive credulity was confirmed by my visits with Propaganda Chief Sano Mach, the Hlinka Guard leaders Karol Murgas and Jan Dafcik, and the majority of my own friends. The glorification of Hitler by Dr. Vojtech Tuka in his May 1, 1939, speech at Primizial Plaza in Bratislava was an ominous sign, as was the elimination of Karol Sidor from Slovak political affairs. The next day I was granted an audience with Prime Minister Tiso. It was arranged through Dr. Juraj Rajec , whom I knew when he was the educational counselor in the student residence Svoradov. I was admitted to Tiso as a reporter for the newspaper Slovak in France . SLOVAKIA 15 Sitting in the corner of his office , overlooking the Danube, Tiso looked tired and somewhat restrained. He asked me about my studies and my journalistic experience in France. After I answered those questions I described the difficult position of the Slovaks in France as outlined earlier. This led me to Ambassador Osusky and his activities. I reported to Tiso the full details of Osusky 's speech in Argenteuil, handed him the leaflets of the Center of the Czechs and Slovaks Abroad concerning recruitment in the event of war, and finally submitted to him the document ' 'Dr. Osusky 's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis.'' With regard to the possibility of war, I indicated that there were about 50 ,000 Slovaks in France who could be recruited into a Czechoslovak Army and who would have to fight against the Slovak state for Benes' type of Czechoslovakia. I also told Tiso that Osusky favored a federated Czecho-Slovakia but faced the determined opposition of the Czechs and of some Slovak centralists, the so-called Czechoslovaks. Osusky had a few friends among the Czechs, and not many among the Slovaks. He was willing to set up separate Slovak military units in France, alongside the Czech ones, under a unified command, but there were no Slovak officers. Tiso listened to my briefing and then remarked that he did not consider Osusky to be the representative of the Slovak cause in the West because Osusky did not know Slovakia and the Slovaks did not know Osusky. Next I inquired whether it was true that the situation of Slovakia after the Treaty of Protection with Germany , which had been characterized in France as total dependence upon Germany, was similar to the situation in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He rose from his chair, approached the window facing the Danube , and asked me if I could see the cannons on the other side of the Danube, which were aimed directly at his windows . This ''protection,'' he said, did not prevent the Slovaks from losing Petrzalka (part of Bratislava), but it was still preferable to their being divided between the Magyars and the Poles. To my querry about the limits of Slovak freedom in making foreign contacts, he responded that the new government expected to be recognized by most European states very quickly. This would make it difficult for the Germans to interfere and would provide 16 SLOVAKIA a legal basis for foreign contacts. Durcansky would give me more details on this point. I was curious about relations with the Magyars, for I had heard that there was no reaction from the Slovak side to the atrocities committed by the Magyars in Komjatice, Slovensky Meder, and Surany. Tiso replied that according to the Treaty of Protection with Germany, the Slovaks could not unilaterally decide on retaliatory measures against the Magyars in Slovakia; the Slovaks were thus denied the right of reprisal, he said . On the other hand , the Treaty provided for German protection of Slovak territory against constant Magyar incursions. And so the Slovak position toward Hungary was dictated by those factors. I inquired if it would be possible to use the Slovaks in France for some kind of support of a Slovak cause in the West in the event of war. Tiso said that that was not an immediate worry. First France would have to recognize the Slovak State , after which there would be more time for such discussions. I told him that Osusky would have no objection to the French government granting the Slovak state de facto recognition. He saw such circumstances as being favorable for building a bridge between France and Slovakia, provided that the proper person were appointed as head of the Slovak consulate. Tiso indicated that I would receive the answer to this question from f>urcansky. Tiso suggested publishing a Slovak-French bulletin in France and the possibility of a cultural exchange. He referred me to Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga , who would take care of it. In summarizing our discussion, Tiso reiterated his views , stressed the confidentiality of some of his remarks , and asked me about my immediate and future plans . I mentioned that I intended to visit Hungary to speak with Slovak representatives. He asked me if this had already been planned in Paris, which I affirmed. He concluded the interview with an invitation to contact him again before I left for France. That same day, in the Cafe Carlton, I was introduced by Vlado Houdek to Peter Pares , the British consul in Bratislava. He expressed a keen interest in my studies in France and my evaluation of the French political scene. He was eager to see me the next day at the same place, and I gladly consented. SLOVAKIA 17 Later that day I was invited for dinner by Foreign Minister Durcansky at his private residence. To my surprise, he had already been informed of the issues discussed with the prime minister. Our friendly personal relations, based on close cooperation in the autonomist movement, allowed us to be absolutely frank with each other. After giving him an overall picture of French public opinion, I touched on the question of the Slovaks in France and also on Ambassador Osusky's actions. To this Durcansky added his brief analysis of the Slovak situation on the international level and outlined Slovak diplomatic ambitions. The discussion that followed could be summarized in the following points: I said that according to what I knew from Osusky and from the Polish embassy in Paris , the French and the British were hurridly mobilizing raw materials, increasing production of military hardware , building up public opinion against Hitler; in short they were preparing for war. In the diplomatic field , the French were repeating their pledges to stand by their treaties with Poland and Romania. Durcansky accepted the possibility of war but not earlier than in two years. As for the Slovaks in France, I asked if it could f10t be possible to organize them into a Slovak Legion and have them fight against Hitler and for the preservation of the Slovak state. Osusky, I continued, was opposed to Benes. He recognized a federated Czecho-Slovakia as the best form of government which would guarantee Slovak self-rule . Durcansky replied that he did not believe that France would agree on the formation of a Slovak Legion with the proviso that it fight for the preservation of the Slovak state. He, therefore, would accept the organization of Czech and Slovak military units under a unified command. This reasoning was parallel in general terms with that of Osusky 's. One of the most difficult questions , however, was where to find and how to commission 20 to 30 Slovak officers for this duty . This would be a political question of unforseeable complications. According to Durcansky , this could be done under different pretexts , such as through a cultural delegation, correspondents , students, businessmen, and the like. Under the present conditions, two things were required immediately: official recognition of Slovakia by the French government and money . As for the first 18 SLOVAKIA condition, Durcansky said that he had been already told by the French consul that recognition was on its way. The question of money would be solved by creation of the Institute for Slovaks Abroad , which for the time being would be associated with the Foreign Ministry. The money could be put aside from the ministerial budget. To do so , it would be necessary to prepare the statutes of the proposed Institute . He instructed me to meet the next day with Dr. Jozef Cieker, Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Emil Rusko , and their experts to prepare the final text of the statutes. After Durcansky had read "Osusky's Views and Opinions on the European Crisis" and gone through the material I had brought with me, he indicated that Osusky 's position might help the Slovak cause in the West if he would be willing to cooperate with the Slovak consul in Paris , using him as a liaison with Slovakia . I asked Durcansky if he already had in mind such a person for such a delicate mission; he mentioned the name of Ing. Milan Harminic. More explicitly than Tiso , Durcansky gave me details regarding his dealings with the Germans. This I later put in writing and sent to Ambassador Osusky through the French consulate in Bratislava. From the organizational point of view, Durcansky considered the existing Catholic mission in France an excellent focus for rallying the Slovaks , not only on religious, but also on cultural and political grounds. He knew the Reverend Jan Futak, the Head of the mission, vaguely but expressed confidence in him. He promised to send money to France from the planned Institute to help publish a periodical bulletin in French and Slovak. As the editor he planned to appoint the Reverend Vojtech Klein, a Catholic priest known for his work in the social field and in the publishing trade. Before taking leave of Durcansky I informed him of my trip to Hungary and asked for his advice as to whom I should contact and what concrete steps I should take to gather detailed information on the situation of the Slovaks there . He referred me to Dr. Ludovit Obtulovic , a lawyer in Nave Zamky who was the leader of the Slovaks in the occupied territory of Southern Slovakia, and to the Reverand Imrich Ko sec , a Catholic priest in the nearby village of Banovska Kesa . SLOVAKIA 19 Durcansky planned to build a direct line of communication between Bratislava and Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest . During the discussion it became apparent to me that this communication was supposed to be rather a personal link between Durcansky and the Catholic mission in Argenteuil. Consequently, I did not mention at this point that Osusky too was looking for a liaison with Slovakia through a confidant in Budapest. While Durcansky hoped to build bridges to the West without the intermediary link of Osusky , the latter planned to use his contacts with Slovakia for bringing his political friends into exile. Before I left for Hungary I learned that on May 4, 1939 Great Britain had extended de facto recognition to the Slovak state and had confirmed the present British consul in Bratislava, Pares , as its official representative. This greatly furthered Slovak self-confidence. A special permit to cross the Slovak-Hungariaii border was given to me at the Hungarian consulate in Bratislava at the recommendation of Monsignor Augustin Hladik, Canon of the Cathedral of St. Martin in Bratislava, with whom I had been in contact for some years. He also made the arrangement for my travel to Hungary by car with Count Janos Eszterhazy, who was the official representative of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, in which capacity he was also a member of the Slovak Parliament. My first stop was at Dr. Obtulovic's office in Nave Zamky . With Obtulovic we visited the Reverend Imrich Kasee in Banovska Kesa and then traveled to Slovensky Meder and Komjatice; the next day we called on the Director of the Slovak gymnazium, Professor Jozef Hudec , and his colleague Professor lgnac Safar in the town of Surany. In all these villages I interviewed the Slovaks regarding the alleged atrocities committed by the Hungarian gendarmes against them for singing the Slovak national anthem and holding cultural meetings. After two days in Budapest , where I met with Professor Stefan Buran and others in the administration of Slovenska jednota, the Slovak newspaper which we wanted to become the journal of all Slovaks abroad and as such to be distributed also in France, I returned with Obtulovic to Bratislava. 20 SLOVAKIA I telephoned Durcansky to congratulate him on the British recognition of Slovakia. He sounded optimistic and explored possible ways to prompt the French government to recognize Slovakia as early as possible and thus establish legal contact with one more Western state. He invited Obtulovic and myself to see him the same day . At this meeting Durcansky suggested that Obtulovic go to Paris to investigate the possibility of obtaining early recognition of Slovakia and the accreditation of a Slovak consul in Paris. Through the intercession of Moncek, for whom I had prepared a confidential personal note, Obtulovic was to see Osusky and discuss with him the following: 1) The legal position of the Slovaks in France then and in case of war . Would Slovaks in France be mobilized into a Czechoslovak Army, or would they be recruited under the banner of a Slovak Legion? 2) A Slovak consulate in Paris and its relations to Osusky. 3) Would Osusky agree to communicate with Slovakia through the Slovak consulate in Paris , or would he suggest some other manner? 4) Distribution of Slovenska jednota among the Slovaks in France and possible cooperation with the editors of Slovenska jednota in Budapest. 5) ,'Publication of a Slovak-French Bulletin, by a neutral body , which could develop into a cultural and political organ for all Slovaks in France. For the time being it could be issued as a supplement to (Nas] Krajan, the organ of the Catholic mission in France. 6) Consider closer working relations between Osusky and the leadership of the Slovaks in Hungary. Obtulovic should propose to gather documentary. material on the Hungarian-German secret alliance with subsequent reference to Hitler's consent of the occupation of Southern Slovakia by the Hungarians. At this time I met with the British consul , Peter Pares , at the Hotel Carlton in Bratislava . I congratulated him on his confirmation as the British representative to the Slovak government. In response he mentioned that his French colleague had enjoyed very SLOVAKIA 21 much talking with me. I was really surprized how quickly newsgathering in Bratislava functioned, because I had hardly returned from the French consulate. 4 The British rightly conjectured that my visit with Tiso and my trip to Hungary were somewhat connected with my mission from Osusky. He wanted to know more about these undertakings. Because of the risk involved. I remained cautious. A few days later I was invited by Obtulovic to join a ''fishing party" organized by him for Pares. This was a pleasant car trip from Bratislava to my native Orava and to Oravice, the region with brooks full of trout, a real haven for such a passionate fisherman as Pares. The three-day party was kept secret. We discussed mainly Slovak relations with the West. I was impressed by Pares' knowledge of the Slovak internal political scene. He showed a full understanding of the difficult international position of Slovakia and promised to keep his government informed about the real anti-Nazi feelings of the Slovaks. In his characterization of the leading Slovak politicians, he disapproved of Durcansky's precipitous acts and evident endeavors to prove the independence of Slovak diplomacy. On the other hand, Pares appreciated Tiso's policy and skill as shown in his dealings with internal as well as external affairs of state. Two communications sent by Pares to his superiors in London indicate the British consul's acute perceptions of the situation at this time and are worth quoting. 5 The first is a letter dated May 23, 1939 and reads as follows: Dear Troutbeck, Certain information has reached me from a reliable source which will, I think, interest you, but nevertheless, does not seem suitable for inclusion in a formal dispatch. I have been told by Dr. Obtulovic , who apparently enjoys the confidence of Dr. Tiso , that the Slovak government is keeping in contact with the group of Slovak exiles in Paris who are led by Dr. Osusky. A young student named Josef Stasko, who is studying at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, has recently been in Bratislava and had an interview with Dr. Tiso. He has now returned to Paris and I understand that he is a bearer of a message 22 SLOVAKIA from the Slovak government. My French colleague knows that the young man is in touch with Slovaks in Paris, but I doubt if he is aware of his connection with the Slovak government. I understand that Dr. Tiso has given formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France and that this is the message conveyed by Stasko to Paris . The object of these maneuvers seems to be to maintain contact with the Western powers whilst pursuing a policy of co-operation with the Germans for as long as is necessary - in other words, the policy of the Czechs before and during the Great War. The Slovaks are growing very apprehensive now about the possibility of war. They do not expect Germany to win, but realize that they are powerless to refuse anything she might ask in the event of war. So they are trying to ensure the good will of the Western powers in advance by secretly approving the plans of the exiles. That this is not a policy favoured by a small group, but rather the concerted action of the Slovak leaders as a whole is, I think , shown by the fact that the persons concerned in it are not only Dr. Tiso , but also Dr. Obtulovic, the official Slovak minority leader in Hungary, and the partisan of Sidor. My knowledge of Slovak is not very reliable, but from something said in a convention at which I was present, I gained the impression that Dr. Durcansky, the proGerman Foreign Minister, also knows of Stasko's mission. There have been reports that Durcansky is dissatisfied with Germany's treatment of Slovakia so it is possible that my impression may be correct. Yours ever, P. Pares A few comments on Pares ' report are in order. First, the French consul could not tell his British colleague the full story about my connection with the Slovak government because I was warned by Osusky that he was in the service of Benes , and SLOVAKIA 23 therefore, there could have been a risk of political intrigue . Second, in my talks with Pares I never mentioned to him the essence of my discussion with Tiso, so I presume Obtulovic had informed him about it. It is also true that Tiso did not give formal approval to the formation of a Slovak Legion in France; but it had been my personal feeling that he considered the possibility of such a need later, and that is why he had referred me to Durcansky for more discussion about this matter. The following telegram by the British consul in Bratislava to his superiors in London presumes a discrete and confidential discussion of Pares with Obtulovic and clearly confirms that the Paris-Bratislava connection was still alive. The two-hour conversation of Obtulovic with the French consul also suggests the importance of the issues discussed. Here is the full text of the telegram: Telegram (en clair) from His Majesty's Consul (Bratislava) 3rd June , 1939. Dr. Obtulovic , who accompanied Stasko to Paris (see my porvate [sic] letter to Mr. Troutbeck, dated 23rd May, a copy of which was sent to the Foreign Office under cover of my dispatch No. 39 of 23rd May) has just returned to Bratislava. He had an interview with Osusky, who appears to have succeeded in convincing him that the French treatment of Czecho-Slovakia last autumn was not a betrayal, but the result of the pressure of circumstances. Dr. Obtulovic seems to have returned a Francophil and his report will no doubt influence the Slovak Government in favour of the Western Powers. Osusky's arguments have also convinced him that Germany is not strong enough to break the forces confronting her and he is therefore concerned for the future of Slovakia in the event of a German collapse. He says that he is to return to Paris once more and will visit also Belgium. I presume that he will make contact with the Slovak colony in that country which is fairly numerous. Today he had a conversation lasting two hours with the French consul here, in the course of which it must be 24 SLOVAKIA assumed that he discussed the standpoint of the Slovak Government to the Slovak exiles in Paris . Copy sent to Paris. I have to add that Obtulovic traveled to Paris alone , because I still expected an audience with Prime Minister Tiso and a meeting with Foreign Minister Durcansky. It is not true that Obtulovic returned from Paris a Francophil, thanks to Osusky . Obtulovic was a Francophil before his trip. The same could be said about the statement that only Osusky's arguments had convinced Obtulovic of the possible German defeat. It was precisely this presumption of the Slovak government - that in the event of war, Germany would not win - which had prompted Obtulovic's trip to Paris. The plan was that Obtulovic would return to Paris and would visit his countrymen in Belgium. This did not take place , however , because the Germans took notice of his travels, tracked his whereabouts , and inquired about his motives at the Slovak Foreign Ministry. The details of the German intervention in this matter were sent to me by the Reverend Kasee at my address at the Slovak Catholic mission in Argenteuil. A few days later Obtul6vic and Kasee were expelled from Hungary and returned to Bratislava. Back in Bratislava, after the fishing trip , I contacted Dr. Anton Stefanek, for whom I had a letter and an oral message from Osusky. He seemed to have little confidence in Osusky and was totally dismayed by Benes . Concerning the situation in Slovakia , it was his view that for the time being Slovakia was thriving and was much better off than the Czech lands . Of course , all this was relative to Hitler's plans . In the event of war, Slovakia would be eradicated as a state and much damage would be done to the nation . He confessed that he did not intend to go into exile and that he had no advice as to what course of action to take. He did not believe that the future form of life in Central Europe would be the same as before and stated that even Czecho-Slovakia would have to be restructured if it wished to survive. He asked me about Hodza, who he expected to come forward with his idea of a Central European Federation. SLOVAKIA 25 My message from Osusky concerned the possibility of a mutual exchange of reports on international and domestic developments. To this Stefanek did not react. He wanted me to meet his colleagues at the university, and he set up a date for this meeting in his office . As I recall, this took place two days later. At that meeting only four of these colleagues were present: Dr. Peter Gula, Dr. Branislav Varsik, Dr. Jan Stanislav, and Dr. J. K. (still living in Bratislava). The only positive suggestion made at that meeting was to organize an exchange of professors and students with France and then to create a clearing-house at the Institut Slave in Paris for Slovak literature. All those present considered the war inevitable; all believed that Hitler would not win; and all were willing to accept the Czecho-Slovak state only in a federal form. My report from this meeting was sent in a diplomatic pouch to Osusky through the French consulate . Another letter and message I delivered was to General Rudolf Viest, who was Inspector-General of the Slovak Army. He asked me first for my credentials, then told me to see him the next day. At our subsequent meeting I informed him that Ambassador Osusky would be glad to see him in Paris in order to organize a Czecho-Slovak Army. To this General Viest answered that he did not believe war would break out and that he would stay where he was. (I did not know at that time that he had already promised Benes that he would soon join him). 6 In the remaining days I busied myself seeing personalities from Slovak political, cultural, and economic life . Among others , I visited Dr. Vojtech Brestensky, Secretary General of Slovenska liga in Bratislava, who promised to send books, periodicals , films, pictures, and other cultural items to Paris. He also gave me some financial help and asked me to work in France for the Slovenska liga, represented then by Klement Sichmak. In Trnava I visited Monsignor Jan Pi:istenyi , the Director of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha, who warmly received me. He gave me two packages of books for the Reverend Jan Futak in Argenteuil and also some financial assistance for lecturing among the Slovaks in France on behalf of Slovak religious awareness. At the "Slovensky klub" in the Cafe Redoute in Bratislava I met with the Minister of Economy , Dr. Gejza Medricky; Dr. Peter 26 SLOVAKIA Zat'ko of the Centrale of Slovak Industry; Dr. Alexander Hrncar of the Ministry of Finance; Dr. Imrich Karvas of the Slovak National Bank, and other economists. The invitation of this meeting had come from Medricky, whom I had known for some years in connection with autonomist political actions. The discussion concerned mostly the economy but also touched on politics. I included the main points of this debate in the report for Osusky. One of the most interesting, and at the same time most informative, meetings I had had in Bratislava was in the student residence Svoradov, where I met many of my colleagues. In their discussions they portrayed the events of March 14, 1939 with the utmost frankness. Most of them were adherents of Sidor and only a few supported the radical wing headed by Mach and Murgas. From their heated debate I learned that they did not consider Hitler to be a culprit but rather a ruthless politician. They expressed their doubts about the Western concept of European order. The West, they argued, had lost cultural preeminence, failed in political initiative , and)acked overall vitality. They dismissed the immediate danger of war and were quite philosophical about the future. To my outline of the Western mood of the public and a resolute resistance toward further concessions to Hitler, they offered a picture of Slovakia built on Christian principles and rallied politically around Tiso a·s the best safeguard against the eventualities of an armed peace. In sum, I was struck by two elements in Slovak political life: one was a real ambition to build the Slovak state as if it were an independent entity outside of the complexities of the European theater; the other was the unbelievable credulity in a simplified version of their capability for survival. There was an almost palpable feeling of nationalistic fervor everywhere . Listening to Foreign Minister Durcansky 's self-confidence and to his broadlybased diplomatic ambitions , I could not believe that he had taken the Treaty of Protection with Germany seriously. The German minority in Slovakia was small, their Nazism in most localities questionable, and as a political factor they did not play as yet a visible role. The overall mood of rural Slovakia was optimistic , almost careless in its disregard of international embroglios . SLOVAKIA 27 Based on these experiences, it was difficult for me to draw a gloomy picture of the future, especially among those who achieved personal and material satisfaction, e.g., young Slovak intellectuals or businessmen who exploited fully the occasion of the revolutionary change. The Jewish question had been in the minds of the radicals in their newspapers or speeches , but their zealotry was tamed by the government's promotion of constructive primary economic projects . Prime Minister Tiso was considered a man of moral integrity , wise , and moderate. Sidor, on the other hand , was severely judged by both radicals for his lack of courage and by the '' old guard" for his indecisiveness. Durcansky was a "political technician,'' whose ideological armory supplied the energy for the running of the state machinery. He had a few followers and even fewer personal friends . Alexander Mach, Karol Murgas , Jan Farkas, Jozef Jostiak , Jan Dafcik, and others had some credit in the nation and among the students for their sacrifices in the past, but in this stage of rebuilding the Slovak society they represented a group of malcontents - radicals whose fighting spirit was not out of focus. Their pro-German leanings pushed them to the margin of the political stream. After Obtulovic left for Paris I remained a few more days in Slovakia for my second audience with Tiso and a meeting with Durcansky . In his monologue Tiso talked about the preservation of the Slovak state and believed that the West would concur with him in the self-determination principle , which, in his opinion, would respect the will of the people. He did not believe that Osusky would be willing to accept the existence of the Slovak state , but his struggle for a federal Czecho-Slovakia underlined the principle of self-determination. Tiso saw my point in stressing the political importance of the Slovak soldiers in France fighting against Hitler, but he hastened to add " and for the Slovak state .'' He repeated his original wish to send a '' cultural delegation " to France and advised me to remain in touch w ith the Slovak League in America , especially with Monsignor Francis Dubas . With these recommendations my audience with the prime minister ended. 28 SLOVAKIA With Foreign Minister Durcansky I discussed all the issues that had arisen during my visit to Slovakia. Durcansky planned to remain in contact with Paris through an employee of the Slovak embassy in Budapest, whose official assignment would be to communicate with the Slovak consulate in Paris. For the time being he intended to send some literature and messages to the Catholic mission in Argenteuil for the Reverend Futak. We also discussed at length the question of a Slovak Legion in France . Durcansky envisaged such a possible development . To this end he promised to send 15 to 20 ''students'' to Paris for the fall semester who could eventually become available for action in organizing the Slovaks as an independent military unit. The main object of my "mission" was to contact Osusky's friends and eventually to encourage them to go into exile. I talked with many of those whom Osusky suggested ! but none of them was willing to emigrate. This was the case with Emil Boleslav Lukac , Dr. Milos Vanco, Jan Teplansky, Dr. Martin Micura, Dr. Anton Stefanek, Dr. Peter Zat'ko, Dr. Alexander Hrncar , and Dr. Imrich Karvas. When asked to prepare and send to Osusky a statement on the situation in Slovakia and on plans for the future , not a single one of these individuals manifested any interest. I did not meet Bishops Osusky or Ruppeldt and those persons listed in the letters which they had picked up at the French consulate in Bratislava. I gathered all possible documents from Slovakia and sent them to Osusky in a diplomatic pouch through the French consul. Among the documents were a copy of the Schutzvertrag and the secret Protocols concerning the German claims in the territorial , economic, financial, or military field . Also included were my diary, packages for the Reverend Futak, photographs from occupied Southern Slovakia, brochures, proclamations, pamphlets , Hlinka Guard "orders," and various books and clippings from the daily press . Although I had planned to see Karol Sidor, I had no opportunity to do so. My message to him from Osusky was oral and involved a request for his comments on the March 14th events along with an invitation to join him in Paris. Sidor kept himself aloof from the public , and I was told that his movements were SLOVAKIA 29 being monitored by the Gestapo. He therefore would not welcome my visit or interview. I had my passport restamped with the stamp of the Slovak Republic and returned safely to France. There I met Obtulovic, who had already spoken to the officials of the French Foreign Office and also with Osusky. The next day I gave Osusky a full report of my experiences in Slovakia and Hungary and also described my meetings with Osusky's friends and acquaintances. Osusky did not accept the idea that the Slovak consulate in Paris should be the communication link between him and Bratislava. He also was not in favor of a Slovak office in Paris, like Slovakotour, which could be used as a cover for the contacts with Bratislava. He did not make any qualified statement on mobilizing Slovaks in France into an independent Slovak military unit , but promised to fight for the right of the Slovaks to form their own units under Slovak officers in the framework of a CzechoSlovak Army. He touched vaguely on the question of the Slovaks in Hungary, postponing diplomatic steps for the postwar reshaping of Europe. Osusky was totally disappointed that there were no political leaders in Slovakia, especially from among the former officials of Czechoslo~akia, who manifested any interest of cooperation with the West and with him . Together with Obtulovic I visited Osusky the next evening. After repeating what he had told me, he openly asked Obtulovic if one of the leading Slovaks would be willing to join him. He stressed the diplomatic realities: the British and also the French might differentiate the fate of the Czechs and the Slovaks ; once war was declared, they would fight for the restoration of CzechoSlovakia. It was necessary, he said, on the part of the Slovak government to prepare an official memorandum indicating that the Slovaks had been acting under German pressure and that the Slovak state had been forced upon the Slovaks. Such a document could be interpreted as proof that whatever it did was justified to save the nation. He repeated again and again that he was resolutely opposed to the centralized form of Czechoslovakia and that his concept for the future was favorable to the Slovaks and acceptable to the West. This concept included the return of the occupied Southern Slovakia to the homeland. 30 SLOVAKIA Obtulovic responded with a more detailed explanation of the Slovak position and asked for time to reevaluate all aspects of the discussions with Tiso and Durcansky. It was agreed that Osusky would not hinder the work of the Slovak consul in Paris and that the Slovak government would send to Paris a persona grata to Osusky. Obtulovic stressed the question of the Slovaks in France in case of war, considering them to be an outpost of the Slovaks' true anti-Nazis feelings . He indicated that the Slovak government would send a "cultural delegation" and some " students" to France who would be advised to cooperate with the Slovaks in the United States organized in the Slovak League of America. Osusky did not reject the idea, but he claimed the allegiance of the Slovaks in the event of war to the leadership of the resistance. The contacts with Bratislava would continue, and Obtulovic would return to Paris as soon as the Slovak government , or rather Tiso and Durcansky, would consider it useful. There was a tacit understand.ing that Obtulovic would talk to Sidor and that both would meet Osusky's emissary in Budapest. There were, of course, differences in positions, but they were not insurmountable. One of them was the choice and location of the Slovak diplomatic personnel in the West, the other the insistence of Tiso on the preservation of the Slovak state . The surprisingly rapid development of the international crisis , however, prevented both the Slovak government and Osusky from establishing any direct contacts. Although France recognized the Slovak government de facto on July 14 , 1939, no Slovak consul in Paris was accredited. The contemplated candidate for this position, Ing . Milan Harminc , who presented himself personally at the French Foreign Office and was considered a leading pretender, had been in the meantime accredited as Slovak consul in London. Suggested for the Slovak consul in Paris was Dr. Bohdan Galvanek, whose proGerman leanings were generally known and who was flatly rejected by the French Foreign Office. Time lost in the protection of the accreditation process had been sufficiently long for the successful negative intervention of Czech politicians at the French Foreign Office . SLOVAKIA 31 Gradually, with the arrival of more pro-Benes exiles in Paris, Osusky was losing hold of the leadership. By the end of August, 1939, after his discussion with Benes in London (August 24), he abandoned his firm Slovak stand on the independent Slovak military units and was instrumental in reaching an agreement with the French government (August 28) on the creation of a Czechoslovak Army in France with no independent Slovak units. The political consequences of this development buried Osusky as the leader of the Slovaks abroad and abolished all possible contacts with Slovakia. At this point my "mission" and my efforts to demonstrate Slovak anti-Nazi feelings to the West lost all meaning. NOTES 1 A more detailed discussion of this period will follow in further personal memoirs to be published by the author. 2 Dr. Stefan Osusky was born in Brezova pod Bradlom, Slovakia, on March 31, 1889 into a distinguished Lutheran family . After some harassment by the Magyars while in secondary school, he emigrated to the United States in 1906. He joined his sister in Chicago, where in 1915 he earned a doctorate in law from the University of Chicago . In 1916 he was named, together with Gustav Kosik, as a special delegate of the Slovak League of America to the CzechoSlovak Committee in Paris , headed by Dr. Edvard Benes. Next to Dr. Milan R. Stefanik, Osusky was the second leading Slovak who participated in winning recognition for the new state of Czecho-Slovakia. After the war Osusky represented Czechoslovakia at different international committees in Europe and eventually became the Czechoslovak ambassador in France (1921-1940) . His political views echoed in large part those of the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas G. Masaryk , whom Osusky greatly admired. He differed with Masaryk , however, on the question of the Czech and Slovak constitutional arrangement. Osusky was proud of his Slovak nationality and was sympathetic toward the Slovak movement for national self-determination . When Benes became president in 1935, Osusky expected to replace him as foreign minister. Benes, who disliked Osusky, named instead Dr. Kami! Krofta. Osusky remained in Paris bitterly resenting this " injustice. " Part of Osusky's political action in Paris after March , 1939 , is described in this memoir. While in Paris he enjoyed the political support of the French government, especially in his antagonism toward Benes. In London , however, he became totally isolated . His altercations with Benes in the London Czechoslovak exile government ended with a total break and animosity. After 32 SLOVAKIA the war Osusky emigrated to the United States , where he lectured occasionally and wrote an analysis of the democratic process in a thinking society entitled The Way of the Free (New York , 1951) . Among his earlier publications are Les Magyars et Pangermanistes (Paris , 1918) and George D. Herron , d6vernik Wilsonov pocas vojny (Brno, 1925) . While in Great Britain during World War II Osusky wrote political pamphlets - Pravda vit'azi (1942). "Rizena demokracie" pri praci (1942), Benes a Slovensko (1943). and Triedenie duchov nastalo (1943) - in which he sharply criticized Benes for his stubborn insistence on adhering to the old, centralized structure of Czechoslovakia . 3 The pertinent passage from Osusky's speech in Argenteuil reads as follows : '' . .. I hereby declare that a policy depriving the Slovak nation of its inalienable rights will never get my consent. Those Czechs and Slovaks who pursued such excessive centralism must publicly admit that their political conception has failed , is dead and rests in a tomb. Otherwise, the Slovaks will face similar ambitions for Czechoslovak unity with justified resistance . What matters now is the existence and future of Czecho-Slovakia . He who would threaten the Slovaks with centralism and persecution is the enemy of the restoration of the Republic , because without Slovakia there could nor would be Czecho-Slovakia. Finally, I must say to the Slovaks that the French authorities will tolerate no propaganda against France and for Nazism. As for myself, as an official representative of the Czecho-Slovak Republic , I will not protect those Slovaks who calumniate the Czechs, the Czecho-Slovak authorities and CzechoSlovakia. The Slovaks who look for the salvation of Slovakia in Hitler, should address themselves to him for livelihood and protection. They will fall into slavery instead of remaining free citizens . Only the Czecho-Slovak Republic will bring b.;ick freedom , independence, and the right to a dignified life to the Czechs and 'Slovaks. This is our conviction and our national belief.'' As quoted in Stefan Osusky, Cesko-Slovensko ajeho buducnost' (Paris , 1939). pp. 50-51 . 4 At the French consulate I picked up the mail sent to me from Paris . Osusky sent several personal letters to be delivered to Bishop Samuel Osusky , Bishop Fedor Ruppeldt , and Dr. Anton Stefanek, and a thick envelope of letters to be picked up later by someone mentioned in the delivered letters. There were also two reports: one , official from the embassy, dealing with the international situation; the other, a sketchy outline of the planned communication between Paris and Bratislava. 5 Documents FO 371 /22903 /338-39 and FO 371 /22903 /341 , British Foreign Office Files, Public Record Office, London. Copies of these documents were made available to me by Frantisek Vnuk . A Slovak translation of them can be found in Vnuk's Slovenska otazka na Zapade v rokoch 1939-1940 (Cleveland , 1974). pp. 54-56. 6 I met General Viest in Paris in the late summer of 1939 . He visited the " Political Club" Madame Sis. Once a week she received at her home invited guests of different political affiliations for open discussion. At such a friendly meeting General Viest made known his political allegiance to Benes . SLOVAKIA 33 My next meeting with General Viest was in Beziers in Southern France at the Headquarters of the Czechoslovak Army. As a soldier at the nearby Czechoslovak Army Camp in Agde, I visited the Headquarters to plead for the Slovaks in the military prison, because they refused to fight for Benes's type of Czechoslovakia. (the "Fryvaldovsky Case"). General Viest did not allow me to see Fryvaldovsky and dismissed me without any answer. I submitted the complaint to the French Military Command . Although the outcome of this intervention was never revealed to me, Fryvaldovsky was repatriated to Slovakia in 1941.  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 Štefan Osuský's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir Description An account of the resource Joseph Stasko Slovakia, Vol. 32 (No. 58-59), 1985-86 pp. 9-33 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Staško, Jozef, 1917-1999 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-86 SNK https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/cce40f336fa5744281963e827ceff3c1.pdf 9741a26422942b4466966d650bd97947 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 53 An Ethnohistqry of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions HOW ARD F. STEIN INTRODUCTION: ETHNICITY, INSTITUTIONS AND THE STUDY OF MEANING The study of ethnicity is necessarily a study of systems of meaning and how that meaning is communicated. Ethnicity is far more than a matter of social mobility, group competition for scarce resources, acculturation, and the like. This paper focuses on what might be called the "life histories" of Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations as institutionalized expressors of a century of changing groupidentity and those meanings that represent the underlying group-identity. Special emphasis is placed on identifying precisely what about ethnic identity is communicated by these institutions. The central argument is that Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations perform important psychosocial functions - not merely social structural ones. Indeed, I propose that the former determines and sustains, and explains, the revitalization or atrophy of the latter. Another way of putting it is that the ''expressive'' dimension of ethnicity is inherent in the "instrumental" roles performed by fraternal and religious organizations. The world of the symbolic is never separated from the world of the practical. The term "ethnic fraternal" is used here in the sense of mutual benefit, self-help, voluntary associations (see Anderson 1971) that trace to diverse mid-nineteenth century immigrant populations to the U.S. However, the meaning of ethnic fraternalism should not be ac• A paper presented as part of a panel on ''Ethnicity as Communication in Southeastern Europe: A Comparative Approach,'' at the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. �54 SLOVAKIA cepted as self-evident, since ethnic voluntary associations, like the religious institutions which they founded, have undergone considerable change of function, and indeed have served multiple, often contradictory functions. In both instances it will be necessary to specify the meaning of persistance and change alike. Elsewhere I have addressed issues of Slovak-American cultural continuity and change in identity at the levels of personality structure, family dynamics, child-rearing patterns, kinship structure, projective system, health and illness attitudes, psychopathology, and ethos (Stein _1973, 1974, 1975,_1976, 1978a; _Stein and Hill 197~, _19~_). No attempt~ here made at a comprehensive history of Slovaks in Europe or the United States. The reader is referred to two groups of works on Slovaks and Slovak-Americans. One genre can be regarded as "official histories," and includes works by Yurchak (1946), Kirschbaum (1960), O~do (1960), Zatko (1966), and Krajsa (1978); and the journals Slovak Studies and Slovakia. The second group consists of disparate studies whose common denominator is the absence of adherence to any prevailing ideology. Representatives of this genre include Balch (1910); Macartney (1937); Kerner (1940); Bue (1957); Roucek (1932-33, 1933-34, 1937); Stolarik (1974); Barton (1975); and Stein (1972). The sources in the first group reflect a particular point of view, namely, the alliance of Slovak Roman Catholicism with political nationalism (i.e., the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Slovak League of America). This also reminds us that traditionally among the majority of Slovaks, ethnicity and religion were fused. Slovak Studies is the publication of the Slovak Institute, Rome, and Slovakia has long been the official publication of the Slovak League. One could legitimately see the Slovak Republic as an expansion onto the level of the state of what had long been a fact at the local level: namely, the political importance of the clergy. Many past and present Slovak League leaders, scholars, and political activists on behalf of Slovak national autonomy in Europe are former leaders and intelligentsia of the short-lived Slovak Republic (1939-1945). That their genre of historiography would be ethno-national apologia is to be expected. However, the visibility of the Slovak League on the American scene in official American political circles has more to do with their anti-communism and their courtship by American political leaders than with cultural, political, or demographic fa~s intrinsic to the League. This highlights the oft neglected fact that American sociopolitical factors often heighten ethnicity, even help preserve it - through a not particularly laudable duplicitous manipulation of loyalties and fears. Among Slovak-Americans, as among all peoples, official histories �SLOVAKIA 55 are those sacred myths of the past held and recorded by the putative leadership. Throughout this essay, I shall emphasize whose perspective on the past is being stated as I discuss those institutions that have been deeply concerned v,:ith the cultural sense of time. This leads to a final word of warning: jus\ as ''culture'' is inseparable from the people who constitute it, likewise for social "institutions." An "institution" is only a conventional shorthand. What this paper is about is the history of group consensus and conflict, continuity and change. The very inclusion of this essay in Slovakia attests to changes not only in ''editorial policy" or editorship, but to a more pervasive change in Slovak ethnicity itself in which there is greater openness to self-scrutiny. It is less necessary, shall I say, to toe a "party line." Neither Slovakia, nor Slovak ethnicity, is static. The focus of this paper is on large-scale social institutions as vehicles of continuity and change in meaning systems. Among SlovakAmericans, religious and fraternal organizations have served for nearly a century as articulators of cultural meaning, first reflecting the relatively uniform cultural system brought from Slovakia, later becoming increasingly removed from the very real pluralism of the Slovak-American population for whom they claim to speak. Both ethnographic research in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania (conducted intensively 1970-1972, and intermittently through the present) and documentary study have provided both an understanding of the dynamics within local churches and fraternal society lodges, and a picture of Slovak-American religion and voluntary association on the national scale. Ethnographic study in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania, especially the mill-cities of McKeesport and Duquesne, include participant obsevation at, and interviews with members of, the following religious and fraternal groups: parishes of Slovak Roman Catholic Latin Rite, Slovak and Ruthenian Roman Catholic Byzantine Rite, Slovak Independent Catholic Rite, Slovak Lutheran Rite; the First Catholic Slovak Union, Zivena, the Slovak League, Slovak Catholic Sokol, Sokol USA, National Slovak Society, Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Evangelical Union. I obtained valuable ethnographic and demographic data from interviews and documentary sources at the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, and with officers of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Zion Synod-Lutheran Church of America. A careful study of old and recent fraternal newspapers and annual Kalendars, often stored not in official archives but in cabinets and basements, permitted comparison of ethnohistory recon- �56 SLOVAKIA structed from informants' current memory and self-presentation, with cultural meanings preserved in print.* Finally, actuarial data provided by the national offices of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and United Societies of USA permitted a comparison to be made between a necessarily selected sample in which values, attitudes, expectations, criteria and policies of admission and exclusion, and the like were expressed; and statistics of actual participation in or withdrawal from fraternal associations based on trends in membership as reflected in the purchasing and cashing-in of life insurance policies. Ethnographic research both at the local and supra-level simultaneously complemented, explained, and tested the data obtained from tables of parish and fraternal society membership. The reader is referred to the following Tables 1-4 which identify both on the national level and in the region of ethnographic study the major Slovak-American religious and fraternal institutions. ETHNOGRAPHIC BASE LINE The Slovak-American institutions discussed here stem from the migration of over some half-million Slovak peasants and landless peasants from 1880 until the mid-1920's (Zatko 1966: 45), that is, from the period of the Magyar development of a monetary, technologized, labor intensive economy in the 1870's, to the exclusionary American Emergency Quota Laws of 1921-24 and the Immigration Act of 1924, and the National Origins Act of 1929. Roughly 85 percent of the immigrants were Latin or Byzantine Rite Catholics, and 15 percent were Lutherans and Calvinists. The highest rate of migration was from the most impoverished and overpopulated regions of Slovakia, namely, the foothills of the Tatra and Carpathian Mountains (Jansak 1930). As an overall pattern, the earliest Slovaks came to the anthracite coal mining district of eastern Pennsylvania, while later Slovaks came to the mill towns in the "Steel Valley" of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and westward (Cleveland, Gary, Chicago). The greater Pittsburgh region remains the highest concentration of Slovak-Americans in the U.S. (some 29,000 immigrants; 35,000 foreign stock in 1930 Censu~ Klein 1938: 288; Roucek 1933-34: 614) . It is the location of the national offices of the National • These include Narodne Noviny, Jednota, The Greek Catholic Union Messenger, Prosvita, Katolicky Sokol, Sokol USA Times; annual fraternal yearbooks or Kalenddrs ; and the journals Slovakia (Slovak League) and Slovak Studies (Slovak Institute, Cleveland and Rome). �SLOVAKIA 57 TABLE 1 THE FOUNDING OF SOOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGION IN AMERICA I. Early Slovak Catholic Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Church in the Western Hemisphere, Hazleton, Penna., 1885 St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church* . .......... . (Cornerstone) Early Slovak Roman Catholic Churches in the Allentown, Penna. Diocese (anthracite coal mining area)* ................ . . . Bethlehem, Penna., 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius Saint Michael Archangel ... . .... . . . . .. . ..... Summit Hill, Langsford, Penna. , 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius .... . .. .... ....... . .Reading, Penna., 1896 First Slovak Catholic parish school ............ .. . . .Chicago, ID., 1900 Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak Sisterhood: Motherhouse established .................... ... Danville, Pa., 1901 High School for Girls established ........... . .... Danville, Pa., 1922 First Vincentian Sisters of Charity arrived from Slovakia to serve St. Michael's Parish ........ Braddock, Pa., 1902 Priests' Society of St. Anthony's Burse in the USA (to support students interested in teaching and Slovak girls preparing to be teaching nuns) .... Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1903 Benedictine High School for Boys . .. . . .... . . . ...... Cleveland, 1927 II. Early Slovak Lutheran Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Lutheran Church in the Western Hemisphere: Saints Peter and Paul .............. Freeland, Penna., first services: 1883; Church built: 1886. • Slovak Lutheran Synod (Missouri Synod) ............ 1902 Slovak Zion Synod (left Missouri Synod, joined United Lutheran Church of America founded in 1919) . . ......... . . .. . . . . ..... .. 1920 • Source: Katolicky Sokol, July 21, 1971 (published in Passaic, New Jersey) . Evidently, the founding of the first Slovak church in the western hemisphere is a matter of considerable controversy - and competition. Professor M. Mark Stolarik kindly informed me of the feud between St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and St. Stephen's in Streator, Illinois for the honor of being "the first" (which, incidentally, is a very American preoccupation!) . Professor Stolarik found the St. Stephen records several years ago and deposited them at the Immigrant Archives in Minnesota. Thus St. Stephen's can document its claim to having been founded in 1884. On the other hand, St. Joseph's burned down at the tum of the century, and its records were lost. Thus its claim to having been founded in 1884 cannot be documented . Professor Stolarik suggests that the editor of Katolicky Sokol, John Sciranka, my original source for the 1886 date , tended to favor the Hazleton parish since he was from Pennsylvania (again , ethnicity in a meta-context, this time localism) (personal communication, 9 September 1979) . �Passaic, N.J ., 1906 Cleveland, 1907 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1911 Slovak Catholic Sokol Slovak League of America Slovak Catholic Federation in America McKeesport, Pa ., 1902 Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1892 Freeland, Pa., 1893 New York, 1896 Greek Catholic Union Slovak Evangelical Union (since 1960: United Lut9eran Society) Sokol USA (orig.: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA) United Societies of USA (Sobranije) Cleveland, 1892 Cleveland, 1890 Cleveland ? Passaic, N.J . McKeesport Perth Amboy, N.J. Ligonier, Pa. Pittsburgh Cleveland Cleveiand Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious , political, fraternal Insurance, religious , cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, cultural, insurance, political, fraternal Insurance, religious (Greek Catholic), cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, religious (Roman Catholic), cultural, fraternal , insurance Political, cultural, religious Religious, political, cultural MAJOR NATIONALLY-BASED SLOVAK INSTITUTIONS Headquarters Place and Year Functions Pittsburgh, 1890 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal New York, 1891 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union 2ivena Beneficial Society (women's equivalent to National Slovak Society, last joint convention with NSS, 1901) First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) Name National Slovak Society TABLE2 > 7' > ~ r I.I) CX) V, �Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak National Catholic Church, McKeesport, founded 1922; name originally Saints Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church ; changed name to present in the late 1930's for legal purposes due to loss of church building during the Depression; affiliated throughout its history with the Polish National Catholic Church, and in the 1940's with the Congregational Church. St. Mark Lutheran Church, Duquesne, Pa. (serving Duquesne and McKeesport), founded 1913 ; name originally: Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Congregation of Duquesne; church bought 1920; joined Slovak Zion Synod of the United Lutheran Church of America 1934; Sunday school founded, use of English in teaching confirmation class 1940; earlier schism over non-use of English by acculturated families ; name changed to present in the 1950's, accompanied by change in by-laws to open church to Lutherans of all nationalities . St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church , founded 1901 ; name originally "Greek Catholic," changed to " Byzantine" in the 1960's; schism in 1939. SWVAK CHURCHES SERVING THE McKEESPORT AREA Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church, founded 1892; the name "Slovak" officially dropped in the 1960's; first church building purchased and enlarged 1895 ; schism in 1922. ., TABLE3 '° u, 7' > > ~ r Vl �SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS SERVING THE McKEESPORT PENNSYLVANIA AREA IN '' STEEL VALLEY'' Name Year Founded Membership, other comments Slovenskeho N. P. Spolok (Slovak December 16, 1888 Protestant or Catholic, but Slavic Sick Benefit Soc.) preceded the local lodge of the National Slovak Society, with which it merged in 1890 National Slovak Society, Lodge 31 1890 Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic mostly Slovak Jednota (First Catholic Slovak 1892 (women's lodge, Roman Catholic, Slovak Union) , Lodge 60 276 , formed later) Greek Catholic Union, Lodge 2 1892 Mostly Greek Catholic, but also Roman Catholic, Rusin, and Slovak United Societies of USA (Sobranije) , 1902 Schism within the Greek Catholic Union headquarters and Lodge 1 Sokol USA (Slovensky Sokol), Lodge 1903 (ladies assembly Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic 46 11, formed later) mostly Slovak Slovak Evangelical Union, Assembly 1899 Slovak Lutheran 63 (Duquesne , Pa. , serv~g McKeesport as well) Slovak Club , White Street Hall, 1896, sold to Catholic Fellowship, men's club , social, drinking McKeesport War Veterans 1970 activities First Federal Savings and Loan 1914 Association formed to assist Slovak workers Association of Homestead in obtaining funds to purchase a home ; Federal Charter 1937 ; branch offices in McKeesport (1964), Clairton (1969) ; and Braddock (1969) ; serves Monongahela Valley Communities; (originally names: First Slovak Building and Loan Association) TABLE4 > ;;,;; < > l/1 r 0 ~ �SLOVAKIA 61 Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies of USA. The town of Munhall, located in the Steel Valley, is the site of an eparchate or diocese of. the Byzantine Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Union, founded iq. 1892 in Wilkes-Barre, Penna. , the heart of the anthracite mining region, moved its headquarters in 1910 to the Steel Valley. Although one's place of settlement was greatly influenced by the availability of desirable work, the type of work one sought, and the reasons for choosing that work (originally, to amass greater wealth so that one could return to one's home and village and live better with higher status), it was also strongly influenced by the location of prior immigrant kinsmen, village associates, and even more remotely "related" compatriots of the same geographic, political, and dialect district or iupa - who in tum could advise prospective emigrants of the labor market. Mining and factory towns were not arbitrarily populated by people identifying with the abstract term ' 'Slovak.'' Instead, members of the same village or of adjacent villages commonly sought to live with one another in the New World. Indeed, "ethnicity" changed meanings in the process of settlement in the United States: expanding from more localized, inter-village loyalties, and reciprocal obligation, to supra-local ties based on common religion, dialect, and finally to the emergence in America of an encompassing sense of national "Slovakness" that heretofore had never existed (cf. Gould 1970). It was only after a national sense of identity became established (and this, tenuously, because of the intense factionalism among Slovaks) that the appeal of . President Wilson and Secretary of State House during World War I to Slovak nationalism was possible. A document such as the ' ' Pittsburgh Pact" was thus heretofore unthinkable. Any conceptually neat separation of religion (or churches) from fratemalism is heuristically spurious. Indeed, the history of Slovak religion and mutual benefit societies encompasses the spectrum of alliance and schism, and between them, conflict. The history of the relationship between the two types of associations is the history of each. Moreover, both types of organizations are firmly rooted in east-central European social structure. The village organization functioned much like a vastly extended family, in which kin and extra-kin ties of reciprocity were part of the fabric of everyday life . A group-psychology of community solidarity bound the village tightly together. Even the collapse of manorialism in the mid-19th century did not obliterate this essentially pre-Magyar ethno-psychology. One might say that it functioned preadaptively in the American host environment, and facilitated the earliest " insurance" and cultural- �62 SLOVAKIA perpetuative efforts. After all, the extended family was one's life, accident, and sickness "insurance." There was litsrally no conception of the "individual" apart from the family, church, and village group. Fitzpatrick (1966) correctly identifies Euro-American ethnic communities as bridges or "beachheads" to the wider host society (see also Nelli, 1970). Likewise, Anderson notes "the capacity voluntary associations have to facilitate the transition of individuals and societies to participation in the modem world" (1971:216). He further proposes that ' 'the new associations seem founded to meet needs not previously the responsibility of any older organization" (Ibid.). As this paper will emphasize, however, the new associations built on the firm foundations of elements within traditional organizations; the change lay in the repatterning of those elements - a repatteming which, I might add, has been continuous. I wish to stress that there is nothing automatic, inherently ''natural,' ' or inevitable about the Slovak-American adaptation. The need for "survival" does not explain how or why a particular "survival strategy" for "problem solving" is adopted. Stated differently, it is not the stimulus situation of the stress, but the meaning of the stress and the individual or group characteristic response to it that determines the type of adaptation that will be made (La Barre, 1972; Stein and Hill, 1979). One must inquire both into the nature of the new environment and into the cultural tools a group adapts with. "Necessity" by itself does not explain the "invention" (see Light 1972) . The Slovak-American inventions, themselves variations on traditional psychosocial organization, values, and worldview, must be regarded as preadaptations within the cultural repertoire by which the Slovaks recapitulated much of the Old World in the New (see Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) . The traditional ethos determined both how new " necessities" were perceived and the group-organizational responses based on those perceptions. I cannot here pursue in detail the thorny question as to just what " is" a Slovak. Suffice it to say that the approach taken in this paper is essentially " emic": that is, Slovak based on self-identification and / or ancestry. Thus, for instance, there are several thousand Slovak-Americans, Catholic and Lutheran, whose most ~ediate ancestry traces to Croatia rather than northern Hungary. In the mid:17th century aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian expulsion of the Turks, Maria Theresa invited those peoples inhabiting the already overpopulated Hungarian northlands to migrate to the newly opened land. For the most part, these Slovaks remained Slovaks. Identifying the "ethnic" boundary between Slovaks and Rusins or �SLOVAKIA 63 Ruthenians of far eastern Slovakia, southern Galicia, and the western Ukraine is a far stickier matter (see Stein, 1972) . Indeed, many who are Rusin in ancestry, but who lived in what was geopolitically Slovakia, became accultured insidiously through daily contact with the more westernized Slovaks, through the influence of the Latin and Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic Churches, through the centralizing tendencies of Vienna, and last but not least through affiliation and identification with Slovaks following migration to the United States - that is, many became Slovaks in the U.S. I Over at least the past three centuries, the "ethnic boundary" between Slovaks and Rusins has been progressing further eastward. Had the great immigration taken place two centuries ago, virtually all the immigrants would have been of Byzantine Catholic or Orthodox faith and Rusin ethnicity! To the religious conflict must be added, especially since the World War I era, a conflict of nationalisms and proto-nationalisms. Among the permutations of the conflict: (1) Many Ukrainian nationalists insist that eastern ''Slovaks'' and "Rusins" do not exist, but in fact are Ukrainians; (2) Slovakia has undertaken a program of attempting to Slovakize the remaining Rusins; (3) Both the conflict over ethnic identity and the gradual process of Slovakization of Rusins has taken place in the U.S. (a) in such organizations as the Greek Catholic Union and the United Societies of USA, and (b) through the continued process of Latinization whereby many Greek or Byzantine Catholics joined Slovak Latin Rite parishes. A considerable official literature (see Lacko 1963) prepared by the Slovak Institute of Cleveland, Ohio and Rome, Italy is devoted to demonstrating that Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, in Europe and America, are bona fide Slovaks and Catholics. Many Slovak peasant immigrants and their children passionately argued the same point (Stein 1972). The author's justification for including such organizations as Byzantine Rite churches, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies as Slovak is that (a) by self-identification many of their officers, priests, and members speak of themselves as Slovaks, and (b) ethnicity is a process, not a static given. THE FOUNDING OF SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS For the most part, the Slovak-American fraternal societies began in the 1880's through the early 1900's as self-help, mutual assistance organizations. The arrangement of regular social activities such as dances , plays, gymnastic groups, and literary clubs, and the organiza- �64 SLOVAKIA tion, construction, and support of Slovak parishes followed later. In all earnestness I emphasize that the link between fraternal and church lay in their division of labor: the fraternal association would first establish insurance in this world; the church would become the guarantor of insurance in the next world. The most immediate needs were mortuary funds, land for the burial of the dead, and death-sickness-and-accident insurance for workers and their families in the U.S. and Slovakia. The new "foreign" dead were often unwelcome in established cemetaries. Slovak burial societies were formed to purchase separate tracts of land, often on the periphery of the town, a considerable distance from the burial sites of the dominant population. Slovak work life was chronically uncertain by the absence of stable unionization in the steel mills until 1936 and thereafter. Wages were low (though admittedly, the immigrant laborers earning a living unheard of in their villages of origin). Periods of steady work fluctuated with periods of layoff. Working conditions were contemptously hazardous. The management of the factories and mines provided no assistance for the injured or for the families of workers killed or maimed on the job. The urban Slovak-American "peasantry" experienced much the same basic insecurity as did they and their progenitors on the manorial latifundia or as landless workers. In one sense, conditions were worse, because in the American capitalistentrepreneurial system there was no personal bond of reciprocity and obligation between manorial lord and serf - although, however, the political system of patronage in the urban wards perpetuated at least an attenuated version of this function. For those immigrants who discovered themselves to be outside the civil and moral community of those recognized as ''Americans,'' the organization of burial-deathaccident-and-sick benefit societies was a means of reconstructing a community. In employment as with religion, Slavic-Americans were for the most part seen as outside the domain of civic and religious responsibilities. This led in tum to a defensive attitude toward American society, even as the belief in the American Dream strongly persisted. Exclusion from without led to a degree of defensive self-exclusion from within. The "enclave mentality," heir to a heightened self-" consciousness of kind," was a product of ethnic-American conflict, not simple cultural transplantation. I am tempted to suggest that much on the organizational level which we might mistake for w~at was traditionally native has a distinctively nativistic quality to it. , For instance, in one multi-Slavic fraternal club, the early by-laws �SLOVAKIA 65 specified that only members of Slavic ethnic groups could qualify as members and be permitted on the premises of the club. This qualification arose as a response to the fact that representatives of the mill management would attend meetings incognito, sit at the bar, listen for comments by dissident millworkers, and report them to the management which would summarily fire them for potential insubordination. A first-generation Catholic Slovak-American who came to the United States in the late 1920's said of the Slovak Club of McKeesport, Pennsylvania (a large mill town): The Slovak Club 's By-Laws were written in 1896. Only Slavs were accepted. You had to: you didn 't know who' s your enemy in those days. Johnny Bulls, or the Irish, might be in there, before the ByLaws were adopted . If you said anything against somebody, they report you. The only way to make sure you could speak your mind and not be afraid was to make the By-Laws . Ethnic " elective affinity" was more out of forced circumstance than choice . Those who were regarded and treated as the same created a survival strategy, becoming far more homogeneous in the process than they might had the constraints been fewer . Let me give two brief examples of the hierarchy of functions in the early fraternals . My first example is Lodge No. 2 of the Greek Catholic Union. Prior to regulation of insurance fraternals by the actuarial rules of the Pennsylvania State Insurance Department in the 1920' s, a member would pay $1.00 monthly dues for the mortuary fund and for death benefits to family , the latter of which is derived by subtracting the mortuary costs from the principal. The $1.00 formal dues would be collected from every member regardless of age or age of joining. In addition to the formally recorded $1.00 , he would pay 3 cents a month for relief benefit , so that, for instance, if he lost an arm in a mill accident he would receive $500 . An additional local assessment was 5 cents monthly for sickness benefit, which provided for food and bought medicine when the member could not work because of poor health. Today, this latter has become a " flower fund " to provide flowers at the funeral of a member or a member 's spouse. Any further needs were met by proportionate assessment of the membership . A second example is that of the Slovak Sick Benefit Society, organized in McKeesport in 1888, and which in 1890 merged with the founding of Lodge No. 31 of the National Slovak Society. This local organization collected monthly dues of $1.00 for males . In addition to the regular dues , if a man died , the men paid $1.00 ; if a woman died, the women paid 50 cents extra - for funeral expenses , given to the sur- �66 SLOVAKIA vivor of the deceased. At that time, the sick benefit was $6.00 a week for 13 weeks . After 13 weeks, up to the 21st week, $3.00 a week was given. After the 21st, nothing. The main economic function was to assist those who became sick or suffered an accident in the mill, since at this time there existed neither a union nor a commitment by management to provide such benefits. The Society also had something of an ambulatory service: two members of the society visited the sick person, or went to the scene of the accident, and took him to the hospital, to his home, or where he could be given proper care. While in their initial phase, ethnic fraternals were a response to the often hostile host environment, voluntary associations were long an inescapable part of the American social landscape. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830's, resiliently self-reliant Americans were also habitual joiners. This may help to explain how and why initially exclusive self-preservation societies became internally acculturated clubs and lodges at the local and national levels. That is to say, they became largely American cultural organizations with ethnic ancestry. Criteria for membership became ethnically less restrictive. At the same time, there occurred a gradual yet massive attrition of membership in the totemic Slovak-ethnic associations, and an equally gradual yet dramatic increase in membership by the same Slovak-Americans in lower middle class totemic American clubs such as Eagles, Moose, Elks; such service related groups as Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Catholic War Veterans ; employment related union clubs; and finally local public or private restaurant-bar-entertainment clubs. While there has certainly been, especially in the 1940's and 1960's, considerable compartmentalizing of membership, dual allegiance, something of voluntaristic "double descent, " at the present time American fratemalism has already been the dominant trend. In fact many Slovak-Americans with whom I worked who still maintain their fraternal insurance policies do so for economic reasons; their fraternal affiliation lies elsewhere. Originally, in the ethnic enclave, one's kinship network, resources, and the fraternal were one' s insurance. When the ethnic community network itself was one 's guaranteed insurance, there was no need for a separate entity labeled " insurance, " let alone insurance policies outside that community. Only as many ties within the corporate ethnic community were attenuated or severed cl.id the need arise for American style individual insurance coverage. And only since World War II did the originally multiple functional fraternal societies become primarily insurance companies, that is, businesses. In both cases, American as well as ethnic insurance companies served both instrumental (eco- �SLOVAKIA 67 nomic) and expressive (ethos) functions: security by affiliation in the ethnic sense, and self-reliance in the American sense. THE PROBLEM OF PERPETUATION AND ACCULTURATION IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS During the first and second decades of each of the fraternal organizations, the emphasis gradually shifted from immediate self-help requirements to more long-range, future-oriented plans associated with revitalizing Slovak culture in America. Whereas the initial years were preoccupeid with self-preservation, the subsequent years became concerned with perpetuation. The insurance / protective aspects were incorporated in a wider institutional framework that elaborated on the traditional cultural model. Once Slovak immigrants decided to make America their permanent home, churches were founded and supported, Sokol gymnastic programs were initiated, and so forth. It quickly became evident to the founding generation that something must be done to enlist the younger generation in these activities or institutions lest Slovak culture disappear with the passing of the first generation. The younger generation must be socialized into the new institutions and activities the immigrant parents had founded. Thus each fraternal organization instituted a juvenile branch or age grade to prepare the younger generation for adult membership. There were thus established two age sets within each fraternal, the adult and the juvenile. Subsequently, most fraternals also added a Sokol or gymnastic branch (if they were not already Sokol fraternals), originally intended as a middle age grade, but which became an adult unit on par with the "General" or "Adult" branch. The lower age limit for transfer from juvenile to the adult branch seems to be 16-18 in the Greek Catholic Union, and the upper age limit is 25 in the National Slovak Society. Typically, a parent would buy a life insurance policy for an infant shortly after birth and pay for the policy until the child's majority. At that time the former junior member would become a responsible adult member, transfer his or her policy to the adult branch, and begin paying for it himself or herself. Thus was the problem of continuity initially solved. For the third and fourth generations continuity was not so readily assured. Many of the second and third generations themselves withdrew or terminated their own policies and did not enroll their children. Many immigrant and second generation informants spoke bitterly of how they felt that officers of their fraternals had used their position for �68 SLOVAKIA self-advancement (internal mobility?), pocketed some of the dues, especially during the pre-1920 days prior to state-enforced bookkeeping, and terminated members' policies or foreclosed on home mortgages during the Great Depression days when dues were not forthcoming (the internal transformation from personalized ties to impersonalized business venture). In some families where the children had been dutifully enrolled in infancy, the children took advantage of the fact that the parents paid for the juvenile policies, and upon reaching majority or "going out on their own," they turned in the policy for cash value, and enrolled themselves later in large "American" insurance companies. With large-scale industrial unionization in the mid- and late-1930's and the opening up of "American" insurance corporations to the now'' American'' descendants of the ''foreigners,'' many of the purely economic insurance functions fulfilled by the ethnic fraternals were replaced by more attractive, sounder economic policies elsewhere. As the lodges have been losing young and elderly members, the middle-aged members have become the core of their lodges, and those who will be perpetuating them will, like their counterparts in the Americanized Slovak churches, be those who have transformed their lodges and their athletics according to the model of the American prototype. With the great decrease in membership and hence in lodge population, lodge consolidation (GCU, United Societies, NSS) and the widening of intervals between meetings have taken place. Where a lodge meeting until the late 1930's was an enormous and lively social affair, often coordinated with a meal or a play in Slovak, since the Second World War it has become a cut-and-dry business meeting, where members stream in and out, pay their dues, often bring the dues of a friend or two with him (or with her), the older ones stopping to chat with a friend or two in Slovak - and then leave. The monthly business meeting of Jednota Lodge No. 60 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania usually keeps ten listeners besides the six officers and collectors at their long table. During the monthly meetings of the Sokol, the ULS, and the NSS, a table of officers sits in a room of empty chairs in the Slovak Club. Occasionally members drift in and out. The local lodge of the United Societies no longer meets; members brin~ in their dues or mail them in. Likewise for lodges of the GCU. The ULS lodge in Duquesne in 1970 changed its monthly meeting to bimonthly, because, as one officer said: "There's no use sitting down there at the empty church all afternoon every month waiting for a few people to show up." In the early 1970's, over 75 percent of the 1,300 GCU lodges were inactive. For the important annual meeting at which officials were to be elected at GCU Homestead Lodge No. 2 in 1971, only 15 of the 160 members attended. �SLOVAKIA 69 \ To this should be added that only one of the Slovak fraternal lodges in McKeesport presently has any social or athletic program. Jednota Ladies' Lodge No. 276 has a bowling team, which members from Lodge No. 60 and the nearby borough of Port Vue can join. Lodge No. 60 dropped its bowling team in 1956. Bookkeeping changes have consolidated the Sokol and General Branches of the lodges. Today they function as little more than local insurance agents and collectors. All the national offices of the Slovak fratemals modernized and streamlined their policies to make membership attractive to those of the younger generation for whom Slovakness was not a major attraction, and further, to attract non-Slovaks. To a considerable extent, present-day Slovak fratemals are primarily modem insurance com· panies which would like to stay in business. The fact that all of them are far over the required solvency guarantees nothing about the future, for which they are greatly concerned. As the national president of the GCU remarked to me: The way things are now, it's only a matter of time before the GCU is finished. Sure we have an excellent solvency. But without new members, it's just on borrowed time. You just can't rely on monetary figures alone to tell you how we're doing. Of course we're in good financial shape, but that's because today people buy bigger policies - you can't pay for a funeral for $1000 today. Most of our policies are naturally larger, and the figure they give for assets ... would lead you to believe that we're doing great. That's the way the older ones felt. They always looked at the status quo and never at anything else. (1972) Of course the schism in the 1930's cost the GCU half of its more than 135,000 membership, which crisis did not occur in the other Slovak (and Slovak / Rusin) organizations. Nevertheless the same gradual decline in activity and membership has been the experience and plague of every Slovak fraternal. Slovak-American officials at the national level frequently speak of consolidating the adult, juvenile, and Sokol branches for fiscal reasons and because of poor attendance at meetings. They likewise speak of merging lodges for similar reasons, with the hope that perhaps with greater numbers the fraternal spirit may be rekindled. But they are pessimistic and in offhand, tentative ways consider the possibility of merging not only lodges within a given fraternal, but combining many Slovak-American fratemals under a single economic umbrella - anything that will help the solvency problem and postpone the inevitable disappearance of insurance fratemalism. Everywhere in Slovak-American fratemalism, the number of purchased insurance certificates is far �70 SLOVAKIA fewer than the number of deaths, maturities, disabilities, expirations, surrenders, and lapses of policies. Beyond founding the churches, many of the church-affiliated fraternals remain a major support of the church, both financially and by requiring that their members are practitioners of the faith in good standing (for instance, Jednota). Lodge meetings are held in the church (Jednota, United Societies, Slovak Catholic Sokol, GCU), rather than the secular Slovak Hall (where the Sokol USA, NSS, and ULS McKeesport lodges meet). Except for the Lutheran group (whose Duquesne counterpart does meet in the Slovak Lutheran church), the non-religious affiliated groups meet in secular settings, while the religiousaffiliated groups meet in church halls under the aegis of the priest. Until World War II, most of the Slovak fraternal groups at the local and national levels supported the political activity of the Slovak League of America, a non-fraternal, political-cultural group organized to publicize and lobby for the cause of Slovak independence (first in relation to the Hungarians, and later the Czechs). Its stress on Catholicity, its demands for Slovak separatism (rather than federated autonomy), and its support for the politically active Slovak priests Hlinka and Tiso of the Slovak People 's Party during the Nazi period alienated from it the support of the non-Catholic Sokols and the National Slovak Society. Presently, the Slovak League is primarily affiliated with, and is somewhat the political arm of, the First Catholic Slovak Union. All, however, collaborated in the period from 1907 (the year of the League's founding) throughout the First World War and in the early postwar period, toward the founding of the (First) Republic of Czecho-Slovakia (as the Slovaks prefer to spell it). The Slovak Catholic priesthood has always been at odds with the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, frequently accusing its members of being atheists and communists. The latter, however, have historically supported Slovak national aspirations, though apart from any religious considerations. This is reflected in the membership of the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, where only Slav-ness, not religion, was a qualification for membership. As a consequence, the Slovak Catholic (Latin and Byzantine Rite) religious dissidents, as well as Slovak Protestants , tended to gravitate to the Slovensky Sokol, and the NSS rather than to Jednota or the Katolicky Sokol. Furthermore, the -0verlap in membership equally relfects this distinction. Members would mosi; likely belong to Katolicky Sokol. Slovak Lutherans , of course , would join the Slovensky Sokol and the NSS. The above politico-religious concerns , however, refer only to the �SLOVAKIA 71 \ older and middle age groups, who are the mainstay of the fraternal organizations. For the younger age group, under 36, Slovak national concerns are for the most part a matter of ancestry rather than immediacy. Apart from religious issues, criteria of membership in Slovak fraternals have during the past decades gradually become less exclusivistic. In the early by-laws, Slovak birth or descent was usually specified (together with a particular religious affiliation, where relevant). By the period following World War I, membership was widened to those of Slavic origin or ancestry (with religious specificity, where relevant). In 1937 the NSS extended membership to non-Slovak spouses married to Slovak members and their children. In the 1930's, the GCU extended membership to spouses so long as the spouse was Catholic. In the 1960's, membership in the Catholic organization was opened to Catholics of any nationality, while in the non-religious affiliated Slovak-American fratemals membership was opened to "anyone," implicitly or explicitly referring to whites of Christian faith. A young officer of the GCU said that he would like to see a change in bylaws that would open the organization to all Christians, removing the restriction to Catholics. Accompanying the opening of membership has been a gradual change in the organizations' names, first from the full length Slovak name to a shortened name, normally one word from the full name (Jednota from the First Catholic Slovak Union, Sobranije from the Greek Catholic Union). Then from the 1930's and on, the English title became more important and today predominates. Names became less European-sounding: the Slovak Evangelical Union became in 1960 the United Lutheran Society; the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA became Sokol USA. The young official of the GCU mentioned above suggested that if membership were opened to all Christians, he would like to see the name of the organization officially changed to the initials GCU only, and later "we might call it the Greater Beneficial Union / the name changed from German Beneficial Union / no, that's the GBU ... but you know what I mean.'' The direction then, would be that of an American-sounding name. Similar to this trend has been that from Slovak (or Rusin and Eastern Slovak in the Greek Catholic organizations) to English in the official publications or newspapers of fratemals. The newspapers themselves were founded shortly after the organization of the fratemals and were entirely in Slovak (with the above distinction). At the beginning of the 1930's, under pressure of the American-born membership, pages began to be devoted to stories, articles, and announcements in the �72 SLOVAKIA English language. It should be added, however, that from the days of World War I, all of the papers and English-language sections were on American history, patriotism, the American constitution, government, and citizenship. By the 1950's, 50 percent and more of the space was in the English language. For instance, after the 1964 Milwaukee Convention of Sokol USA, Slovensky Sokol devoted 76 percent of its space to English material. At the 1966 National Convention in Tampa, through an act of the General Assembly of the convention, the name of the official publication was changed from Slovensky Sokol to Sokol Times, and the paper is now entirely English-language, as is that of the United Societies, Prosvita (Enlightenment). Nevertheless, such papers as Jednota, Katolicky Sokol, and the GCU Messenger are half-English, halfSlovak; Narodne Noviny is about 25 percent Slovak. What I emphasize here is the overall direction of change. The annual Kalendar or Yearbook of the Greek Catholic Union provides an excellent and generalizable source by which changes since the first decade of the 20th century can be observed and traced. I examined the annual Kalendar of the GCU spanning the years 1903 through 1972 (with considerable gaps in the 1930's and 1940's due to schism within the society over the issue of clerical celibacy). Although the GCU was founded in 1892, the oldest available Kalendar in storage was that of 1903. The following table gives the title on the cover, a summary of advertisements which reflect contemporary issues (migration, home owning, etc.), the nature of written characters for non-English sections (Latin or Cyrillic), subjects of early essays on Americanization (1903-1932), and the language employed by the exarch / bishop in his introductory message. By the late 1960's, at least half of the Kalendar (totaling in the 1960's 90 pages) was in English. (See Table 6). To summarize the table: Through the 1930's, there were advertisements in the Kalendar for such goods and services as banks, saloons, hotel, liquors, a variety of medicinal cures, boat tickets, home building (financing, mortgages, titles, etc.), shipping from overseas, etc. Essays were written on such subjects as American history (including praiseworthy accounts of American founding heroes and legendary leaders), an explanation of American government and how to participate in it, why and how to obtain citizenship, descriptions of the nature of the population and geography of the United States, accounts of farming in the United States and of technolo~cal innovations from the zeppelin through the airplane. Considerable space was likewise devoted to a description of the Slovak-Rusin homeland, culture, religious �SLOVAKIA 73 \ customs, etc. Although much of the writing through the 1930's was in eastern Slovak-Rusin dialect and written in either or both Cyrillic and Latin characters, English was used in essays on American history and government as early as 1905, when the article was printed in both languages. Americanization, more specifically, bridge-building between the insular ethnic world and the more expanding American world, was one of the major early agendas of the fraternals. Americanization was also one of the major points of stress between traditionalists and acculturationists that led to attrition of membership and schism in churches and fraternals alike. On the one hand, the Polish National Catholic Church and the Slovak National Catholic Church, a variety of independent Rusin-eastern, Slovak-western, and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, and the United Societies of USA (among others) broke with their Americanizing-Irishizing-Latinizing denationalizing parent organizations and became bastions of tradition (e.g., in liturgy, in customs, etc.) - only to acculturate internally. On the other hand, even the most traditionalist societies zealously urged Americanization both by exhortation and by the example of its leadership - including the clergy. SCHISM, DECLINE, AND CULTURE Let me use several nodal points in the history of the Greek Catholic Union to illustrate the convulsions to which conflict between the acculturationists and traditionalists led. The GCU schism of 1902 led to the founding of a new fraternal association, the United Societies of USA (Sobranije). At the 1902 Convention of the Greek Catholic Union, there was strong debate over whether or not the largely Magyarone RusinSlovak clergy leadership would be permitted to retain their official position, since they insisted on remaining citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary. The convention overwhelmingly voted that henceforth all officers of the GCU would have to be American citizens. Moreover, there was a long-standing resentment against domination of Slovak or Rusin parishioners by a Magyar or Magyarone clergy. In Hungary, the laity could do nothing about it. But in America, former peasants could vote out those who were either of the Hungarian aristocracy or had used the church - and ethnic assimilation - as a means of social mobility. The orientation toward a secular leadership made the process complete: the Byzantine Catholic laity of the fraternal would be a strong supporter of the Church but would not be its tool. The United Societies of USA, conversely, retained priests among �.. .. ... .. .. .. . .. .. • • ---- ___________ KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOIJC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES. GEORGE BATYKO) Message by Advertisements Written Exarch I Characters Bishop Year Cyrillic Slovak Rus. Eng. Early Americanization Topics Cover Title - -- - - - - - - Amerikansko-Russko- J ·1903 Banks• , Saloons, Slovensky Kalendar Hotels , Liquors , Medical Cures , • Boat Tickets• Am. History (Rusin) 1904 • Amerikansky-Russko- 1905 Am. Government (Rusin & English) • Slovensky Kalendar Am. fanning, airplane, zeppelin 1909 (Eng.) Amerikansko-Russko- 1914 Banking-Shipping•, Am . Hist. (Rus .), population • Slovensky Kalendar Cures, Liquors of U. S. (Eng.) Banking•• Sokola Sojedinenija Citizenship / naturalization / 1921 • • govt. (Eng.) ,, Am. Hist., govt., loyalty, how Banking** 1924 • to use checking (Eng.) Kai. Soj . Gr. Kaft. 1926 Banking**, Financing, Russkich Bratstv. Home Building, y • • Religious Publications Am . Hist. , govt. (Rus.) , Cit. / 1932 Title & Mortgage Nat. (Eng.) Guarantee co., • • Banks , Boat Tick...,.. ets, Medical Cures K. Gr. Kaft. Sod . none 1953 S. S. A. • 1955 • • TABLE5 > A > < r 0 V, .:,. '-I �" " " " " " 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 Gr. Kaft. Sod . S.S. A . " " " " " " " " " " Message by Exarch I B ishop • • . . . • . • ..• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . .• . Cyrillic_ Slovak Eng . . Early Americanization Topics - -- - - - Rus. Written Characters • Rovnianek (Pittsburgh) in particular •• Money orders, drafts, credit, savings , import, interest *** Diamond Jubilee Almanac GCU Calendar GCU of USA*** Gr. Kaft. Sod . v S. S. A. GCU Calendar " " " " " 1956 D. Gr . Kaft. Sod. S.S. A. " First Federal S&L of Homestead none Year -- Cover Title Advertisements KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOLIC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES . GEORGE BATYKO) TABLE 5 (Continued) ., Vl 'I )> A < )> r 0 V) �76 SLOVAKIA its officials through the present; its birth dates from when a number of delegates walked out of the GCU convention in 1902 and founded its first church-affiliated lodge in McKeesport. At the height of its membership in the mid-1920's, United Societies counted some 27,000 in its adult and juvenile branches. By 1970, the last year for which actuarial figures were made available to me, membership had declined to 5,600; since 1930, membership enrollment by young adults has precipitously declined . (See the following Tables 6 -9 assembled from the actuarial records of the United Societies of USA, public domain.) Within the GCU during the intervening years, a second, even more dramatic schism took place in the 1930's over the issue of priestly celibacy - reflecting the conflict between the traditionalists, who argued in favor of a married priesthood and the acculturationists or ''Latinizers ," who advocated clerical celibacy. While no documented figures were available to me, a number of informants agreed that some 60,000 to 70,000 members, or roughly half the membership, defected. The GCU had been organized in 1892; the Juvenile Branch in 1906; the Gymnastic Branch in 1910. It totals some 1,300 lodges and is licensed as an insurance corporation in 12 states (United Societies, in 6). At the height of membership in 1929, the GCU numbered some 60,000 members in its General or Adult Branch, 20,000 in its Falcon Branch, and 65,000 in its Juvenile Branch. The cataclysm which cost the GCU half its membership occurred in 1929. As early as 1924, the Pope had dispatched Bishop Takach back to the United States with instructions that married priests , common in the Byzantine Rite in Europe, were not to be ordained. However, ordination continued for several years through what were described as "loopholes. " In 1929 came a specific papal decree, Cum Data, forbidding the ordination of married priests in the United States. This finalization led to the immediate defection of thousands of GCU members. If this were not earthquake enough, during the 1920's all ethnic fratemals in Pennsylvania were brought under the increasingly strict regulation of the Insurance Department, which consequence was an immediate precipitous drop in the membership of all Slovak-American insurance-related fratemals. Members could no longer be assessed equally, and amounts collected varied from month to month on the basis of the past month's claims, but were rate\f according to the National Fraternal Congress table of "attained age a~ June, l, 1933." That is, members were required to pay on the basis of age, with premiums increasing with age . The new rates were adopted in June 1932 by the GCU. The National Slovak Society and the men 's and ladies' divisions �0 4 5 12 35 51 68 51 42 10 12 28 49 69 83 82 77 88 75 0 70 1 85+ 0 0 0 1 ., 0 1 1 0 6 1 4 7 18 29 15 35 33 34 69 80 0 1 In the Adult Branches, the Falcon and Main Branches have always been combined for bookkeeping purposes . 2 This figure gives the total membership in United Societies . It should be noted that at age 16, one is eligible to transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch (Main or Falcon) . One may transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch between the 16th and 18th birthday. 3 The report for 1950 was missing, so the 1949 figures were used instead . 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. This means that it is no longer possible to compare membership at ages 16 and 18 in the Juvenile Branch with that in the Adult Branch. 5 An e xplanation for the increase lies in the adoption by the United Societies of the Byzantine Life Savings policy in August, 1968. It is a policy that is sold by agents of the United Societies, an effort to expand the boundaries of fratemalism on a more traditionally commercial basis . It is a 21-year savings program, which one may enter up to age 45 . At the end of the 21 years, the money is returned to the policy owner. Its advantage is that it is insured savings, although the insurance coverage decreases with each year. For the older people , it provides the certainty of a little income . United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports (Penna., Ohio, New Jersey , West Virginia, etc.) Membership: Adult and Juvenile ADULT: MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES! Membership per attained age categories Total : Adult & Total : Year Juvenile2 Adult 55 60 65 16 18 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 46 16 3 8652 135 128 131 236 272 367 279 185 1924 565 275 212 1926 346 517 1928 55 28 1930 19339 10159 320 372 342 114 135 227 254 290 233 191 70 153 186 227 165 122 30 7472 61 127 177 120 1935 13393 36 41 86 85 51 41 111 152 192 135 92 1940 8857 5464 7 59 70 51 73 130 151 145 49 76 106 107 99 1945 7399 5235 18 19493 48 67 69 86 63 57 58 146 133 130 6285 4739 4 18 19554 43 72 44 46 54 82 78 82 56 65 106 107 5472 25 76 89 47 43 5290 68 52 44 15 55 57 97 1960 73 78 42 37 17 27 53 46 41 1965 4812 90 63 50 19705 47 45 5628 101 60 52 38 99 107 129 118 40 27 - TABLES "" )> A < )> Vl r 0 �,,.. - 63 60 101 52 44 5456 91 613 237 231 18 68 90 16 348 418 191 299 153 93 72 6 This figure is for age 17, as it is the last listed, no figure being given for age 18 in the Juvenile Branch. 7 See Note . 4 on previous page . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Membership: Adult and Juvenile JUVENILE BRANCH Membership per attained age categories Total Year Juvenile 0 1 2 10 1928 201 282 549 672 1930 9180 183 426 647 1935 5921 301 456 1940 3393 45 47 48 195 1945 2164 32 81 64 134 1949 1546 28 28 40 62 48 81 51 50 19557 1960 133 150 84 69 1965 33 74 80 88 1970 9 31 30 83 TABLE7 > )> ;ii;;: < r 0 V') 0:, " �1 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted Ond Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. W - Written Rev. - Revived Rec . - Received Iner. - Increased Mat. - Maturity Surr. - Surrender Dec . - Decrease Exp. - Expiry Other - non-specified (However, for 1935, I would suspect that the 81 in this category belong elsewhere, probably in 'Surrender.') United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches ADULT: (se e below for abbreviations) - - MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES Benefit Certificates . . . In force In force Dec . 31 Dec. 31 Year last yr. W this yr. Death Lapse Rev . Rec. Iner. Surr. Dec. Exp. Other -Mat. 1925 14908 2220 15574 133 1524 103 1926 15574 3833 18141 145 1121 1928 10704 11102 114 10313 1930 527 77 10159 . 652 1 1935 7534 279 80 7472 89 332 81 5621 1940 80 15 5464 98 154 1945 5296 139 4 5235 93 91 20 1949 4864 47 4739 113 23 35 1 19551 5356 360 5472 105 19 86 34 5514 1960 217 5290 108 248 41 44 1965 4907 160 4812 103 74 16 36 26 1970 5054 599 193 5628 91 91 30 5 1 TABLES ~ "'° 7' > > < Vl r 0 �1702 81 16 723 2g3 Transfer 1 The figures for the Juvenile Branch list only up to age 16, so it is ambiguous as to whether Juveniles past their 16th birthday are included in tne figure of 9401. 2 transfer to Falcon Branch . 3 transfer to Senior (Main) Branch. 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches JUVENILE BRANCH: Benefit Certificates In force In force Dec . 31 Received Dec . 31 Terminated b1: last yr. by transfer Increased this yr. Year Written Revived Death Lapse 19281 9401 884 49 42 1930 9239 9180 810 968 1935 6384 597 5921 11 7 470 1940 3740 136 10 3393 223 1945 2356 115 2164 12 1949 1636 60 1546 1 120 19554 1960 1965 ,,, . 1970 - TABLE9 > 7' > ~ r (./') ~ �SLOVAKIA 81 of the First Catholic Slov~ Union (Jednota) had been the first to comply in 1930. The state requirement of solvency was reflected in high premiums for the older members who, in the Depression years, could not pay. Each insurance company had to make up the deficit. The 1929 law required that all fraternal societies re-rate their policies within five years. Not that this external policing had not been attempted before. But now, like the papal decree on celibacy, the law was final. Between 1892 and 1909 or 1910, each member of the GCU had been assessed 50 cents, 60 cents, or 75 cents a month, depending on how much was customarily collected at a given lodge. There was no uniformity of policy even within the GCU. In 1909 or 1910, the GCU lodges went under an '' Assessment System,'' such that the amount due from each member was determined by the claims of the past month. Thus the assessment varied from month to month, but was internally regulated by the lodge. Around 1910, the state began to appear in the picture, proposing that members of fraternals pay according to age. Some fraternals put a lien on each member's policy, but this did not sufficiently raise revenues. In 1918 , the National Fraternal Congress Table of Mortality provided a uniform schedule according to which each member was to be rated according to the age at which he or she had joined the organization. But, even where this table was applied, it did not bring lodges or national offices anywhere approaching solvency. In Pennsylvania, the Insurance Department saw that the fraternals were functionally decentralized and operated on a day-to-day economic calculus - which, incidentally, was the traitional Slovak way of pooling resources in the extended family. It applied pressure for greater fraternal centralization and economic foresight. As of 1924, new members were to be rated according to the American Experience Table of Rates. However, the old members could continue to pay the prior National Fraternal Congress rate. This, too, did not greatly move the GCU and other Slovak-American fraternals toward solvency. Finally, the 1929 Pennsylvania law was implemented, and its effect paradoxical: it "worked" with amazing effectiveness according to the canons of American economic planning, but utterly disrupted the Slovak way of doing business. To summarize, then : the most compelling factors in declining membership within the Slovak-American fraternals were (a) the increasing cultural Americanization of their members and the availability of fraternal and insurance options within the cultural mainstream; (b) the increased influence of external (e .g., state) forces in the management of the internal affairs of the associations; (c) the devastating in- �82 SLOVAKIA fluence of the Great Depression over members' abilities to keep up payment of premiums on policies (undoubtedly influenced by " b " ); (d) the fraternal officials ' internal acculturation of the associations into "American" institutions (self-motivated as well as impelled by "b"). There remains an extremely potent factor in fraternal schism and attrition much less obvious to the observer's eye than those already discussed, one which the national president of a Slovak-American fraternal in his early 70' s poignantly articulated: ... we are still declining, there is an explanation for it. There was nothing ever done in this society. There was feeble attempts made to try to get the younger generation to become interested in our / fraternal society / . . .. we now lose, on an average of 1200 members a year .... you take in our generation, our parents were interested in our society and as soon as kids were born they put them in the lodge, the mother or father would always make sure that they would come to the meeting once a month and pay their dues. Even after they got married, the would pay their dues , do you follow me? Now, after they were on their own, had their own families they would say: "Here is your policy. Do you want to keep it. We pay till now. You can make your wife your beneficiary. " Lot of them kept it, and a lot of them turned around and cashed whatever they could get for it. See, where the old people wouldn't do that, and this younger generation isn't like the older generation. They say: " I don't need this or that." Now once again I say, it's not all of them, but the majority. They aren't worried so much like the old people were about their future. All they care is they get a new car, or good times, and when they are in trouble they come to their parents to help them out. Shortly thereafter, he spoke of local lodge meetings: The younger kids, they come, some of them come, some come and just pay their dues. They're in a hurry. They're always in a hurry. You see , I'll tell you. I think the biggest dam fault in all our fraternals. We used to have meetings every month at every lodge. I know I went as a younster, we came to the League, as a young fellow, 18, 19 years old, 20, 21. We would go to the Assemblies. All these old timers come to the meetings. It was always in the Slovak language, and if you\wanted the floor or ask permission to say something, and if you couldn""t. explain yourself well in the Slovak language, say in butchered up language, Slovak and English mixed together, the president of �SLOVAKIA 83 _ _ _ _ says: "Sit down you snot nose you. You can't express yourself in Slovak, you can sit down. You are out of order." Well, naturally these younger people think, they say "Oh, my goodness gracious." You get red in the face, these young people, then they don't know what to do. Then they sit through it and first chance that they got to go home, "They won't get me back here with a bull rope." Instead of being nice to them and courteous, ''OK, we understand you, go ahead and say in English what you want to say. We want you to come." And once you drive them away, oh boy, it's hard to bring them back. That's been the trouble all these fratemals, whether it's the Slovak Catholic, whether it's the National Slovak Society or the. First Catholic Slovak Union. It's the same condition and a lot of those old timers, when they held office, they thought they were supposed to be there till they die. The younger people, they need to bring these people in . . . . Another official, participating in the interview, later interjected: ... That old fellow who would come to the conventions, and make a rousing speech, "We have got to get our young people to take over our offices in our local assemblies, in the national,'' yet he wouldn 't give up his damn job .... (from field notes, June 1978) The chronic, occasionally acute conflict (expressed institutionally in schism) which these officers articulate is a generational conflict be- tween fathers and sons, once contained within the traditional familiar and manorial system, but now run openly rife in the expressively more permissive American cultural setting. We have already seen this conflict in another form: the 1902 schism within the GCU which led to the founding of the United Societies of USA, precipitated by the issue of allegiance to the U.S. versus allegiance to the parental-land and representatives of its authority. This conflict at the macro-institutional level is dynamically identical with the deeply traditional family struggle in Slovak culture: parental holding on versus letting go of authority, power, status, property, and roles. What I have discussed elsewhere in terms of traditional and Slovak-American personality, family dynamics, and culture change (Stein 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1979, Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) is dynamically identical and isomorphic with the conflict at the macro-institutional level. Traditionally as well as in the New World, unquestioning respect for and obedience to the will and authority of elders was paramount. In the official cultural ethos, the father's word and will were absolute; �84 SLOVAKIA deference was due to him no matter what. With the breakdown of the manorial order in Slovakia between 1848 and the great migration of 1880-1920 , sons began demanding a greater say in the running of family affairs . If fathers refused to relinquish some of their traditional prerogatives , sons now had options from setting up separate households to emigration . The vastly extended " joint family " diminished into the " stem family " (Goldschmidt and Kunkel 1971) in which frequently only a son or two, and daughter or two would live with or near the parents (cf. Koenig 1937) . The children now were able to place demands upon the parents , and to leave if dissatisfied. This is precisely what happened openly in the U.S., which official ethos was based on revolutionary separation from parents who, as the motto goes , exacted " taxation without representation, " an experience that strikes at the heart of the Slovak experience as well. Of course, this never was a matter of either / or. As I have demonstrated in the above cited works , moves centrifugal toward autonomy have evoked enormous ambivalence , guilt, restitution, and centripetal countervailing moves on the part of parents. Nonetheless , the above officials have identified as a decisive ingredient in the attrition of the young from Slovak-American fratemals the demand by the young for respect by the elders, a reversal of tradition that is at the same time traditionally and quintessentially '' American.'' It is thus not enough to say that the young defectors had been " Americanized ," and that the diehards remained doggedly "traditional. '' The elder officials of the Slovak-American fratemals could not mobilize the constraints they once yielded under the much hated manorial and Magyar yoke to compel those who they contemptuously regarded as " snotty nosed" youth to speak their language: Slovak. It should further be noted that language was wielded by the officials as a tool of power - but an impotent tool. Ironically, the youth, in the 1910's and 1920' s , attempted to express their interest in ethnicity in English, but were dismissed as out of order by parental-clergy-fraternal-elder figures who sought to safe-guard their venerable Slovak ethnicity by passing it on through institutional measures (churches, gynmastics , literary clubs). However, the fact of institutionalization of tradition was disqualified by the attitude of the founders toward those who would succeed them - which very " success " aroused their fear and countervailing animosity toward the Slovak-American youth. The very nature of many officers ' traditionalism led to the ardent Americanization by the young, whose consequence for the fratemals was decline in membership. ' �SLOVAKIA 85 ATHLETIC PROGRAMS IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS: INTERNAL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY Similar directional change can be seen in the history of athletic programs within the Slovak-American fraternals. The baseline was the Slovak Sokol (Falcon) or gymnastic society. The earliest Sokols had been founded in Bohemia in 1862 by Jindrich Fuegner and Miroslav Tyrs , derived from the German Turnvereine . The Sokols were used in Europe both as vehicles for nativism and Pan-Slavic solidarity. In the U.S. , they tended to follow ethnic lines and intra-ethnic schisms. Initially most of the fraternal organizations were divided into full membership branches: general (adult), juvenile (up to ages 16-18) , and Sokol. Between the ages of 16 and 18, one transferred from the juvenile branch to either the general or the Sokol branch. The Sokol branch stressed group gymnastics. Beyond local activities, each branch combined with other lodges, organizations, and conducted district, regional, national, and international slets (mass calisthenic displays) . Separate Sokol / insurance fraternals later developed. During the first decades of the twentieth century, baseball attracted considerable interest in fraternal and church groups , and if not competed for time with the gymnastic activity, it at least paralleled it. By the 1930's, Sokol activity began a slow decline, while baseball was attracting more interest. And in the mid and late 1930' s, the first fraternal bowling leagues were formed, later organized into district, regional, and national competition along the same lines as were the gymnastics. With the preparation for and American entry into World War II Sokol programs were drastically cut when the young Sokols and Sokolettes and instructors took part in the war. Great hopes were placed on a revival following the war, but there was no such revival. Quite the reverse . Those lodges which were discontinued during the war were never revived. ' ' At least fifty percent of the former gymnastically-active lodges became dormant ; numerous Sokol halls were lost; and most of the prewar instructors and directors disappeared from the physical education field . The indifference and apathy on the part of .. . Sokol membership , and officers as well, also were responsible for this decline ." (Andrew Venglarcik, Jr., " President's Column," Sokol Times, Jan . 14, 1972 , p. 3). Despite efforts by the Supreme Lodge of Sokol USA and other control bodies to induce renewal by the appropriation of larger funds for the Sokols , promises of salaries and the payment of travel expenses, there was little positive response on the part �86 SLOVAK IA of the membership . The Sokol USA slet held in 1966 was a veritable miniature compared with those of the 1920's. The influence of World War II was pervasive on both those who participated in it and in the home communities. Two facts are especially noteworthy: (a) that the virtual collapse of Sokol gynmastics was merely one small aspect of this transformation from Slovak to American, and (b) that the fact of the war did not so much cause the change as it rapidly accelerated a process already under way. Baseball, already popular before the war, was equally popular during the war in the informal games by American soldiers at recreation in training or overseas. Although the soldiers returned with baseball, they did not return it to their fraternal lodges, but instead to their industrial teams, American Legion teams, war veterans ' teams, and so forth . At the Sokol lodges, bowling became the sport. Only in the 1960's did local bowling lodge teams begin to decline. From the late 1940's and early 1950's bowling began to compete with golf, which was subsequently organized in districts, regions, and nationally. From the mid-1960 's , golf became the major activity, all of this taking place as the elderly are passing on, the young either not joining or cashing in their policies when they mature , the lodges becoming smaller and more difficult to justify and maintain. What is the meaning of the transformation in athletic activities? What has changed, and what has remained? The only remnant is that of group competition. Slets displayed competitive gymnastic groups, and baseball, bowling, and golf were organized as competitive tournaments at the various levels . But there is a gradual incorporation into the group of increasing individualism, in contrast with the "mechanical solidarity" of group gymnastics . In all of these, what the individual does is for the sake of the group effort. But the individual as a separate entity is increasingly emphasized. The team-orientation of a baseball team is far greater than that of the bowling team, because, as in the group gymnastic display, all of the members ' (or at least the playing members ' ) actions must be coordinated. This is not the case in bowling or golf, where the group is cumulative and sequential, rather than synchronized. In bowling and golf, individual efforts (and accomplishments) are not directly coordinated with tho'se of others, although they are added to them. In these '' individualistic' •· sports, individual actions are apart from the group , not subsumed under group effort as they necessarily are in the slet and in sports like baseball. Psychologically, the meaning of these sports differs greatly from the earlier " team" sports , where the individual could never be " taken out" of the group . �SLOVAKIA 87 \ This point has been well made by Andrew J. Valusek, President of Sokol USA: '' ... we believe in mass training more than emphasis on individual excellence, even though outstanding Sokol athletes are honored and play an important role in the life and achievements of the movement itself (Souvenir Book, 15th Sokol USA Slet, July 1-3, 1966, New York). This transformation in atheltics reflects what is simultaneously a cultural and psychological transformation: from Slovak to American, from group-oriented to individual-oriented, from coordinated interdependence to self-reliant independence. Furthermore, the incorporation of American athletic activities represented a new social status for the group . The lodge members had adopted within an ethnic framework typically mainstream American social activities. Increasingly, ancestral ethnicity was the basis for association, while categories of American culture dominated the content of the activity. MEN'S CLUB AND SECRET SOCIETY My final consideration in the history of the Slovak-American fraternals is its vital ' 'latent'' function as an exclusive men's club. This refers, of course, to male fraternal organizations or a compartmentalized activity of a male fraternal. The men's club provided and safeguarded a haven and refuge from women, family, and responsibility. It occasioned regularized " rituals of rebellion" (Gluckman 1954; Wallace 1966). This is not a matter of the writer's interpretations but derives from informants ' statements as well as the writer's observations. In Slovakia and Ruthenia, the village tavern had fulfilled this release function. In those Slovak-American organizations whose meetings were held under the strict supervision of the priest, the conclusion of a meeting was frequently followed by a visit to the Slovak Club . Many fraternals held their lodge meetings in one of the rooms at the Slovak Club. At the club , heavy drinking, card and craps playing, mournful and boisterous Slovak folk song, and " men' s talk" occupied the hours and filled the air. Abetted by the influences of "boilermakers'' (a shot of whiskey with a beer as chaser), the unspeakable literally emptied into the open. Taboos were cavalierly broken - at least in word. Built on shared experiences and conflicts, the male associations offered one of the few opportunities for male solidarity. Both in Europe and in the first several decades in the U.S., Saturday night was the ritual occasion for the unbottling of the week's pent up burdens. In the U.S. , the male solidarity of Slovak-American fraternal and the Slovak Club came to be predominantly associated with the immi- �88 SLOVAKIA grant generation. With the second and later generations, from the 1940's and on, this function became transferred to union halls, service veterans' clubs, American fraternal orders, and local bars, whether located adjacent to the mill or in one's neighborhood. These became places where men from varied ethnic backgrounds (though as exclusively white as they were exclusively male) could commiserate and boast of extracurricular feats on the war front and on the home front alike, out of reach of female domination and ridicule. In the original Slovak tavern the American Slovak Club, and later supra-ethnic American adaptations, lusty fiction compensated for social realities too miserable to acknowledge, and over which one felt no control. Through group support, one was able, without too great a burden on the conscience, to take a temporary moral holiday. And a man knew that later confession and communion could always undo - again temporarily what he had dared to think or say or do under the influence of potent spirits. SLOVAK-AMERICAN CHURCHES: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TRENDS A detailed history of Slovak-American parishes at the local and national levels, over the past century, exactly duplicates the history of the fraternals . For this reason, and for economy of space, I would like to review the major trends and give a brief ''life history'' of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, which history will embody these trends. Each of the churches in which I conducted fieldwork (Latin Rite, Byzantine Rite, Independent Rite Catholic, and Lutheran) either experienced the convulsion of schism or was a product of schism. Each of these parishes experiences the on-going drama of conflict between traditionalists and acculturationists. And in each of these parishes, the resolution is identical: (a) outward mobility of dissident acculturationists (and, in some cases, traditionalists for whom even the majority of parish traditionalists have compromised too much); (b) internal acculturation and inter-marriage, creating supra-ethnic denominationalized parishes ; (c) the "territorialization" of "nationality '' parishes (this language comes from khe Catholic diocesan context, but is univerally applicable) . The same directional change is evidenced since the 1930's in Slo- �SLOVAKIA " 89 vak-American churches as in fratemals: that is, away from ethnic exclusiveness and insularity. Initially, religion, like fratemalism, was an inseparable functional component of ethnicity. Today, in the context of an individual's increasingly personal community" (Gould 1970: 148), a traditional social structural view is empirically invalidated. "Religion" and "ethnicity" have become increasingly separate domains of one's life. This is true even for those originally nationality parishes which, in the 1960's or early 1970's, still maintained a large membership and which could afford to build a new parish further "up the hill" or out in suburbia. I think, for instance, of two parishes in Duquesne, Pennsylvania: Holy Trinity (Slovak) Roman Catholic Church, which, in the late 1960's, built a dazzlingly modem church in the suburb of West Mifflin in which many of the second and third generation lived, but which became de jure a supra-ethnic territorial parish in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh; and Sts. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church, originally located in the same neighborhood as Holy Trinity, but which built a modem church building in the mid-1960's a mile or two further up the hill, in a stable white, middle-class, poly-ethnic neighborhood. Cross-cutting denominational lines is the decisive influence of World War Il in accelerating, though not causing, the Americanization process within Slovak-American parishes, and with it, division or further schism. The ubiquity of this process I have discovered from discussions with Latin and Byzantine Rite Catholic, Lutheran, and Independent Catholic Slovak-American clergymen and parishioners. A Slovak Lutheran minister in his late forties, who grew up in Johnstown, Penna., relates his experience there and generalizes from it: In my church in Johnstown, there was no English until 1942 - at least until 1942, when I left for World War II. When I left, no English had been introduced. But after war, the young people coming back demanded that English be adopted as a separate service. The effect of the war was to put people of all different backgrounds together, and the common language there was English. The men thought and spoke and felt in English, so that when they got home after the war, their native towns and churches were like a foreign country. The delicate questions, then, as always, was how to contain or try to contain change within continuity. In McKeesport, Penna., Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church had been founded in 1895 as a "nationality" parish within the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese (Holy Trinity 1970; Slovak Catholic Par- �90 SLOVAKIA ishes and Institutions, 1955). In 1921 the church had a membership of some 1, 700 individuals and 325 families. In that year, the bishop appointed a priest of Alsatian-German ancestry to succeed the Slovak priest who many elderly parishioners allege returned to Slovakia under dubious circumstances (e.g. , with church funds?). Not so much the new priest's ethnicity as his antagonistic, condescendingly anti-Slovak style precipitated a schism in which some 300 families left to found Sts . Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, later renamed Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This priest remained the pastor of the church until his death in 1963, and was succeeded by a second-generation Slovak-American priest who remained pastor until his retirement in the mid-1970's. This period witnessed considerable Americanization of everything from liturgy to architecture to the aesthetics of the sanctuary. The immense wood-spires gave way to marble. The dusty baldachino was taken down in the 1960' s. The sanctuary of the church has fewer and fewer statues and candles. The interior became increasingly lighter and brightly lit. The Slovak mass on Sunday morning (one mass out of the four) , attended mostly by the older people, was phased out by the late 1960's. At the Diamond Jubilee Celebration (75 yrs.) in 1970, no Slovak was used in the special mass. (As I left the service, I overheard one man , perhaps in this 60 's, exclaim to a friend: " Couldn 't he have said something in Slovak?'') In 1975, a young third-generation Slovak-American priest became pastor and initiated weekly Charismatic Renewal Services , held in the church social hall and open to and attended by Catholics from parishes throughout McKeesport. Thus, what began as an exclusively ethnic parish has become internally a multi-ethnic territorial Roman Catholic parish though with explicitly acknowledged ties to an ethnic past. Moreover, it is the site for decidedly contemporary American cultic activity that stresses the direct, personal religious experience. The possible conflict between the priest and Eucharist-centererd formalism of the traditional mass (now in the vernacular English) and the participatory Charismatic Service of heightened self-expression and testimonial has at least for the moment been settled by compartmentalization. At the present time (see Table 10), the membership is large enough (roughly 1,800 members) , and its >decline due to the greater proportion of deaths over baptisms gradual e:eough to assure the parish at least several decades of "life." But, clearly the nature of the religious experience has changed decisively over the past 85 years . The word ' 'Slovak '' was officially dropped from the name of the church in �SLOVAKIA 91 \ the 1960's. • The parish is becoming increasingly working-class Catholic in its expressive function. The so-called Latinization and Irishization of the church has most recently been succeeded by a new type of American religious nativism: here , however, the change is induced far less from without than from within. To date, St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, and St. Mark Lutheran Church have solved the generational gap between traditionalists and acculturationists through separate services. Sts. Cyril and Methodius alternates Sundays with English and Slovak services. At St. Mark, the Slovak service typically takes place early on Sunday, followed by the English service . At the much larger St. Nicholas, the Slavonic Mass is one of three masses offered on Sunday morning, the other two in English (for detailed histories of these parishes , see Stein 1972). If at Holy Trinity, " Latinization" mediated by " Irishization " underlay much internal conflict, at St. Nicholas a less direct though powerful Latinization has taken place, here mediated by the supra-local hierarchy from Byzantine Catholic bishop through Rome. Just as in Latin Rite Slovak-American parishes, the conglomerate of IrishizationLatinization-Americanization was a means of social mobility for the priesthood ; likewise within Byzantine Rite Slovak-American parishes, Latinization-Americanization, bypassing the Latin Rite, Irish-dominated Church , was a means of social mobility for its priesthood. This, however, was not original to the American context. For centuries, both Byzantine and Latin Rite Slovak priests frequently used Magyarization as a means of mobility in Slovakia. Likewise, in Europe as in America, Germanization was a means of social mobility for Slovak Lutheran clergy. In all cases , the process in America was continuous with that in Europe: only the specific content or reference group(s) changed. • Let me furthe r pursue the issue of " What' s in a name? " , the importance of name as personal meaning and identity, from the point of view of baptismal records in this parish . Both in traditional Slovakia, and in parish records through the early 1920' s, baptismal names we re largely Biblical , or reflected more eastern Slavic influence . Thus, most males were named Michael, John, Thomas , Andrew , George, Paul, Joseph, Stephen , Be rnard , Albert, Rudolph, Charles, and Ivan ; and females were named Martha, Helen , Margaret , Mary, Anna , Elizabeth , and Ivana. American names, including the addition of a middle name, began to appear sporadically in the late 1910's , but grew in the 1920's and thereafter . For instance : Ella Sue, Stanley J oseph , Ethel Elizabeth, Emma Marie , Virginia , Robert William , George Edward (all before 1930) , Anna Mae, Rose Marie , Dorothy Mae , Virginia Louise, Patricia J ane , Lucille Diane , Gary Michael, William John , and so forth . �SLOVAKIA 92 TABLE 10 Diocese of Pittsburgh Holy Trinity (Slovak) Catholic Church Allegheny County McKeesport, PA Church reports at five year intervals (1896-1971): Year 1896 1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 1941 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1974+ Souls (approximate)• 600 Families (approximate)• 180 905 210 1060 250 1200 1300 1800 2500 2700 300 300 400 600 600 600 600 600 500 600 600 610 675 667 2900 2886 3170 3180 3500 3500 2725 2540 2140 Baptisms 144 151 175 177 160 140 137 131 86 72 127 86 78 66 41 26 16 Deaths 50 . 67 109 30 48 50 30 45 38 37 24 36 39 40 35 37 50 • Priest' s estimate derived from traditional annual blessing of homes after Epiphany. + Last year data available. Moreover, this was hardly a process imposed exclusively from without or by the pastor. In the absence of schism, and in the aftermath of schism for those who chose to remain loyal to church and pastor, the direction taken by the pastor coincided with the direction sought by a majority of the congregation, through passive assent if not active work toward change. The matter is somewhat different for Sts. Cyril and Methodius, an independent Slovak Catholic church that has literally struggled for survival since its creation in 1921. Beginning with some 300 zealous families as Sts. Peter and Paul, it has now barely 100 members. In the 1920's it ambitiously built a new church, only to lose it to the bank in 1937. Just as, prior to building its own edifi<z, the church held services in Slovak Hall and in churches where it was welcomed, likewise after 1937, it held services at the YWCA and the Baptist Mission. In order to be exempt from any past or future debts incurred under its original �SLOVAKIA 93 \ name , Sts. Peter and Paul changed its name to Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the late 1930's . In its early period, the church had been served by a priest ordained by the Czecho-Slovak Independent Church in Slovakia. Later, when no priest could be found, Sts. Cyril and Methodius became affiliated with the parallel nativistic Polish National Catholic movement which had begun in Scranton, Penna. in 1897 (Fox, n .d.). Services were conducted at the local, inner-city Polish National Catholic Church , served by a Polish-American priest who said mass in Polish, while responsorials and hymns were sung in Slovak by the congregation. During the late 1960's, the Polish church began a building program in suburban McKeesport. At the same time, a Swedish Evangelical Free Church was vacating its church on the "hill" and moving to a more outlying district - where its members tended to be living, and away from the area in which blacks were now living in increasing numbers . The Slovak Independent church voted to purchase the Swedish church outright in 1967. So the church now had a home, but few members. Many had, in the intervening year, returned to Holy Trinity. Others joined Catholic or Protestant churches near their homes . Still others gravitated in increasing numbers to the Polish National Catholic Church: an institution which acted both to safeguard the Slovak church and as an agent of acculturation to the PNCC tradition. Indeed , one of the greatest areas of chronic conflict within Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been those who resist and resent the PNCC influence and those who accept it. From the outset, the Slovak National Catholic Church movement has been numerically small and politically weak in comparison with the PNCC, which now claims several hundreds of thousands of members in some 140 churches in the U.S. alone - and which movement diffused in the 1920's back to the mother country . Thus the direction of change in Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been toward PNCC and American acculturation. Like St. Mark, whose ' 'life history '' I present immediately below in detail rather than fragment , the membership of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is highly skewed toward the end of the life cycle , unbalanced by a substantial middle-aged population to compensate for the outward migration of young adults and the virtually non-existent birth-rate. While these examples are sufficient to illustrate the trend of culture change , I would like to tum to the history of St. Mark Lutheran Church , which should provide a depth missing in the breadth of the " trends " I have covered for the other churches . �94 SLOVAKIA ST. MARK LUTHERAN CHURCH: AN INSTITUTIONAL ''LIFE HISTORY'' St. Mark's was founded in 1913 by 25 members from the Slovak Evangelical Union Assembly 53 (a fraternal organization) organized in 1899 in Duquesne. The church was named the Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne. Between 1913 and 1919, ''lacking funds to either build or buy a place for a church site, the Church council called upon the nearby existing Grace Reformed Church ... for permission to use the church for services" (50th Anniversary Book, St. Mark Ev. Lutheran Church, Oct. 27, 1963) . Toward the end of the decade , Grace Reformed Church's growth compelled it to seek larger quarters elsewhere in Duquesne, making the building available for purchase. Slovak Lutherans from Duquesne and from the nearby communities of McKeesport and Glassport purchased the church building. In 1920, the parish was able to send a call for its first full-time pastor. In 1934, after no prior synodical affiliation, the church joined the Slovak Zion Synod, Lutheran Church of America, in which it has been a member ever since. In the 1930's, the Slovak Lutheran parish in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, experienced a schism between the more Americanized members and the traditionalists. The more Americanized members wanted English introduced into the service, and wanted to establish a Sunday School for their children in which English was the language of instruction. The more adamant Slovaks refused to permit any change. Between one-third and one-half of the congregation (over 150 members) left. They took up membership at the nearby German Lutheran and Engish Lutheran churches. The loss of membership in the 1930's precipitated a compromise initiated in 1940: an English-language Sunday School was founded, and English was adopted in the Vacation Bible School and in the Confirmation Class. The services, however, remained entirely in Slovak. The Second World War acted as a great catalyst of change toward the more rapid Americanization of the parish - not merely of this parish but thoughout Slovak Lutheran parishes. The younger members, many of them returning veterans, insisted on a separate English service. This structural change solved in part the probl~m of the different intergenerational linguistic and cultural orientatibns. Each age set, indeed cultural set, would have its own separate service. The Sunday morning Slovak service at the Duquesne parish is now a much shortened version of the traditional service. In this way, it has been adopted to the Ameri- �SLOVAKIA 95 can time-sense (e.g., hymns of an original 16-20 stanzas now reduced to 4-6). For occasions such •s Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday, and Confirmation, joint services are held, with roughly half in English and half in Slovak, equally distributed throughout the service. In the 1960's, further measures were taken to Americanize the church. A majority of the younger members felt that the word "Slovak" in its name , as with the lengthy European-sounding name as a whole, discouraged non-Slovaks from joining. The younger age set wished to become an integrated member of the American Lutheran community rather than remain outside it. As a reflection of this attitude change, the name was changed from Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne to the more conventional St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church, or simply St. Mark Lutheran Church. The church was named in honor of a saint because, as the pastor put it, ''most American churches are called Saint this or Saint that.'' Accompanying the change in name were concomitant changes in the by-laws whose effect was intended to parallel and validate the change in name. Whereas previously membership was restricted to Slovak Lutherans and their spouses (through conversion to Lutheranism), now membership was opened to all Lutherans irrespective of nationality background. For all practical purposes the church became ''two churches' ' : Slovak Lutheran and American Lutheran, the former using the Slovak liturgy, and the latter utilizing the Common Service Book of 1917 (United Lutheran Church of America) until the mid-1960's, then the authorized Service Book and Hymnal (Lutheran Church of America, 1968). However, the opening up of the church to new membership, together with the standardization of the liturgy, failed to attract new members or to retain the young. The Slovak population of Duquesne, like that of McKeesport and all other local milltowns on the Monongahela, had largely been moving to outlying districts, first up on ''the hill,'' later further out to "suburbs. " Mobility of membership to nearby " American Lutheran" churches almost inevitably followed. In the same area of Duquesne as St. Mark Church were former Slovak Roman Catholic (Holy Trinity, Duquesne) and Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Catholic (Sts. Peter and Paul) churches . Sts. Peter and Paul had completed a new church far up on the hill in early 1960, and Holy Trinity completed a new church out in the suburb of West Mifflin in 1970. During the period from the 1940' s through the 1960' s, as the Slovaks moved " up and out," the area rapidly became settled by blacks , and the area quickly became unpopular even in the eyes of those Slovaks who remained and attended the Lutheran Church (which could not �96 SLOVAKIA afford to build elsewhere). The church could hardly retain its own members, let alone attract outsiders to what was quickly becoming called a deteriorated and unstable area. The former Slovak Catholic Holy Trinity Church building and rectory were given by the diocesan bishop to a local black church group, and the nearby vacated Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Church became a plaything for vandals. Many Catholic and Lutheran Slovak-Americans who had bought their first homes here or had grown up in this neighborhood said in disgust that this was no longer a place fit for a white man to live. It is significant that, despite all the vast changes that have taken place in the church, the original German-made oak tryptich altar, baptismal, and pulpit (of the 1920's) are retained by the church to the present. From time to time younger parishioners have suggested that the ancient pipe organ be replaced by a modern electric organ, but there has never been a concerted demand for such a replacement. I suspect that underlying this lack of pressure for costly remodeling and rennovation is first, the smallness of the congregation and hence the lack of large amounts of funds for such purposes, and second, the younger generation's relative lack of long-term future commitment to the parish and hence their acquiescence to the traditional preferences of the older generation . At present, an average of ten of those parishioners aged 60 and over attend the Slovak service; while between 40 and 50 of mostly younger parishioners and their families attend the English. Only a few elderly people are accompanied in the Slovak service by their children and grandchildren. However, many grandparents attend the English service with their children. Unexceptionably, the three-generation service is the English. A maximum of 15 attend the Slovak service, while at the English it approximates 60. The parish is rapidly losing members at both ends of the age range , the elder through deaths , and the younger with their families by moving away or joining more American Lutheran churches . Between 1960 and the end of 1970, the church lost 26 members over age 50 (out of a total of 32) of whom 14 were over age 70. Several parents in their 30 's and 40 's have told me of their intention of joining elsewhere after their own parents, stalwart members , pass on .* \ • Rarely have Slovak-ethnic organizations later becom~ stable supra-ethnic co=unity institutions . The direction of change seems one way . Ethnic parishes have declined dramatically in Slovak-American membership . The ethnic fratemals ' efforts at modernizing fis cally simply came too late . Moreover, the fratemals ' renewed efforts at in- �SLOVAKIA 97 , CONCLUSION This paper has examined religion and fraternal association among Slovak-Americans as institutional forms for the communication of cultural meaning. Although I have focused on a single Euro-American population, the perspectives and findings of this study should be applicable to and testable by data from comparable populations. Historical, documentary, ethnographic, and demographic data were adduced both to illustrate cultural patterns of communication and to offer the reader material by which my generalizations might be evaluated. I have emphasized that (a) there is much in Slovak-American adaptation that is built upon, indeed derived from, preadaptive characteristics of traditional culture which cannot be reduced to the demands of the host environment or to adaptive tools available in it; (b) the overall trend and categories of change in fraternals and churches is identical; (c) the study of institutional meaning is never removed, nor can it be abstracted from, the personal meanings of its participants who invest in social structures; (d) what from one point of view appears to be patently instrumental functions can be discerned simultaneously from another point of view as expressive functions (i.e., complementary); (e) the American cultural system was adopted by Slovak-Americans to achieve both traditional ends (often in new "language" or cultural content) and anti-traditional ends, the seeds of which were sown (as latent possibilities) in traditional Slovak family and social conflict; (f) the distinction between traditional and modern, and continuity and change, cannot be concluded on the basis of mere appearance, but must be detennined by the meanings communicated by the cultural actors; hence (g) continuity in form, function, and meaning can often be expressed, not despite, but strurnental change in service of ethnic, that is, expressive, revitalization was a futile attempt to reassemble functions that had already been severed by the membership for expressive reasons . One conspicuous exception is the Benedictine High School in Cleveland , Ohio . Another is the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Homestead, Pennsylvania (with branches in McKeesport and Clairton, also mill towns) , originally founded in 1914 by Slovak workers to assist in providing common funds for Slovak families now able and eager to purchase homes in the "hill" regions of the town up and away from their rented flats in the " lowland" or " bottoms " close to the mill . Perhaps a compelling reason for the success of the S & L association lies in its offer of supra-ethnic' ' social security '' resources from the beginning. That is, being primarily a financial institution, it stood the best chance of flourishing in the American cultural environment in which instrumental (e .g. , economic) functions were compartmentalized from expressive ones. �98 SLOVAKIA through a change in symbolic content; (h) although unmistakable trends of change have been noted, at any given moment the identified distinctive features of change may perform complementary or contradictory institutional functions; (i) the process of Americanization or acculturation cannot be seen as a unitary process directed either from within or from without the ethnic community, but must be analyzed in terms of sources of impetus for Americanization. The study of ethnicity is not the study of "tribes" as though they and their conceptually reified cultures persist statically unchanged. Rather, the study of ethnicity is the study of human relationships, the meanings which people attach to those relationships, the communication of those meanings in idiosyncratic or institutionalized forms, the process by which changed meanings lead to changes in relationships and how in tum ethnicity and thus identity itself comes to be redefined. Certainly the nativistic "New Ethnicity" advocated by many fraternal leaders and Slovak-American intelligentsia (Stein and Hill 1977) is not at all the unself-conscious native ethnicity of the pre-immigrant period. My research among some three- and four-generation SlovakAmerican families and institutions leads to to the inexorable conclusion that Slovak-American ethnicity over the past century has dramatically changed from a relatively homogeneous public expression of community form, function, structure, meaning, and relationship to a far more heterogeneous, individualized, private matter. This privatization of ethnicity had led many scholars to conclude that ethnicity has disappeared. This is nonsense: it has been repattemed, some elements retained, others given up. Although the American ethos has replaced the ethnic ethos as the core of personal and group identity, the spheres of life and the levels of the personality at which this replacement has occurred must be demonstrated and explained. What has unmistakably declined and is disappearing is the full complement of institutions which characteristically define a traditional community (cf. Arensberg and Kimball 1965) . However, as I have suggested in my previously cited works, unconsciously communicated loyalties, conflicts, values , expectation, and worldview in the intimate interior of even ethnically intermarried families results in continuities in surprising guises (e.g., the steel mill experienced as the old manorial latifundia: see Stein and Hill 1979; Hamey 1975) . , On the other hand, ethnic ties are often.maintained in the absence of conspicuously ethnic content - and here "conspicuity" refers all too often to the preoccupations and categories of the observer. Ethnicity takes on an especially "hidden" quality (Hill and May 1973) when the �SLOVAKIA 99 observer expects tradition~ meanings to take traditional representational forms. The more subtle, out-of-awareness (Hall 1977) aspects of ethnicity are the most intractible because they are pre-verbally ta.ken for granted and cannot be verbalized. Thus, for instance, I shall know that without a doubt a Slovak-American woman or man has acculturated more toward the core of the metaphoric personal ''onion'' when children - or the ethnographer! - are forcibly lavished copious quantities of food, when I am invited to visit with a family in their ''living room" or "dining room" instead of the kitchen; or when the implicit roles of maternal dominance and paternal distance in the home have become less pronounced, and the affective atmosphere affectively less brittle. Likewise, the inclusion of members from other ethnic groups within formerly exclusive tradition-maintaining fraternal and religious institutions, and the increasingly widespread phenomenon of intermarriage, are expressions of the simultaneous of group- or "ethnic" - and ego-boundaries. The formerly "other," often despised and alien, is now included within the possibilities of the "self." This fact requires a reassessment of our received wisdom about structural assimilation, namely, that inclusion is an act governed or regulated by the more mainstreamed "Americans" - that is, that it operates as a one-way process. Rather, inclusion is reciprocally a dynamic from within the ethnic group. Finally, this paper further confirms the tenet that ethnicity is a process operating at many levels, and is not a lineal continuum whose starting and terminal points can easily be plotted in terms of preconceived categories of "passing," "acculturation," "mobility," or "assimilation." It is the author's hope that future studies will not only provide greater breadth and depth in the study of Slovak-Americans, but will offer a comparative framework for the study of emigrant Slovaks in other nations (indeed, other regions of the U.S.), the internal transformation of Slovakia in the post-World War I period, and other European emigrant populations in their new contexts. Such studies will determine precisely how limited or widespread is the trend of culture change discussed in this paper. REFERENCES Anderson, Robert T. "Voluntary Associations in History," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 209-222. Arensberg, Conrad M. and Solon T. Kimball. Culture and Community . New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966. �100 SLOVAKIA Balch, Emily Greene. Our Slavic Fellow Citizens . New York : Amo Press, 1969 (orig. 1910) . Barton , Josef J . Peasants and Strangers : Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950. Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press, 1976. Bue, Bonaventure S. " Slovak Nationalism: Its Origins, Conflicts and Objectives." Master's thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1967. Fitzpatrick , Joseph P. " The Importance of ' Community' in the Process of Immigrant Assimilation, " International Migration Review 1(1)(1966) : 6-16. Fox, Paul. The Polish National Catholic Church . Scranton , Penna: School of Christian Living, n.d . Gluckman, Max. Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa . Manchester: Manchester University Press , 1964. Goldschmidt, Walter and E. J . Kunkel. " The Structure of the Peasant Family," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 1068-1076. Gould, Harold A. ' 'Some Preliminary Observations Concerning the Anthropology of Industrialization,'' In Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization . William Mangin, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970, pp. 137-149. Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture . Garden City, New York : Doubleday 1/ Anchor, 1977. Hamey, Robert F. "Ambiente and Social Class in North American Little Italies," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 2(2)(1976): 208-224. Hill, Robert F. and J . Thomas May. " Exploring Hidden Ethnicity: Problems and Methods ," American Society of Ethnohistory , Central State University, Edmond , Oklahoma, October 1973. Jansak Stefan. "The Land Question in Slovakia (I), " The Slavonic Review 8(1930) : 612626. Kerner, Robert J ., ed . Czechoslovakia . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940. Kirschbaum , Joseph M. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Europe. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Klein, Philip . A Social Study of Pittsburgh. New York : Columbia University Press, 1938. Koenig, Samuel. " Marriage and the Family among the Galician Ukrainians, " In Studies in the Science of Society . George P. Murdock, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937 , pp. 299-318 . Krajsa, Joseph C., Chairman, Editorial Board. Slovaks in America . Middletown, Penn.: The Slovak League of America, 1978. La Barre, Weston . The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion . New York: Dell, 1972. Lacko, Michael. '' A Brief Study of the History of the Slovak Catholics of the ByzantineSlavonic Rite," Slovak Studies 3(1963) : 199-224. Slovak Institute, Rome, Italy . Light, Ivan H. Ethnic Enterprise in America. Berkeley: University of California Press , 1972 . Macartney , C. A. Hungary and Her Successors . New York : Oxford University Press , 1937. Nelli, Humbert S. The Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility . New York : Oxford University Press, 1970. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and/ts People . New York: Robert Speller and Sons , 1960. Roucek , Joseph S. "Problems of Assimilation: A Study of Czecho-Slovaks in the United States ," Sociology and Social Research XVIl (1932-33) : 62-71. Roucek , Joseph S. " The Passing of American Czechoshivaks ," American Journal of Sociology 39(1933-34) : 611-626 . Roucek , Joseph S. " Czechoslovak Americans ," In Our Racial and National Minorities. �SLOVAKIA 101 Francis J . Brown and Joseph S. Roucek , eds . New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937, pp. 230246 . Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada. Cleveland, Ohio: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1966 (Jednota Printery, Middletown, Penna.) . Stein , Howard F . " An Ethno-Historical Study of Slovak-American Identity." Doctoral dissertation , University of Pittsburgh , 1972. Stein, Howard F. " Cultural Specificity in Patterns of Mental Illness and Health: A Slovak-American Case Study, " Family Process 12(March 1973): 69-82. Stein, Howard F. '' Envy and the Evil Eye among Slovak-Americans: An Exploration into the Psychological Ontogeny of Belief and Ritual," Ethos 2(1)(Spring 1974) : 16-46. Stein , Howard F. " Structural Change in Slovak Kinship: An Ethnohistoric Inquiry," Ethnology 14(1)(January 1976): 99-108 . Stein , Howard F. " A Dialectic Model of Illness and Health Attitudes and Behavior among Slovak-Americans ," International Journal of Mental Health 6(2)(Summer 1976) : 117-137. Stein , Howard F. " The Slovak-American 'Swaddling Ethos' : Homeostat for Family Dynamics and Cultural Continuity, " Family Process 17 (March 1978) : 32-46. (a) Stein, Howard F. ''Aging and Death among Slovak-Americans: A Study in the Thematic Unity of the Life Cycle ," The Journal of Psychological Anthropology 1(3)(Summer 1978) : 297-320. (b) Stein, Howard F. "The White Ethnic Movement, Pan-Ism, and the Restoration of Early Symbosis: The Psychohistory of a Group-Fantasy," The Journal of Psychohistory 6(3)(Winter 1979) : 319-360. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F . Hill. The Ethnic Imperative: Ewmining the New White Ethnic Mo vement. University Park , Penna .: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F. Hill. " Adaptive Modalities Among Slovak- and PolishAmericans : Some Issues in Cultural Continuity and Change ," Anthropology 3(1-2) (1979) : 96-107. Stolarik , M. Mark . " Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918." Doctoral dissertation , University of Minnesota , 1974. Wallace , A. F. C. Religion: An Anthropological View . New York: Random House, 1966. Yurchak , Peter Paul . The Slovaks . Whiting, Indiana: Obrana Press, 1946. Zatko , James J . " Slovaks in the U.S.A., 1900-1914," Slovakia 16(39)(1966) : 41-62 (Slovak League of America). �� SLOVAKIA 53 An Ethnohistqry of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions HOW ARD F. STEIN INTRODUCTION: ETHNICITY, INSTITUTIONS AND THE STUDY OF MEANING The study of ethnicity is necessarily a study of systems of meaning and how that meaning is communicated. Ethnicity is far more than a matter of social mobility, group competition for scarce resources, acculturation, and the like. This paper focuses on what might be called the "life histories" of Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations as institutionalized expressors of a century of changing groupidentity and those meanings that represent the underlying group-identity. Special emphasis is placed on identifying precisely what about ethnic identity is communicated by these institutions. The central argument is that Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations perform important psychosocial functions - not merely social structural ones. Indeed, I propose that the former determines and sustains, and explains, the revitalization or atrophy of the latter. Another way of putting it is that the ''expressive'' dimension of ethnicity is inherent in the "instrumental" roles performed by fraternal and religious organizations. The world of the symbolic is never separated from the world of the practical. The term "ethnic fraternal" is used here in the sense of mutual benefit, self-help, voluntary associations (see Anderson 1971) that trace to diverse mid-nineteenth century immigrant populations to the U.S. However, the meaning of ethnic fraternalism should not be ac• A paper presented as part of a panel on ''Ethnicity as Communication in Southeastern Europe: A Comparative Approach,'' at the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. �54 SLOVAKIA cepted as self-evident, since ethnic voluntary associations, like the religious institutions which they founded, have undergone considerable change of function, and indeed have served multiple, often contradictory functions. In both instances it will be necessary to specify the meaning of persistance and change alike. Elsewhere I have addressed issues of Slovak-American cultural continuity and change in identity at the levels of personality structure, family dynamics, child-rearing patterns, kinship structure, projective system, health and illness attitudes, psychopathology, and ethos (Stein _1973, 1974, 1975,_1976, 1978a; _Stein and Hill 197~, _19~_). No attempt~ here made at a comprehensive history of Slovaks in Europe or the United States. The reader is referred to two groups of works on Slovaks and Slovak-Americans. One genre can be regarded as "official histories," and includes works by Yurchak (1946), Kirschbaum (1960), O~do (1960), Zatko (1966), and Krajsa (1978); and the journals Slovak Studies and Slovakia. The second group consists of disparate studies whose common denominator is the absence of adherence to any prevailing ideology. Representatives of this genre include Balch (1910); Macartney (1937); Kerner (1940); Bue (1957); Roucek (1932-33, 1933-34, 1937); Stolarik (1974); Barton (1975); and Stein (1972). The sources in the first group reflect a particular point of view, namely, the alliance of Slovak Roman Catholicism with political nationalism (i.e., the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Slovak League of America). This also reminds us that traditionally among the majority of Slovaks, ethnicity and religion were fused. Slovak Studies is the publication of the Slovak Institute, Rome, and Slovakia has long been the official publication of the Slovak League. One could legitimately see the Slovak Republic as an expansion onto the level of the state of what had long been a fact at the local level: namely, the political importance of the clergy. Many past and present Slovak League leaders, scholars, and political activists on behalf of Slovak national autonomy in Europe are former leaders and intelligentsia of the short-lived Slovak Republic (1939-1945). That their genre of historiography would be ethno-national apologia is to be expected. However, the visibility of the Slovak League on the American scene in official American political circles has more to do with their anti-communism and their courtship by American political leaders than with cultural, political, or demographic fa~s intrinsic to the League. This highlights the oft neglected fact that American sociopolitical factors often heighten ethnicity, even help preserve it - through a not particularly laudable duplicitous manipulation of loyalties and fears. Among Slovak-Americans, as among all peoples, official histories �SLOVAKIA 55 are those sacred myths of the past held and recorded by the putative leadership. Throughout this essay, I shall emphasize whose perspective on the past is being stated as I discuss those institutions that have been deeply concerned v,:ith the cultural sense of time. This leads to a final word of warning: jus\ as ''culture'' is inseparable from the people who constitute it, likewise for social "institutions." An "institution" is only a conventional shorthand. What this paper is about is the history of group consensus and conflict, continuity and change. The very inclusion of this essay in Slovakia attests to changes not only in ''editorial policy" or editorship, but to a more pervasive change in Slovak ethnicity itself in which there is greater openness to self-scrutiny. It is less necessary, shall I say, to toe a "party line." Neither Slovakia, nor Slovak ethnicity, is static. The focus of this paper is on large-scale social institutions as vehicles of continuity and change in meaning systems. Among SlovakAmericans, religious and fraternal organizations have served for nearly a century as articulators of cultural meaning, first reflecting the relatively uniform cultural system brought from Slovakia, later becoming increasingly removed from the very real pluralism of the Slovak-American population for whom they claim to speak. Both ethnographic research in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania (conducted intensively 1970-1972, and intermittently through the present) and documentary study have provided both an understanding of the dynamics within local churches and fraternal society lodges, and a picture of Slovak-American religion and voluntary association on the national scale. Ethnographic study in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania, especially the mill-cities of McKeesport and Duquesne, include participant obsevation at, and interviews with members of, the following religious and fraternal groups: parishes of Slovak Roman Catholic Latin Rite, Slovak and Ruthenian Roman Catholic Byzantine Rite, Slovak Independent Catholic Rite, Slovak Lutheran Rite; the First Catholic Slovak Union, Zivena, the Slovak League, Slovak Catholic Sokol, Sokol USA, National Slovak Society, Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Evangelical Union. I obtained valuable ethnographic and demographic data from interviews and documentary sources at the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, and with officers of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Zion Synod-Lutheran Church of America. A careful study of old and recent fraternal newspapers and annual Kalendars, often stored not in official archives but in cabinets and basements, permitted comparison of ethnohistory recon- �56 SLOVAKIA structed from informants' current memory and self-presentation, with cultural meanings preserved in print.* Finally, actuarial data provided by the national offices of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and United Societies of USA permitted a comparison to be made between a necessarily selected sample in which values, attitudes, expectations, criteria and policies of admission and exclusion, and the like were expressed; and statistics of actual participation in or withdrawal from fraternal associations based on trends in membership as reflected in the purchasing and cashing-in of life insurance policies. Ethnographic research both at the local and supra-level simultaneously complemented, explained, and tested the data obtained from tables of parish and fraternal society membership. The reader is referred to the following Tables 1-4 which identify both on the national level and in the region of ethnographic study the major Slovak-American religious and fraternal institutions. ETHNOGRAPHIC BASE LINE The Slovak-American institutions discussed here stem from the migration of over some half-million Slovak peasants and landless peasants from 1880 until the mid-1920's (Zatko 1966: 45), that is, from the period of the Magyar development of a monetary, technologized, labor intensive economy in the 1870's, to the exclusionary American Emergency Quota Laws of 1921-24 and the Immigration Act of 1924, and the National Origins Act of 1929. Roughly 85 percent of the immigrants were Latin or Byzantine Rite Catholics, and 15 percent were Lutherans and Calvinists. The highest rate of migration was from the most impoverished and overpopulated regions of Slovakia, namely, the foothills of the Tatra and Carpathian Mountains (Jansak 1930). As an overall pattern, the earliest Slovaks came to the anthracite coal mining district of eastern Pennsylvania, while later Slovaks came to the mill towns in the "Steel Valley" of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and westward (Cleveland, Gary, Chicago). The greater Pittsburgh region remains the highest concentration of Slovak-Americans in the U.S. (some 29,000 immigrants; 35,000 foreign stock in 1930 Censu~ Klein 1938: 288; Roucek 1933-34: 614) . It is the location of the national offices of the National • These include Narodne Noviny, Jednota, The Greek Catholic Union Messenger, Prosvita, Katolicky Sokol, Sokol USA Times; annual fraternal yearbooks or Kalenddrs ; and the journals Slovakia (Slovak League) and Slovak Studies (Slovak Institute, Cleveland and Rome). �SLOVAKIA 57 TABLE 1 THE FOUNDING OF SOOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGION IN AMERICA I. Early Slovak Catholic Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Church in the Western Hemisphere, Hazleton, Penna., 1885 St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church* . .......... . (Cornerstone) Early Slovak Roman Catholic Churches in the Allentown, Penna. Diocese (anthracite coal mining area)* ................ . . . Bethlehem, Penna., 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius Saint Michael Archangel ... . .... . . . . .. . ..... Summit Hill, Langsford, Penna. , 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius .... . .. .... ....... . .Reading, Penna., 1896 First Slovak Catholic parish school ............ .. . . .Chicago, ID., 1900 Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak Sisterhood: Motherhouse established .................... ... Danville, Pa., 1901 High School for Girls established ........... . .... Danville, Pa., 1922 First Vincentian Sisters of Charity arrived from Slovakia to serve St. Michael's Parish ........ Braddock, Pa., 1902 Priests' Society of St. Anthony's Burse in the USA (to support students interested in teaching and Slovak girls preparing to be teaching nuns) .... Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1903 Benedictine High School for Boys . .. . . .... . . . ...... Cleveland, 1927 II. Early Slovak Lutheran Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Lutheran Church in the Western Hemisphere: Saints Peter and Paul .............. Freeland, Penna., first services: 1883; Church built: 1886. • Slovak Lutheran Synod (Missouri Synod) ............ 1902 Slovak Zion Synod (left Missouri Synod, joined United Lutheran Church of America founded in 1919) . . ......... . . .. . . . . ..... .. 1920 • Source: Katolicky Sokol, July 21, 1971 (published in Passaic, New Jersey) . Evidently, the founding of the first Slovak church in the western hemisphere is a matter of considerable controversy - and competition. Professor M. Mark Stolarik kindly informed me of the feud between St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and St. Stephen's in Streator, Illinois for the honor of being "the first" (which, incidentally, is a very American preoccupation!) . Professor Stolarik found the St. Stephen records several years ago and deposited them at the Immigrant Archives in Minnesota. Thus St. Stephen's can document its claim to having been founded in 1884. On the other hand, St. Joseph's burned down at the tum of the century, and its records were lost. Thus its claim to having been founded in 1884 cannot be documented . Professor Stolarik suggests that the editor of Katolicky Sokol, John Sciranka, my original source for the 1886 date , tended to favor the Hazleton parish since he was from Pennsylvania (again , ethnicity in a meta-context, this time localism) (personal communication, 9 September 1979) . �Passaic, N.J ., 1906 Cleveland, 1907 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1911 Slovak Catholic Sokol Slovak League of America Slovak Catholic Federation in America McKeesport, Pa ., 1902 Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1892 Freeland, Pa., 1893 New York, 1896 Greek Catholic Union Slovak Evangelical Union (since 1960: United Lut9eran Society) Sokol USA (orig.: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA) United Societies of USA (Sobranije) Cleveland, 1892 Cleveland, 1890 Cleveland ? Passaic, N.J . McKeesport Perth Amboy, N.J. Ligonier, Pa. Pittsburgh Cleveland Cleveiand Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious , political, fraternal Insurance, religious , cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, cultural, insurance, political, fraternal Insurance, religious (Greek Catholic), cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, religious (Roman Catholic), cultural, fraternal , insurance Political, cultural, religious Religious, political, cultural MAJOR NATIONALLY-BASED SLOVAK INSTITUTIONS Headquarters Place and Year Functions Pittsburgh, 1890 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal New York, 1891 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union 2ivena Beneficial Society (women's equivalent to National Slovak Society, last joint convention with NSS, 1901) First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) Name National Slovak Society TABLE2 > 7' > ~ r I.I) CX) V, �Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak National Catholic Church, McKeesport, founded 1922; name originally Saints Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church ; changed name to present in the late 1930's for legal purposes due to loss of church building during the Depression; affiliated throughout its history with the Polish National Catholic Church, and in the 1940's with the Congregational Church. St. Mark Lutheran Church, Duquesne, Pa. (serving Duquesne and McKeesport), founded 1913 ; name originally: Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Congregation of Duquesne; church bought 1920; joined Slovak Zion Synod of the United Lutheran Church of America 1934; Sunday school founded, use of English in teaching confirmation class 1940; earlier schism over non-use of English by acculturated families ; name changed to present in the 1950's, accompanied by change in by-laws to open church to Lutherans of all nationalities . St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church , founded 1901 ; name originally "Greek Catholic," changed to " Byzantine" in the 1960's; schism in 1939. SWVAK CHURCHES SERVING THE McKEESPORT AREA Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church, founded 1892; the name "Slovak" officially dropped in the 1960's; first church building purchased and enlarged 1895 ; schism in 1922. ., TABLE3 '° u, 7' > > ~ r Vl �SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS SERVING THE McKEESPORT PENNSYLVANIA AREA IN '' STEEL VALLEY'' Name Year Founded Membership, other comments Slovenskeho N. P. Spolok (Slovak December 16, 1888 Protestant or Catholic, but Slavic Sick Benefit Soc.) preceded the local lodge of the National Slovak Society, with which it merged in 1890 National Slovak Society, Lodge 31 1890 Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic mostly Slovak Jednota (First Catholic Slovak 1892 (women's lodge, Roman Catholic, Slovak Union) , Lodge 60 276 , formed later) Greek Catholic Union, Lodge 2 1892 Mostly Greek Catholic, but also Roman Catholic, Rusin, and Slovak United Societies of USA (Sobranije) , 1902 Schism within the Greek Catholic Union headquarters and Lodge 1 Sokol USA (Slovensky Sokol), Lodge 1903 (ladies assembly Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic 46 11, formed later) mostly Slovak Slovak Evangelical Union, Assembly 1899 Slovak Lutheran 63 (Duquesne , Pa. , serv~g McKeesport as well) Slovak Club , White Street Hall, 1896, sold to Catholic Fellowship, men's club , social, drinking McKeesport War Veterans 1970 activities First Federal Savings and Loan 1914 Association formed to assist Slovak workers Association of Homestead in obtaining funds to purchase a home ; Federal Charter 1937 ; branch offices in McKeesport (1964), Clairton (1969) ; and Braddock (1969) ; serves Monongahela Valley Communities; (originally names: First Slovak Building and Loan Association) TABLE4 > ;;,;; < > l/1 r 0 ~ �SLOVAKIA 61 Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies of USA. The town of Munhall, located in the Steel Valley, is the site of an eparchate or diocese of. the Byzantine Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Union, founded iq. 1892 in Wilkes-Barre, Penna. , the heart of the anthracite mining region, moved its headquarters in 1910 to the Steel Valley. Although one's place of settlement was greatly influenced by the availability of desirable work, the type of work one sought, and the reasons for choosing that work (originally, to amass greater wealth so that one could return to one's home and village and live better with higher status), it was also strongly influenced by the location of prior immigrant kinsmen, village associates, and even more remotely "related" compatriots of the same geographic, political, and dialect district or iupa - who in tum could advise prospective emigrants of the labor market. Mining and factory towns were not arbitrarily populated by people identifying with the abstract term ' 'Slovak.'' Instead, members of the same village or of adjacent villages commonly sought to live with one another in the New World. Indeed, "ethnicity" changed meanings in the process of settlement in the United States: expanding from more localized, inter-village loyalties, and reciprocal obligation, to supra-local ties based on common religion, dialect, and finally to the emergence in America of an encompassing sense of national "Slovakness" that heretofore had never existed (cf. Gould 1970). It was only after a national sense of identity became established (and this, tenuously, because of the intense factionalism among Slovaks) that the appeal of . President Wilson and Secretary of State House during World War I to Slovak nationalism was possible. A document such as the ' ' Pittsburgh Pact" was thus heretofore unthinkable. Any conceptually neat separation of religion (or churches) from fratemalism is heuristically spurious. Indeed, the history of Slovak religion and mutual benefit societies encompasses the spectrum of alliance and schism, and between them, conflict. The history of the relationship between the two types of associations is the history of each. Moreover, both types of organizations are firmly rooted in east-central European social structure. The village organization functioned much like a vastly extended family, in which kin and extra-kin ties of reciprocity were part of the fabric of everyday life . A group-psychology of community solidarity bound the village tightly together. Even the collapse of manorialism in the mid-19th century did not obliterate this essentially pre-Magyar ethno-psychology. One might say that it functioned preadaptively in the American host environment, and facilitated the earliest " insurance" and cultural- �62 SLOVAKIA perpetuative efforts. After all, the extended family was one's life, accident, and sickness "insurance." There was litsrally no conception of the "individual" apart from the family, church, and village group. Fitzpatrick (1966) correctly identifies Euro-American ethnic communities as bridges or "beachheads" to the wider host society (see also Nelli, 1970). Likewise, Anderson notes "the capacity voluntary associations have to facilitate the transition of individuals and societies to participation in the modem world" (1971:216). He further proposes that ' 'the new associations seem founded to meet needs not previously the responsibility of any older organization" (Ibid.). As this paper will emphasize, however, the new associations built on the firm foundations of elements within traditional organizations; the change lay in the repatterning of those elements - a repatteming which, I might add, has been continuous. I wish to stress that there is nothing automatic, inherently ''natural,' ' or inevitable about the Slovak-American adaptation. The need for "survival" does not explain how or why a particular "survival strategy" for "problem solving" is adopted. Stated differently, it is not the stimulus situation of the stress, but the meaning of the stress and the individual or group characteristic response to it that determines the type of adaptation that will be made (La Barre, 1972; Stein and Hill, 1979). One must inquire both into the nature of the new environment and into the cultural tools a group adapts with. "Necessity" by itself does not explain the "invention" (see Light 1972) . The Slovak-American inventions, themselves variations on traditional psychosocial organization, values, and worldview, must be regarded as preadaptations within the cultural repertoire by which the Slovaks recapitulated much of the Old World in the New (see Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) . The traditional ethos determined both how new " necessities" were perceived and the group-organizational responses based on those perceptions. I cannot here pursue in detail the thorny question as to just what " is" a Slovak. Suffice it to say that the approach taken in this paper is essentially " emic": that is, Slovak based on self-identification and / or ancestry. Thus, for instance, there are several thousand Slovak-Americans, Catholic and Lutheran, whose most ~ediate ancestry traces to Croatia rather than northern Hungary. In the mid:17th century aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian expulsion of the Turks, Maria Theresa invited those peoples inhabiting the already overpopulated Hungarian northlands to migrate to the newly opened land. For the most part, these Slovaks remained Slovaks. Identifying the "ethnic" boundary between Slovaks and Rusins or �SLOVAKIA 63 Ruthenians of far eastern Slovakia, southern Galicia, and the western Ukraine is a far stickier matter (see Stein, 1972) . Indeed, many who are Rusin in ancestry, but who lived in what was geopolitically Slovakia, became accultured insidiously through daily contact with the more westernized Slovaks, through the influence of the Latin and Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic Churches, through the centralizing tendencies of Vienna, and last but not least through affiliation and identification with Slovaks following migration to the United States - that is, many became Slovaks in the U.S. I Over at least the past three centuries, the "ethnic boundary" between Slovaks and Rusins has been progressing further eastward. Had the great immigration taken place two centuries ago, virtually all the immigrants would have been of Byzantine Catholic or Orthodox faith and Rusin ethnicity! To the religious conflict must be added, especially since the World War I era, a conflict of nationalisms and proto-nationalisms. Among the permutations of the conflict: (1) Many Ukrainian nationalists insist that eastern ''Slovaks'' and "Rusins" do not exist, but in fact are Ukrainians; (2) Slovakia has undertaken a program of attempting to Slovakize the remaining Rusins; (3) Both the conflict over ethnic identity and the gradual process of Slovakization of Rusins has taken place in the U.S. (a) in such organizations as the Greek Catholic Union and the United Societies of USA, and (b) through the continued process of Latinization whereby many Greek or Byzantine Catholics joined Slovak Latin Rite parishes. A considerable official literature (see Lacko 1963) prepared by the Slovak Institute of Cleveland, Ohio and Rome, Italy is devoted to demonstrating that Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, in Europe and America, are bona fide Slovaks and Catholics. Many Slovak peasant immigrants and their children passionately argued the same point (Stein 1972). The author's justification for including such organizations as Byzantine Rite churches, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies as Slovak is that (a) by self-identification many of their officers, priests, and members speak of themselves as Slovaks, and (b) ethnicity is a process, not a static given. THE FOUNDING OF SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS For the most part, the Slovak-American fraternal societies began in the 1880's through the early 1900's as self-help, mutual assistance organizations. The arrangement of regular social activities such as dances , plays, gymnastic groups, and literary clubs, and the organiza- �64 SLOVAKIA tion, construction, and support of Slovak parishes followed later. In all earnestness I emphasize that the link between fraternal and church lay in their division of labor: the fraternal association would first establish insurance in this world; the church would become the guarantor of insurance in the next world. The most immediate needs were mortuary funds, land for the burial of the dead, and death-sickness-and-accident insurance for workers and their families in the U.S. and Slovakia. The new "foreign" dead were often unwelcome in established cemetaries. Slovak burial societies were formed to purchase separate tracts of land, often on the periphery of the town, a considerable distance from the burial sites of the dominant population. Slovak work life was chronically uncertain by the absence of stable unionization in the steel mills until 1936 and thereafter. Wages were low (though admittedly, the immigrant laborers earning a living unheard of in their villages of origin). Periods of steady work fluctuated with periods of layoff. Working conditions were contemptously hazardous. The management of the factories and mines provided no assistance for the injured or for the families of workers killed or maimed on the job. The urban Slovak-American "peasantry" experienced much the same basic insecurity as did they and their progenitors on the manorial latifundia or as landless workers. In one sense, conditions were worse, because in the American capitalistentrepreneurial system there was no personal bond of reciprocity and obligation between manorial lord and serf - although, however, the political system of patronage in the urban wards perpetuated at least an attenuated version of this function. For those immigrants who discovered themselves to be outside the civil and moral community of those recognized as ''Americans,'' the organization of burial-deathaccident-and-sick benefit societies was a means of reconstructing a community. In employment as with religion, Slavic-Americans were for the most part seen as outside the domain of civic and religious responsibilities. This led in tum to a defensive attitude toward American society, even as the belief in the American Dream strongly persisted. Exclusion from without led to a degree of defensive self-exclusion from within. The "enclave mentality," heir to a heightened self-" consciousness of kind," was a product of ethnic-American conflict, not simple cultural transplantation. I am tempted to suggest that much on the organizational level which we might mistake for w~at was traditionally native has a distinctively nativistic quality to it. , For instance, in one multi-Slavic fraternal club, the early by-laws �SLOVAKIA 65 specified that only members of Slavic ethnic groups could qualify as members and be permitted on the premises of the club. This qualification arose as a response to the fact that representatives of the mill management would attend meetings incognito, sit at the bar, listen for comments by dissident millworkers, and report them to the management which would summarily fire them for potential insubordination. A first-generation Catholic Slovak-American who came to the United States in the late 1920's said of the Slovak Club of McKeesport, Pennsylvania (a large mill town): The Slovak Club 's By-Laws were written in 1896. Only Slavs were accepted. You had to: you didn 't know who' s your enemy in those days. Johnny Bulls, or the Irish, might be in there, before the ByLaws were adopted . If you said anything against somebody, they report you. The only way to make sure you could speak your mind and not be afraid was to make the By-Laws . Ethnic " elective affinity" was more out of forced circumstance than choice . Those who were regarded and treated as the same created a survival strategy, becoming far more homogeneous in the process than they might had the constraints been fewer . Let me give two brief examples of the hierarchy of functions in the early fraternals . My first example is Lodge No. 2 of the Greek Catholic Union. Prior to regulation of insurance fraternals by the actuarial rules of the Pennsylvania State Insurance Department in the 1920' s, a member would pay $1.00 monthly dues for the mortuary fund and for death benefits to family , the latter of which is derived by subtracting the mortuary costs from the principal. The $1.00 formal dues would be collected from every member regardless of age or age of joining. In addition to the formally recorded $1.00 , he would pay 3 cents a month for relief benefit , so that, for instance, if he lost an arm in a mill accident he would receive $500 . An additional local assessment was 5 cents monthly for sickness benefit, which provided for food and bought medicine when the member could not work because of poor health. Today, this latter has become a " flower fund " to provide flowers at the funeral of a member or a member 's spouse. Any further needs were met by proportionate assessment of the membership . A second example is that of the Slovak Sick Benefit Society, organized in McKeesport in 1888, and which in 1890 merged with the founding of Lodge No. 31 of the National Slovak Society. This local organization collected monthly dues of $1.00 for males . In addition to the regular dues , if a man died , the men paid $1.00 ; if a woman died, the women paid 50 cents extra - for funeral expenses , given to the sur- �66 SLOVAKIA vivor of the deceased. At that time, the sick benefit was $6.00 a week for 13 weeks . After 13 weeks, up to the 21st week, $3.00 a week was given. After the 21st, nothing. The main economic function was to assist those who became sick or suffered an accident in the mill, since at this time there existed neither a union nor a commitment by management to provide such benefits. The Society also had something of an ambulatory service: two members of the society visited the sick person, or went to the scene of the accident, and took him to the hospital, to his home, or where he could be given proper care. While in their initial phase, ethnic fraternals were a response to the often hostile host environment, voluntary associations were long an inescapable part of the American social landscape. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830's, resiliently self-reliant Americans were also habitual joiners. This may help to explain how and why initially exclusive self-preservation societies became internally acculturated clubs and lodges at the local and national levels. That is to say, they became largely American cultural organizations with ethnic ancestry. Criteria for membership became ethnically less restrictive. At the same time, there occurred a gradual yet massive attrition of membership in the totemic Slovak-ethnic associations, and an equally gradual yet dramatic increase in membership by the same Slovak-Americans in lower middle class totemic American clubs such as Eagles, Moose, Elks; such service related groups as Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Catholic War Veterans ; employment related union clubs; and finally local public or private restaurant-bar-entertainment clubs. While there has certainly been, especially in the 1940's and 1960's, considerable compartmentalizing of membership, dual allegiance, something of voluntaristic "double descent, " at the present time American fratemalism has already been the dominant trend. In fact many Slovak-Americans with whom I worked who still maintain their fraternal insurance policies do so for economic reasons; their fraternal affiliation lies elsewhere. Originally, in the ethnic enclave, one's kinship network, resources, and the fraternal were one' s insurance. When the ethnic community network itself was one 's guaranteed insurance, there was no need for a separate entity labeled " insurance, " let alone insurance policies outside that community. Only as many ties within the corporate ethnic community were attenuated or severed cl.id the need arise for American style individual insurance coverage. And only since World War II did the originally multiple functional fraternal societies become primarily insurance companies, that is, businesses. In both cases, American as well as ethnic insurance companies served both instrumental (eco- �SLOVAKIA 67 nomic) and expressive (ethos) functions: security by affiliation in the ethnic sense, and self-reliance in the American sense. THE PROBLEM OF PERPETUATION AND ACCULTURATION IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS During the first and second decades of each of the fraternal organizations, the emphasis gradually shifted from immediate self-help requirements to more long-range, future-oriented plans associated with revitalizing Slovak culture in America. Whereas the initial years were preoccupeid with self-preservation, the subsequent years became concerned with perpetuation. The insurance / protective aspects were incorporated in a wider institutional framework that elaborated on the traditional cultural model. Once Slovak immigrants decided to make America their permanent home, churches were founded and supported, Sokol gymnastic programs were initiated, and so forth. It quickly became evident to the founding generation that something must be done to enlist the younger generation in these activities or institutions lest Slovak culture disappear with the passing of the first generation. The younger generation must be socialized into the new institutions and activities the immigrant parents had founded. Thus each fraternal organization instituted a juvenile branch or age grade to prepare the younger generation for adult membership. There were thus established two age sets within each fraternal, the adult and the juvenile. Subsequently, most fraternals also added a Sokol or gymnastic branch (if they were not already Sokol fraternals), originally intended as a middle age grade, but which became an adult unit on par with the "General" or "Adult" branch. The lower age limit for transfer from juvenile to the adult branch seems to be 16-18 in the Greek Catholic Union, and the upper age limit is 25 in the National Slovak Society. Typically, a parent would buy a life insurance policy for an infant shortly after birth and pay for the policy until the child's majority. At that time the former junior member would become a responsible adult member, transfer his or her policy to the adult branch, and begin paying for it himself or herself. Thus was the problem of continuity initially solved. For the third and fourth generations continuity was not so readily assured. Many of the second and third generations themselves withdrew or terminated their own policies and did not enroll their children. Many immigrant and second generation informants spoke bitterly of how they felt that officers of their fraternals had used their position for �68 SLOVAKIA self-advancement (internal mobility?), pocketed some of the dues, especially during the pre-1920 days prior to state-enforced bookkeeping, and terminated members' policies or foreclosed on home mortgages during the Great Depression days when dues were not forthcoming (the internal transformation from personalized ties to impersonalized business venture). In some families where the children had been dutifully enrolled in infancy, the children took advantage of the fact that the parents paid for the juvenile policies, and upon reaching majority or "going out on their own," they turned in the policy for cash value, and enrolled themselves later in large "American" insurance companies. With large-scale industrial unionization in the mid- and late-1930's and the opening up of "American" insurance corporations to the now'' American'' descendants of the ''foreigners,'' many of the purely economic insurance functions fulfilled by the ethnic fraternals were replaced by more attractive, sounder economic policies elsewhere. As the lodges have been losing young and elderly members, the middle-aged members have become the core of their lodges, and those who will be perpetuating them will, like their counterparts in the Americanized Slovak churches, be those who have transformed their lodges and their athletics according to the model of the American prototype. With the great decrease in membership and hence in lodge population, lodge consolidation (GCU, United Societies, NSS) and the widening of intervals between meetings have taken place. Where a lodge meeting until the late 1930's was an enormous and lively social affair, often coordinated with a meal or a play in Slovak, since the Second World War it has become a cut-and-dry business meeting, where members stream in and out, pay their dues, often bring the dues of a friend or two with him (or with her), the older ones stopping to chat with a friend or two in Slovak - and then leave. The monthly business meeting of Jednota Lodge No. 60 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania usually keeps ten listeners besides the six officers and collectors at their long table. During the monthly meetings of the Sokol, the ULS, and the NSS, a table of officers sits in a room of empty chairs in the Slovak Club. Occasionally members drift in and out. The local lodge of the United Societies no longer meets; members brin~ in their dues or mail them in. Likewise for lodges of the GCU. The ULS lodge in Duquesne in 1970 changed its monthly meeting to bimonthly, because, as one officer said: "There's no use sitting down there at the empty church all afternoon every month waiting for a few people to show up." In the early 1970's, over 75 percent of the 1,300 GCU lodges were inactive. For the important annual meeting at which officials were to be elected at GCU Homestead Lodge No. 2 in 1971, only 15 of the 160 members attended. �SLOVAKIA 69 \ To this should be added that only one of the Slovak fraternal lodges in McKeesport presently has any social or athletic program. Jednota Ladies' Lodge No. 276 has a bowling team, which members from Lodge No. 60 and the nearby borough of Port Vue can join. Lodge No. 60 dropped its bowling team in 1956. Bookkeeping changes have consolidated the Sokol and General Branches of the lodges. Today they function as little more than local insurance agents and collectors. All the national offices of the Slovak fratemals modernized and streamlined their policies to make membership attractive to those of the younger generation for whom Slovakness was not a major attraction, and further, to attract non-Slovaks. To a considerable extent, present-day Slovak fratemals are primarily modem insurance com· panies which would like to stay in business. The fact that all of them are far over the required solvency guarantees nothing about the future, for which they are greatly concerned. As the national president of the GCU remarked to me: The way things are now, it's only a matter of time before the GCU is finished. Sure we have an excellent solvency. But without new members, it's just on borrowed time. You just can't rely on monetary figures alone to tell you how we're doing. Of course we're in good financial shape, but that's because today people buy bigger policies - you can't pay for a funeral for $1000 today. Most of our policies are naturally larger, and the figure they give for assets ... would lead you to believe that we're doing great. That's the way the older ones felt. They always looked at the status quo and never at anything else. (1972) Of course the schism in the 1930's cost the GCU half of its more than 135,000 membership, which crisis did not occur in the other Slovak (and Slovak / Rusin) organizations. Nevertheless the same gradual decline in activity and membership has been the experience and plague of every Slovak fraternal. Slovak-American officials at the national level frequently speak of consolidating the adult, juvenile, and Sokol branches for fiscal reasons and because of poor attendance at meetings. They likewise speak of merging lodges for similar reasons, with the hope that perhaps with greater numbers the fraternal spirit may be rekindled. But they are pessimistic and in offhand, tentative ways consider the possibility of merging not only lodges within a given fraternal, but combining many Slovak-American fratemals under a single economic umbrella - anything that will help the solvency problem and postpone the inevitable disappearance of insurance fratemalism. Everywhere in Slovak-American fratemalism, the number of purchased insurance certificates is far �70 SLOVAKIA fewer than the number of deaths, maturities, disabilities, expirations, surrenders, and lapses of policies. Beyond founding the churches, many of the church-affiliated fraternals remain a major support of the church, both financially and by requiring that their members are practitioners of the faith in good standing (for instance, Jednota). Lodge meetings are held in the church (Jednota, United Societies, Slovak Catholic Sokol, GCU), rather than the secular Slovak Hall (where the Sokol USA, NSS, and ULS McKeesport lodges meet). Except for the Lutheran group (whose Duquesne counterpart does meet in the Slovak Lutheran church), the non-religious affiliated groups meet in secular settings, while the religiousaffiliated groups meet in church halls under the aegis of the priest. Until World War II, most of the Slovak fraternal groups at the local and national levels supported the political activity of the Slovak League of America, a non-fraternal, political-cultural group organized to publicize and lobby for the cause of Slovak independence (first in relation to the Hungarians, and later the Czechs). Its stress on Catholicity, its demands for Slovak separatism (rather than federated autonomy), and its support for the politically active Slovak priests Hlinka and Tiso of the Slovak People 's Party during the Nazi period alienated from it the support of the non-Catholic Sokols and the National Slovak Society. Presently, the Slovak League is primarily affiliated with, and is somewhat the political arm of, the First Catholic Slovak Union. All, however, collaborated in the period from 1907 (the year of the League's founding) throughout the First World War and in the early postwar period, toward the founding of the (First) Republic of Czecho-Slovakia (as the Slovaks prefer to spell it). The Slovak Catholic priesthood has always been at odds with the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, frequently accusing its members of being atheists and communists. The latter, however, have historically supported Slovak national aspirations, though apart from any religious considerations. This is reflected in the membership of the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, where only Slav-ness, not religion, was a qualification for membership. As a consequence, the Slovak Catholic (Latin and Byzantine Rite) religious dissidents, as well as Slovak Protestants , tended to gravitate to the Slovensky Sokol, and the NSS rather than to Jednota or the Katolicky Sokol. Furthermore, the -0verlap in membership equally relfects this distinction. Members would mosi; likely belong to Katolicky Sokol. Slovak Lutherans , of course , would join the Slovensky Sokol and the NSS. The above politico-religious concerns , however, refer only to the �SLOVAKIA 71 \ older and middle age groups, who are the mainstay of the fraternal organizations. For the younger age group, under 36, Slovak national concerns are for the most part a matter of ancestry rather than immediacy. Apart from religious issues, criteria of membership in Slovak fraternals have during the past decades gradually become less exclusivistic. In the early by-laws, Slovak birth or descent was usually specified (together with a particular religious affiliation, where relevant). By the period following World War I, membership was widened to those of Slavic origin or ancestry (with religious specificity, where relevant). In 1937 the NSS extended membership to non-Slovak spouses married to Slovak members and their children. In the 1930's, the GCU extended membership to spouses so long as the spouse was Catholic. In the 1960's, membership in the Catholic organization was opened to Catholics of any nationality, while in the non-religious affiliated Slovak-American fratemals membership was opened to "anyone," implicitly or explicitly referring to whites of Christian faith. A young officer of the GCU said that he would like to see a change in bylaws that would open the organization to all Christians, removing the restriction to Catholics. Accompanying the opening of membership has been a gradual change in the organizations' names, first from the full length Slovak name to a shortened name, normally one word from the full name (Jednota from the First Catholic Slovak Union, Sobranije from the Greek Catholic Union). Then from the 1930's and on, the English title became more important and today predominates. Names became less European-sounding: the Slovak Evangelical Union became in 1960 the United Lutheran Society; the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA became Sokol USA. The young official of the GCU mentioned above suggested that if membership were opened to all Christians, he would like to see the name of the organization officially changed to the initials GCU only, and later "we might call it the Greater Beneficial Union / the name changed from German Beneficial Union / no, that's the GBU ... but you know what I mean.'' The direction then, would be that of an American-sounding name. Similar to this trend has been that from Slovak (or Rusin and Eastern Slovak in the Greek Catholic organizations) to English in the official publications or newspapers of fratemals. The newspapers themselves were founded shortly after the organization of the fratemals and were entirely in Slovak (with the above distinction). At the beginning of the 1930's, under pressure of the American-born membership, pages began to be devoted to stories, articles, and announcements in the �72 SLOVAKIA English language. It should be added, however, that from the days of World War I, all of the papers and English-language sections were on American history, patriotism, the American constitution, government, and citizenship. By the 1950's, 50 percent and more of the space was in the English language. For instance, after the 1964 Milwaukee Convention of Sokol USA, Slovensky Sokol devoted 76 percent of its space to English material. At the 1966 National Convention in Tampa, through an act of the General Assembly of the convention, the name of the official publication was changed from Slovensky Sokol to Sokol Times, and the paper is now entirely English-language, as is that of the United Societies, Prosvita (Enlightenment). Nevertheless, such papers as Jednota, Katolicky Sokol, and the GCU Messenger are half-English, halfSlovak; Narodne Noviny is about 25 percent Slovak. What I emphasize here is the overall direction of change. The annual Kalendar or Yearbook of the Greek Catholic Union provides an excellent and generalizable source by which changes since the first decade of the 20th century can be observed and traced. I examined the annual Kalendar of the GCU spanning the years 1903 through 1972 (with considerable gaps in the 1930's and 1940's due to schism within the society over the issue of clerical celibacy). Although the GCU was founded in 1892, the oldest available Kalendar in storage was that of 1903. The following table gives the title on the cover, a summary of advertisements which reflect contemporary issues (migration, home owning, etc.), the nature of written characters for non-English sections (Latin or Cyrillic), subjects of early essays on Americanization (1903-1932), and the language employed by the exarch / bishop in his introductory message. By the late 1960's, at least half of the Kalendar (totaling in the 1960's 90 pages) was in English. (See Table 6). To summarize the table: Through the 1930's, there were advertisements in the Kalendar for such goods and services as banks, saloons, hotel, liquors, a variety of medicinal cures, boat tickets, home building (financing, mortgages, titles, etc.), shipping from overseas, etc. Essays were written on such subjects as American history (including praiseworthy accounts of American founding heroes and legendary leaders), an explanation of American government and how to participate in it, why and how to obtain citizenship, descriptions of the nature of the population and geography of the United States, accounts of farming in the United States and of technolo~cal innovations from the zeppelin through the airplane. Considerable space was likewise devoted to a description of the Slovak-Rusin homeland, culture, religious �SLOVAKIA 73 \ customs, etc. Although much of the writing through the 1930's was in eastern Slovak-Rusin dialect and written in either or both Cyrillic and Latin characters, English was used in essays on American history and government as early as 1905, when the article was printed in both languages. Americanization, more specifically, bridge-building between the insular ethnic world and the more expanding American world, was one of the major early agendas of the fraternals. Americanization was also one of the major points of stress between traditionalists and acculturationists that led to attrition of membership and schism in churches and fraternals alike. On the one hand, the Polish National Catholic Church and the Slovak National Catholic Church, a variety of independent Rusin-eastern, Slovak-western, and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, and the United Societies of USA (among others) broke with their Americanizing-Irishizing-Latinizing denationalizing parent organizations and became bastions of tradition (e.g., in liturgy, in customs, etc.) - only to acculturate internally. On the other hand, even the most traditionalist societies zealously urged Americanization both by exhortation and by the example of its leadership - including the clergy. SCHISM, DECLINE, AND CULTURE Let me use several nodal points in the history of the Greek Catholic Union to illustrate the convulsions to which conflict between the acculturationists and traditionalists led. The GCU schism of 1902 led to the founding of a new fraternal association, the United Societies of USA (Sobranije). At the 1902 Convention of the Greek Catholic Union, there was strong debate over whether or not the largely Magyarone RusinSlovak clergy leadership would be permitted to retain their official position, since they insisted on remaining citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary. The convention overwhelmingly voted that henceforth all officers of the GCU would have to be American citizens. Moreover, there was a long-standing resentment against domination of Slovak or Rusin parishioners by a Magyar or Magyarone clergy. In Hungary, the laity could do nothing about it. But in America, former peasants could vote out those who were either of the Hungarian aristocracy or had used the church - and ethnic assimilation - as a means of social mobility. The orientation toward a secular leadership made the process complete: the Byzantine Catholic laity of the fraternal would be a strong supporter of the Church but would not be its tool. The United Societies of USA, conversely, retained priests among �.. .. ... .. .. .. . .. .. • • ---- ___________ KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOIJC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES. GEORGE BATYKO) Message by Advertisements Written Exarch I Characters Bishop Year Cyrillic Slovak Rus. Eng. Early Americanization Topics Cover Title - -- - - - - - - Amerikansko-Russko- J ·1903 Banks• , Saloons, Slovensky Kalendar Hotels , Liquors , Medical Cures , • Boat Tickets• Am. History (Rusin) 1904 • Amerikansky-Russko- 1905 Am. Government (Rusin & English) • Slovensky Kalendar Am. fanning, airplane, zeppelin 1909 (Eng.) Amerikansko-Russko- 1914 Banking-Shipping•, Am . Hist. (Rus .), population • Slovensky Kalendar Cures, Liquors of U. S. (Eng.) Banking•• Sokola Sojedinenija Citizenship / naturalization / 1921 • • govt. (Eng.) ,, Am. Hist., govt., loyalty, how Banking** 1924 • to use checking (Eng.) Kai. Soj . Gr. Kaft. 1926 Banking**, Financing, Russkich Bratstv. Home Building, y • • Religious Publications Am . Hist. , govt. (Rus.) , Cit. / 1932 Title & Mortgage Nat. (Eng.) Guarantee co., • • Banks , Boat Tick...,.. ets, Medical Cures K. Gr. Kaft. Sod . none 1953 S. S. A. • 1955 • • TABLE5 > A > < r 0 V, .:,. '-I �" " " " " " 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 Gr. Kaft. Sod . S.S. A . " " " " " " " " " " Message by Exarch I B ishop • • . . . • . • ..• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . .• . Cyrillic_ Slovak Eng . . Early Americanization Topics - -- - - - Rus. Written Characters • Rovnianek (Pittsburgh) in particular •• Money orders, drafts, credit, savings , import, interest *** Diamond Jubilee Almanac GCU Calendar GCU of USA*** Gr. Kaft. Sod . v S. S. A. GCU Calendar " " " " " 1956 D. Gr . Kaft. Sod. S.S. A. " First Federal S&L of Homestead none Year -- Cover Title Advertisements KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOLIC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES . GEORGE BATYKO) TABLE 5 (Continued) ., Vl 'I )> A < )> r 0 V) �76 SLOVAKIA its officials through the present; its birth dates from when a number of delegates walked out of the GCU convention in 1902 and founded its first church-affiliated lodge in McKeesport. At the height of its membership in the mid-1920's, United Societies counted some 27,000 in its adult and juvenile branches. By 1970, the last year for which actuarial figures were made available to me, membership had declined to 5,600; since 1930, membership enrollment by young adults has precipitously declined . (See the following Tables 6 -9 assembled from the actuarial records of the United Societies of USA, public domain.) Within the GCU during the intervening years, a second, even more dramatic schism took place in the 1930's over the issue of priestly celibacy - reflecting the conflict between the traditionalists, who argued in favor of a married priesthood and the acculturationists or ''Latinizers ," who advocated clerical celibacy. While no documented figures were available to me, a number of informants agreed that some 60,000 to 70,000 members, or roughly half the membership, defected. The GCU had been organized in 1892; the Juvenile Branch in 1906; the Gymnastic Branch in 1910. It totals some 1,300 lodges and is licensed as an insurance corporation in 12 states (United Societies, in 6). At the height of membership in 1929, the GCU numbered some 60,000 members in its General or Adult Branch, 20,000 in its Falcon Branch, and 65,000 in its Juvenile Branch. The cataclysm which cost the GCU half its membership occurred in 1929. As early as 1924, the Pope had dispatched Bishop Takach back to the United States with instructions that married priests , common in the Byzantine Rite in Europe, were not to be ordained. However, ordination continued for several years through what were described as "loopholes. " In 1929 came a specific papal decree, Cum Data, forbidding the ordination of married priests in the United States. This finalization led to the immediate defection of thousands of GCU members. If this were not earthquake enough, during the 1920's all ethnic fratemals in Pennsylvania were brought under the increasingly strict regulation of the Insurance Department, which consequence was an immediate precipitous drop in the membership of all Slovak-American insurance-related fratemals. Members could no longer be assessed equally, and amounts collected varied from month to month on the basis of the past month's claims, but were rate\f according to the National Fraternal Congress table of "attained age a~ June, l, 1933." That is, members were required to pay on the basis of age, with premiums increasing with age . The new rates were adopted in June 1932 by the GCU. The National Slovak Society and the men 's and ladies' divisions �0 4 5 12 35 51 68 51 42 10 12 28 49 69 83 82 77 88 75 0 70 1 85+ 0 0 0 1 ., 0 1 1 0 6 1 4 7 18 29 15 35 33 34 69 80 0 1 In the Adult Branches, the Falcon and Main Branches have always been combined for bookkeeping purposes . 2 This figure gives the total membership in United Societies . It should be noted that at age 16, one is eligible to transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch (Main or Falcon) . One may transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch between the 16th and 18th birthday. 3 The report for 1950 was missing, so the 1949 figures were used instead . 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. This means that it is no longer possible to compare membership at ages 16 and 18 in the Juvenile Branch with that in the Adult Branch. 5 An e xplanation for the increase lies in the adoption by the United Societies of the Byzantine Life Savings policy in August, 1968. It is a policy that is sold by agents of the United Societies, an effort to expand the boundaries of fratemalism on a more traditionally commercial basis . It is a 21-year savings program, which one may enter up to age 45 . At the end of the 21 years, the money is returned to the policy owner. Its advantage is that it is insured savings, although the insurance coverage decreases with each year. For the older people , it provides the certainty of a little income . United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports (Penna., Ohio, New Jersey , West Virginia, etc.) Membership: Adult and Juvenile ADULT: MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES! Membership per attained age categories Total : Adult & Total : Year Juvenile2 Adult 55 60 65 16 18 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 46 16 3 8652 135 128 131 236 272 367 279 185 1924 565 275 212 1926 346 517 1928 55 28 1930 19339 10159 320 372 342 114 135 227 254 290 233 191 70 153 186 227 165 122 30 7472 61 127 177 120 1935 13393 36 41 86 85 51 41 111 152 192 135 92 1940 8857 5464 7 59 70 51 73 130 151 145 49 76 106 107 99 1945 7399 5235 18 19493 48 67 69 86 63 57 58 146 133 130 6285 4739 4 18 19554 43 72 44 46 54 82 78 82 56 65 106 107 5472 25 76 89 47 43 5290 68 52 44 15 55 57 97 1960 73 78 42 37 17 27 53 46 41 1965 4812 90 63 50 19705 47 45 5628 101 60 52 38 99 107 129 118 40 27 - TABLES "" )> A < )> Vl r 0 �,,.. - 63 60 101 52 44 5456 91 613 237 231 18 68 90 16 348 418 191 299 153 93 72 6 This figure is for age 17, as it is the last listed, no figure being given for age 18 in the Juvenile Branch. 7 See Note . 4 on previous page . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Membership: Adult and Juvenile JUVENILE BRANCH Membership per attained age categories Total Year Juvenile 0 1 2 10 1928 201 282 549 672 1930 9180 183 426 647 1935 5921 301 456 1940 3393 45 47 48 195 1945 2164 32 81 64 134 1949 1546 28 28 40 62 48 81 51 50 19557 1960 133 150 84 69 1965 33 74 80 88 1970 9 31 30 83 TABLE7 > )> ;ii;;: < r 0 V') 0:, " �1 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted Ond Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. W - Written Rev. - Revived Rec . - Received Iner. - Increased Mat. - Maturity Surr. - Surrender Dec . - Decrease Exp. - Expiry Other - non-specified (However, for 1935, I would suspect that the 81 in this category belong elsewhere, probably in 'Surrender.') United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches ADULT: (se e below for abbreviations) - - MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES Benefit Certificates . . . In force In force Dec . 31 Dec. 31 Year last yr. W this yr. Death Lapse Rev . Rec. Iner. Surr. Dec. Exp. Other -Mat. 1925 14908 2220 15574 133 1524 103 1926 15574 3833 18141 145 1121 1928 10704 11102 114 10313 1930 527 77 10159 . 652 1 1935 7534 279 80 7472 89 332 81 5621 1940 80 15 5464 98 154 1945 5296 139 4 5235 93 91 20 1949 4864 47 4739 113 23 35 1 19551 5356 360 5472 105 19 86 34 5514 1960 217 5290 108 248 41 44 1965 4907 160 4812 103 74 16 36 26 1970 5054 599 193 5628 91 91 30 5 1 TABLES ~ "'° 7' > > < Vl r 0 �1702 81 16 723 2g3 Transfer 1 The figures for the Juvenile Branch list only up to age 16, so it is ambiguous as to whether Juveniles past their 16th birthday are included in tne figure of 9401. 2 transfer to Falcon Branch . 3 transfer to Senior (Main) Branch. 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches JUVENILE BRANCH: Benefit Certificates In force In force Dec . 31 Received Dec . 31 Terminated b1: last yr. by transfer Increased this yr. Year Written Revived Death Lapse 19281 9401 884 49 42 1930 9239 9180 810 968 1935 6384 597 5921 11 7 470 1940 3740 136 10 3393 223 1945 2356 115 2164 12 1949 1636 60 1546 1 120 19554 1960 1965 ,,, . 1970 - TABLE9 > 7' > ~ r (./') ~ �SLOVAKIA 81 of the First Catholic Slov~ Union (Jednota) had been the first to comply in 1930. The state requirement of solvency was reflected in high premiums for the older members who, in the Depression years, could not pay. Each insurance company had to make up the deficit. The 1929 law required that all fraternal societies re-rate their policies within five years. Not that this external policing had not been attempted before. But now, like the papal decree on celibacy, the law was final. Between 1892 and 1909 or 1910, each member of the GCU had been assessed 50 cents, 60 cents, or 75 cents a month, depending on how much was customarily collected at a given lodge. There was no uniformity of policy even within the GCU. In 1909 or 1910, the GCU lodges went under an '' Assessment System,'' such that the amount due from each member was determined by the claims of the past month. Thus the assessment varied from month to month, but was internally regulated by the lodge. Around 1910, the state began to appear in the picture, proposing that members of fraternals pay according to age. Some fraternals put a lien on each member's policy, but this did not sufficiently raise revenues. In 1918 , the National Fraternal Congress Table of Mortality provided a uniform schedule according to which each member was to be rated according to the age at which he or she had joined the organization. But, even where this table was applied, it did not bring lodges or national offices anywhere approaching solvency. In Pennsylvania, the Insurance Department saw that the fraternals were functionally decentralized and operated on a day-to-day economic calculus - which, incidentally, was the traitional Slovak way of pooling resources in the extended family. It applied pressure for greater fraternal centralization and economic foresight. As of 1924, new members were to be rated according to the American Experience Table of Rates. However, the old members could continue to pay the prior National Fraternal Congress rate. This, too, did not greatly move the GCU and other Slovak-American fraternals toward solvency. Finally, the 1929 Pennsylvania law was implemented, and its effect paradoxical: it "worked" with amazing effectiveness according to the canons of American economic planning, but utterly disrupted the Slovak way of doing business. To summarize, then : the most compelling factors in declining membership within the Slovak-American fraternals were (a) the increasing cultural Americanization of their members and the availability of fraternal and insurance options within the cultural mainstream; (b) the increased influence of external (e .g., state) forces in the management of the internal affairs of the associations; (c) the devastating in- �82 SLOVAKIA fluence of the Great Depression over members' abilities to keep up payment of premiums on policies (undoubtedly influenced by " b " ); (d) the fraternal officials ' internal acculturation of the associations into "American" institutions (self-motivated as well as impelled by "b"). There remains an extremely potent factor in fraternal schism and attrition much less obvious to the observer's eye than those already discussed, one which the national president of a Slovak-American fraternal in his early 70' s poignantly articulated: ... we are still declining, there is an explanation for it. There was nothing ever done in this society. There was feeble attempts made to try to get the younger generation to become interested in our / fraternal society / . . .. we now lose, on an average of 1200 members a year .... you take in our generation, our parents were interested in our society and as soon as kids were born they put them in the lodge, the mother or father would always make sure that they would come to the meeting once a month and pay their dues. Even after they got married, the would pay their dues , do you follow me? Now, after they were on their own, had their own families they would say: "Here is your policy. Do you want to keep it. We pay till now. You can make your wife your beneficiary. " Lot of them kept it, and a lot of them turned around and cashed whatever they could get for it. See, where the old people wouldn't do that, and this younger generation isn't like the older generation. They say: " I don't need this or that." Now once again I say, it's not all of them, but the majority. They aren't worried so much like the old people were about their future. All they care is they get a new car, or good times, and when they are in trouble they come to their parents to help them out. Shortly thereafter, he spoke of local lodge meetings: The younger kids, they come, some of them come, some come and just pay their dues. They're in a hurry. They're always in a hurry. You see , I'll tell you. I think the biggest dam fault in all our fraternals. We used to have meetings every month at every lodge. I know I went as a younster, we came to the League, as a young fellow, 18, 19 years old, 20, 21. We would go to the Assemblies. All these old timers come to the meetings. It was always in the Slovak language, and if you\wanted the floor or ask permission to say something, and if you couldn""t. explain yourself well in the Slovak language, say in butchered up language, Slovak and English mixed together, the president of �SLOVAKIA 83 _ _ _ _ says: "Sit down you snot nose you. You can't express yourself in Slovak, you can sit down. You are out of order." Well, naturally these younger people think, they say "Oh, my goodness gracious." You get red in the face, these young people, then they don't know what to do. Then they sit through it and first chance that they got to go home, "They won't get me back here with a bull rope." Instead of being nice to them and courteous, ''OK, we understand you, go ahead and say in English what you want to say. We want you to come." And once you drive them away, oh boy, it's hard to bring them back. That's been the trouble all these fratemals, whether it's the Slovak Catholic, whether it's the National Slovak Society or the. First Catholic Slovak Union. It's the same condition and a lot of those old timers, when they held office, they thought they were supposed to be there till they die. The younger people, they need to bring these people in . . . . Another official, participating in the interview, later interjected: ... That old fellow who would come to the conventions, and make a rousing speech, "We have got to get our young people to take over our offices in our local assemblies, in the national,'' yet he wouldn 't give up his damn job .... (from field notes, June 1978) The chronic, occasionally acute conflict (expressed institutionally in schism) which these officers articulate is a generational conflict be- tween fathers and sons, once contained within the traditional familiar and manorial system, but now run openly rife in the expressively more permissive American cultural setting. We have already seen this conflict in another form: the 1902 schism within the GCU which led to the founding of the United Societies of USA, precipitated by the issue of allegiance to the U.S. versus allegiance to the parental-land and representatives of its authority. This conflict at the macro-institutional level is dynamically identical with the deeply traditional family struggle in Slovak culture: parental holding on versus letting go of authority, power, status, property, and roles. What I have discussed elsewhere in terms of traditional and Slovak-American personality, family dynamics, and culture change (Stein 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1979, Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) is dynamically identical and isomorphic with the conflict at the macro-institutional level. Traditionally as well as in the New World, unquestioning respect for and obedience to the will and authority of elders was paramount. In the official cultural ethos, the father's word and will were absolute; �84 SLOVAKIA deference was due to him no matter what. With the breakdown of the manorial order in Slovakia between 1848 and the great migration of 1880-1920 , sons began demanding a greater say in the running of family affairs . If fathers refused to relinquish some of their traditional prerogatives , sons now had options from setting up separate households to emigration . The vastly extended " joint family " diminished into the " stem family " (Goldschmidt and Kunkel 1971) in which frequently only a son or two, and daughter or two would live with or near the parents (cf. Koenig 1937) . The children now were able to place demands upon the parents , and to leave if dissatisfied. This is precisely what happened openly in the U.S., which official ethos was based on revolutionary separation from parents who, as the motto goes , exacted " taxation without representation, " an experience that strikes at the heart of the Slovak experience as well. Of course, this never was a matter of either / or. As I have demonstrated in the above cited works , moves centrifugal toward autonomy have evoked enormous ambivalence , guilt, restitution, and centripetal countervailing moves on the part of parents. Nonetheless , the above officials have identified as a decisive ingredient in the attrition of the young from Slovak-American fratemals the demand by the young for respect by the elders, a reversal of tradition that is at the same time traditionally and quintessentially '' American.'' It is thus not enough to say that the young defectors had been " Americanized ," and that the diehards remained doggedly "traditional. '' The elder officials of the Slovak-American fratemals could not mobilize the constraints they once yielded under the much hated manorial and Magyar yoke to compel those who they contemptuously regarded as " snotty nosed" youth to speak their language: Slovak. It should further be noted that language was wielded by the officials as a tool of power - but an impotent tool. Ironically, the youth, in the 1910's and 1920' s , attempted to express their interest in ethnicity in English, but were dismissed as out of order by parental-clergy-fraternal-elder figures who sought to safe-guard their venerable Slovak ethnicity by passing it on through institutional measures (churches, gynmastics , literary clubs). However, the fact of institutionalization of tradition was disqualified by the attitude of the founders toward those who would succeed them - which very " success " aroused their fear and countervailing animosity toward the Slovak-American youth. The very nature of many officers ' traditionalism led to the ardent Americanization by the young, whose consequence for the fratemals was decline in membership. ' �SLOVAKIA 85 ATHLETIC PROGRAMS IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS: INTERNAL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY Similar directional change can be seen in the history of athletic programs within the Slovak-American fraternals. The baseline was the Slovak Sokol (Falcon) or gymnastic society. The earliest Sokols had been founded in Bohemia in 1862 by Jindrich Fuegner and Miroslav Tyrs , derived from the German Turnvereine . The Sokols were used in Europe both as vehicles for nativism and Pan-Slavic solidarity. In the U.S. , they tended to follow ethnic lines and intra-ethnic schisms. Initially most of the fraternal organizations were divided into full membership branches: general (adult), juvenile (up to ages 16-18) , and Sokol. Between the ages of 16 and 18, one transferred from the juvenile branch to either the general or the Sokol branch. The Sokol branch stressed group gymnastics. Beyond local activities, each branch combined with other lodges, organizations, and conducted district, regional, national, and international slets (mass calisthenic displays) . Separate Sokol / insurance fraternals later developed. During the first decades of the twentieth century, baseball attracted considerable interest in fraternal and church groups , and if not competed for time with the gymnastic activity, it at least paralleled it. By the 1930's, Sokol activity began a slow decline, while baseball was attracting more interest. And in the mid and late 1930' s, the first fraternal bowling leagues were formed, later organized into district, regional, and national competition along the same lines as were the gymnastics. With the preparation for and American entry into World War II Sokol programs were drastically cut when the young Sokols and Sokolettes and instructors took part in the war. Great hopes were placed on a revival following the war, but there was no such revival. Quite the reverse . Those lodges which were discontinued during the war were never revived. ' ' At least fifty percent of the former gymnastically-active lodges became dormant ; numerous Sokol halls were lost; and most of the prewar instructors and directors disappeared from the physical education field . The indifference and apathy on the part of .. . Sokol membership , and officers as well, also were responsible for this decline ." (Andrew Venglarcik, Jr., " President's Column," Sokol Times, Jan . 14, 1972 , p. 3). Despite efforts by the Supreme Lodge of Sokol USA and other control bodies to induce renewal by the appropriation of larger funds for the Sokols , promises of salaries and the payment of travel expenses, there was little positive response on the part �86 SLOVAK IA of the membership . The Sokol USA slet held in 1966 was a veritable miniature compared with those of the 1920's. The influence of World War II was pervasive on both those who participated in it and in the home communities. Two facts are especially noteworthy: (a) that the virtual collapse of Sokol gynmastics was merely one small aspect of this transformation from Slovak to American, and (b) that the fact of the war did not so much cause the change as it rapidly accelerated a process already under way. Baseball, already popular before the war, was equally popular during the war in the informal games by American soldiers at recreation in training or overseas. Although the soldiers returned with baseball, they did not return it to their fraternal lodges, but instead to their industrial teams, American Legion teams, war veterans ' teams, and so forth . At the Sokol lodges, bowling became the sport. Only in the 1960's did local bowling lodge teams begin to decline. From the late 1940's and early 1950's bowling began to compete with golf, which was subsequently organized in districts, regions, and nationally. From the mid-1960 's , golf became the major activity, all of this taking place as the elderly are passing on, the young either not joining or cashing in their policies when they mature , the lodges becoming smaller and more difficult to justify and maintain. What is the meaning of the transformation in athletic activities? What has changed, and what has remained? The only remnant is that of group competition. Slets displayed competitive gymnastic groups, and baseball, bowling, and golf were organized as competitive tournaments at the various levels . But there is a gradual incorporation into the group of increasing individualism, in contrast with the "mechanical solidarity" of group gymnastics . In all of these, what the individual does is for the sake of the group effort. But the individual as a separate entity is increasingly emphasized. The team-orientation of a baseball team is far greater than that of the bowling team, because, as in the group gymnastic display, all of the members ' (or at least the playing members ' ) actions must be coordinated. This is not the case in bowling or golf, where the group is cumulative and sequential, rather than synchronized. In bowling and golf, individual efforts (and accomplishments) are not directly coordinated with tho'se of others, although they are added to them. In these '' individualistic' •· sports, individual actions are apart from the group , not subsumed under group effort as they necessarily are in the slet and in sports like baseball. Psychologically, the meaning of these sports differs greatly from the earlier " team" sports , where the individual could never be " taken out" of the group . �SLOVAKIA 87 \ This point has been well made by Andrew J. Valusek, President of Sokol USA: '' ... we believe in mass training more than emphasis on individual excellence, even though outstanding Sokol athletes are honored and play an important role in the life and achievements of the movement itself (Souvenir Book, 15th Sokol USA Slet, July 1-3, 1966, New York). This transformation in atheltics reflects what is simultaneously a cultural and psychological transformation: from Slovak to American, from group-oriented to individual-oriented, from coordinated interdependence to self-reliant independence. Furthermore, the incorporation of American athletic activities represented a new social status for the group . The lodge members had adopted within an ethnic framework typically mainstream American social activities. Increasingly, ancestral ethnicity was the basis for association, while categories of American culture dominated the content of the activity. MEN'S CLUB AND SECRET SOCIETY My final consideration in the history of the Slovak-American fraternals is its vital ' 'latent'' function as an exclusive men's club. This refers, of course, to male fraternal organizations or a compartmentalized activity of a male fraternal. The men's club provided and safeguarded a haven and refuge from women, family, and responsibility. It occasioned regularized " rituals of rebellion" (Gluckman 1954; Wallace 1966). This is not a matter of the writer's interpretations but derives from informants ' statements as well as the writer's observations. In Slovakia and Ruthenia, the village tavern had fulfilled this release function. In those Slovak-American organizations whose meetings were held under the strict supervision of the priest, the conclusion of a meeting was frequently followed by a visit to the Slovak Club . Many fraternals held their lodge meetings in one of the rooms at the Slovak Club. At the club , heavy drinking, card and craps playing, mournful and boisterous Slovak folk song, and " men' s talk" occupied the hours and filled the air. Abetted by the influences of "boilermakers'' (a shot of whiskey with a beer as chaser), the unspeakable literally emptied into the open. Taboos were cavalierly broken - at least in word. Built on shared experiences and conflicts, the male associations offered one of the few opportunities for male solidarity. Both in Europe and in the first several decades in the U.S., Saturday night was the ritual occasion for the unbottling of the week's pent up burdens. In the U.S. , the male solidarity of Slovak-American fraternal and the Slovak Club came to be predominantly associated with the immi- �88 SLOVAKIA grant generation. With the second and later generations, from the 1940's and on, this function became transferred to union halls, service veterans' clubs, American fraternal orders, and local bars, whether located adjacent to the mill or in one's neighborhood. These became places where men from varied ethnic backgrounds (though as exclusively white as they were exclusively male) could commiserate and boast of extracurricular feats on the war front and on the home front alike, out of reach of female domination and ridicule. In the original Slovak tavern the American Slovak Club, and later supra-ethnic American adaptations, lusty fiction compensated for social realities too miserable to acknowledge, and over which one felt no control. Through group support, one was able, without too great a burden on the conscience, to take a temporary moral holiday. And a man knew that later confession and communion could always undo - again temporarily what he had dared to think or say or do under the influence of potent spirits. SLOVAK-AMERICAN CHURCHES: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TRENDS A detailed history of Slovak-American parishes at the local and national levels, over the past century, exactly duplicates the history of the fraternals . For this reason, and for economy of space, I would like to review the major trends and give a brief ''life history'' of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, which history will embody these trends. Each of the churches in which I conducted fieldwork (Latin Rite, Byzantine Rite, Independent Rite Catholic, and Lutheran) either experienced the convulsion of schism or was a product of schism. Each of these parishes experiences the on-going drama of conflict between traditionalists and acculturationists. And in each of these parishes, the resolution is identical: (a) outward mobility of dissident acculturationists (and, in some cases, traditionalists for whom even the majority of parish traditionalists have compromised too much); (b) internal acculturation and inter-marriage, creating supra-ethnic denominationalized parishes ; (c) the "territorialization" of "nationality '' parishes (this language comes from khe Catholic diocesan context, but is univerally applicable) . The same directional change is evidenced since the 1930's in Slo- �SLOVAKIA " 89 vak-American churches as in fratemals: that is, away from ethnic exclusiveness and insularity. Initially, religion, like fratemalism, was an inseparable functional component of ethnicity. Today, in the context of an individual's increasingly personal community" (Gould 1970: 148), a traditional social structural view is empirically invalidated. "Religion" and "ethnicity" have become increasingly separate domains of one's life. This is true even for those originally nationality parishes which, in the 1960's or early 1970's, still maintained a large membership and which could afford to build a new parish further "up the hill" or out in suburbia. I think, for instance, of two parishes in Duquesne, Pennsylvania: Holy Trinity (Slovak) Roman Catholic Church, which, in the late 1960's, built a dazzlingly modem church in the suburb of West Mifflin in which many of the second and third generation lived, but which became de jure a supra-ethnic territorial parish in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh; and Sts. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church, originally located in the same neighborhood as Holy Trinity, but which built a modem church building in the mid-1960's a mile or two further up the hill, in a stable white, middle-class, poly-ethnic neighborhood. Cross-cutting denominational lines is the decisive influence of World War Il in accelerating, though not causing, the Americanization process within Slovak-American parishes, and with it, division or further schism. The ubiquity of this process I have discovered from discussions with Latin and Byzantine Rite Catholic, Lutheran, and Independent Catholic Slovak-American clergymen and parishioners. A Slovak Lutheran minister in his late forties, who grew up in Johnstown, Penna., relates his experience there and generalizes from it: In my church in Johnstown, there was no English until 1942 - at least until 1942, when I left for World War II. When I left, no English had been introduced. But after war, the young people coming back demanded that English be adopted as a separate service. The effect of the war was to put people of all different backgrounds together, and the common language there was English. The men thought and spoke and felt in English, so that when they got home after the war, their native towns and churches were like a foreign country. The delicate questions, then, as always, was how to contain or try to contain change within continuity. In McKeesport, Penna., Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church had been founded in 1895 as a "nationality" parish within the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese (Holy Trinity 1970; Slovak Catholic Par- �90 SLOVAKIA ishes and Institutions, 1955). In 1921 the church had a membership of some 1, 700 individuals and 325 families. In that year, the bishop appointed a priest of Alsatian-German ancestry to succeed the Slovak priest who many elderly parishioners allege returned to Slovakia under dubious circumstances (e.g. , with church funds?). Not so much the new priest's ethnicity as his antagonistic, condescendingly anti-Slovak style precipitated a schism in which some 300 families left to found Sts . Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, later renamed Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This priest remained the pastor of the church until his death in 1963, and was succeeded by a second-generation Slovak-American priest who remained pastor until his retirement in the mid-1970's. This period witnessed considerable Americanization of everything from liturgy to architecture to the aesthetics of the sanctuary. The immense wood-spires gave way to marble. The dusty baldachino was taken down in the 1960' s. The sanctuary of the church has fewer and fewer statues and candles. The interior became increasingly lighter and brightly lit. The Slovak mass on Sunday morning (one mass out of the four) , attended mostly by the older people, was phased out by the late 1960's. At the Diamond Jubilee Celebration (75 yrs.) in 1970, no Slovak was used in the special mass. (As I left the service, I overheard one man , perhaps in this 60 's, exclaim to a friend: " Couldn 't he have said something in Slovak?'') In 1975, a young third-generation Slovak-American priest became pastor and initiated weekly Charismatic Renewal Services , held in the church social hall and open to and attended by Catholics from parishes throughout McKeesport. Thus, what began as an exclusively ethnic parish has become internally a multi-ethnic territorial Roman Catholic parish though with explicitly acknowledged ties to an ethnic past. Moreover, it is the site for decidedly contemporary American cultic activity that stresses the direct, personal religious experience. The possible conflict between the priest and Eucharist-centererd formalism of the traditional mass (now in the vernacular English) and the participatory Charismatic Service of heightened self-expression and testimonial has at least for the moment been settled by compartmentalization. At the present time (see Table 10), the membership is large enough (roughly 1,800 members) , and its >decline due to the greater proportion of deaths over baptisms gradual e:eough to assure the parish at least several decades of "life." But, clearly the nature of the religious experience has changed decisively over the past 85 years . The word ' 'Slovak '' was officially dropped from the name of the church in �SLOVAKIA 91 \ the 1960's. • The parish is becoming increasingly working-class Catholic in its expressive function. The so-called Latinization and Irishization of the church has most recently been succeeded by a new type of American religious nativism: here , however, the change is induced far less from without than from within. To date, St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, and St. Mark Lutheran Church have solved the generational gap between traditionalists and acculturationists through separate services. Sts. Cyril and Methodius alternates Sundays with English and Slovak services. At St. Mark, the Slovak service typically takes place early on Sunday, followed by the English service . At the much larger St. Nicholas, the Slavonic Mass is one of three masses offered on Sunday morning, the other two in English (for detailed histories of these parishes , see Stein 1972). If at Holy Trinity, " Latinization" mediated by " Irishization " underlay much internal conflict, at St. Nicholas a less direct though powerful Latinization has taken place, here mediated by the supra-local hierarchy from Byzantine Catholic bishop through Rome. Just as in Latin Rite Slovak-American parishes, the conglomerate of IrishizationLatinization-Americanization was a means of social mobility for the priesthood ; likewise within Byzantine Rite Slovak-American parishes, Latinization-Americanization, bypassing the Latin Rite, Irish-dominated Church , was a means of social mobility for its priesthood. This, however, was not original to the American context. For centuries, both Byzantine and Latin Rite Slovak priests frequently used Magyarization as a means of mobility in Slovakia. Likewise, in Europe as in America, Germanization was a means of social mobility for Slovak Lutheran clergy. In all cases , the process in America was continuous with that in Europe: only the specific content or reference group(s) changed. • Let me furthe r pursue the issue of " What' s in a name? " , the importance of name as personal meaning and identity, from the point of view of baptismal records in this parish . Both in traditional Slovakia, and in parish records through the early 1920' s, baptismal names we re largely Biblical , or reflected more eastern Slavic influence . Thus, most males were named Michael, John, Thomas , Andrew , George, Paul, Joseph, Stephen , Be rnard , Albert, Rudolph, Charles, and Ivan ; and females were named Martha, Helen , Margaret , Mary, Anna , Elizabeth , and Ivana. American names, including the addition of a middle name, began to appear sporadically in the late 1910's , but grew in the 1920's and thereafter . For instance : Ella Sue, Stanley J oseph , Ethel Elizabeth, Emma Marie , Virginia , Robert William , George Edward (all before 1930) , Anna Mae, Rose Marie , Dorothy Mae , Virginia Louise, Patricia J ane , Lucille Diane , Gary Michael, William John , and so forth . �SLOVAKIA 92 TABLE 10 Diocese of Pittsburgh Holy Trinity (Slovak) Catholic Church Allegheny County McKeesport, PA Church reports at five year intervals (1896-1971): Year 1896 1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 1941 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1974+ Souls (approximate)• 600 Families (approximate)• 180 905 210 1060 250 1200 1300 1800 2500 2700 300 300 400 600 600 600 600 600 500 600 600 610 675 667 2900 2886 3170 3180 3500 3500 2725 2540 2140 Baptisms 144 151 175 177 160 140 137 131 86 72 127 86 78 66 41 26 16 Deaths 50 . 67 109 30 48 50 30 45 38 37 24 36 39 40 35 37 50 • Priest' s estimate derived from traditional annual blessing of homes after Epiphany. + Last year data available. Moreover, this was hardly a process imposed exclusively from without or by the pastor. In the absence of schism, and in the aftermath of schism for those who chose to remain loyal to church and pastor, the direction taken by the pastor coincided with the direction sought by a majority of the congregation, through passive assent if not active work toward change. The matter is somewhat different for Sts. Cyril and Methodius, an independent Slovak Catholic church that has literally struggled for survival since its creation in 1921. Beginning with some 300 zealous families as Sts. Peter and Paul, it has now barely 100 members. In the 1920's it ambitiously built a new church, only to lose it to the bank in 1937. Just as, prior to building its own edifi<z, the church held services in Slovak Hall and in churches where it was welcomed, likewise after 1937, it held services at the YWCA and the Baptist Mission. In order to be exempt from any past or future debts incurred under its original �SLOVAKIA 93 \ name , Sts. Peter and Paul changed its name to Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the late 1930's . In its early period, the church had been served by a priest ordained by the Czecho-Slovak Independent Church in Slovakia. Later, when no priest could be found, Sts. Cyril and Methodius became affiliated with the parallel nativistic Polish National Catholic movement which had begun in Scranton, Penna. in 1897 (Fox, n .d.). Services were conducted at the local, inner-city Polish National Catholic Church , served by a Polish-American priest who said mass in Polish, while responsorials and hymns were sung in Slovak by the congregation. During the late 1960's, the Polish church began a building program in suburban McKeesport. At the same time, a Swedish Evangelical Free Church was vacating its church on the "hill" and moving to a more outlying district - where its members tended to be living, and away from the area in which blacks were now living in increasing numbers . The Slovak Independent church voted to purchase the Swedish church outright in 1967. So the church now had a home, but few members. Many had, in the intervening year, returned to Holy Trinity. Others joined Catholic or Protestant churches near their homes . Still others gravitated in increasing numbers to the Polish National Catholic Church: an institution which acted both to safeguard the Slovak church and as an agent of acculturation to the PNCC tradition. Indeed , one of the greatest areas of chronic conflict within Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been those who resist and resent the PNCC influence and those who accept it. From the outset, the Slovak National Catholic Church movement has been numerically small and politically weak in comparison with the PNCC, which now claims several hundreds of thousands of members in some 140 churches in the U.S. alone - and which movement diffused in the 1920's back to the mother country . Thus the direction of change in Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been toward PNCC and American acculturation. Like St. Mark, whose ' 'life history '' I present immediately below in detail rather than fragment , the membership of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is highly skewed toward the end of the life cycle , unbalanced by a substantial middle-aged population to compensate for the outward migration of young adults and the virtually non-existent birth-rate. While these examples are sufficient to illustrate the trend of culture change , I would like to tum to the history of St. Mark Lutheran Church , which should provide a depth missing in the breadth of the " trends " I have covered for the other churches . �94 SLOVAKIA ST. MARK LUTHERAN CHURCH: AN INSTITUTIONAL ''LIFE HISTORY'' St. Mark's was founded in 1913 by 25 members from the Slovak Evangelical Union Assembly 53 (a fraternal organization) organized in 1899 in Duquesne. The church was named the Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne. Between 1913 and 1919, ''lacking funds to either build or buy a place for a church site, the Church council called upon the nearby existing Grace Reformed Church ... for permission to use the church for services" (50th Anniversary Book, St. Mark Ev. Lutheran Church, Oct. 27, 1963) . Toward the end of the decade , Grace Reformed Church's growth compelled it to seek larger quarters elsewhere in Duquesne, making the building available for purchase. Slovak Lutherans from Duquesne and from the nearby communities of McKeesport and Glassport purchased the church building. In 1920, the parish was able to send a call for its first full-time pastor. In 1934, after no prior synodical affiliation, the church joined the Slovak Zion Synod, Lutheran Church of America, in which it has been a member ever since. In the 1930's, the Slovak Lutheran parish in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, experienced a schism between the more Americanized members and the traditionalists. The more Americanized members wanted English introduced into the service, and wanted to establish a Sunday School for their children in which English was the language of instruction. The more adamant Slovaks refused to permit any change. Between one-third and one-half of the congregation (over 150 members) left. They took up membership at the nearby German Lutheran and Engish Lutheran churches. The loss of membership in the 1930's precipitated a compromise initiated in 1940: an English-language Sunday School was founded, and English was adopted in the Vacation Bible School and in the Confirmation Class. The services, however, remained entirely in Slovak. The Second World War acted as a great catalyst of change toward the more rapid Americanization of the parish - not merely of this parish but thoughout Slovak Lutheran parishes. The younger members, many of them returning veterans, insisted on a separate English service. This structural change solved in part the probl~m of the different intergenerational linguistic and cultural orientatibns. Each age set, indeed cultural set, would have its own separate service. The Sunday morning Slovak service at the Duquesne parish is now a much shortened version of the traditional service. In this way, it has been adopted to the Ameri- �SLOVAKIA 95 can time-sense (e.g., hymns of an original 16-20 stanzas now reduced to 4-6). For occasions such •s Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday, and Confirmation, joint services are held, with roughly half in English and half in Slovak, equally distributed throughout the service. In the 1960's, further measures were taken to Americanize the church. A majority of the younger members felt that the word "Slovak" in its name , as with the lengthy European-sounding name as a whole, discouraged non-Slovaks from joining. The younger age set wished to become an integrated member of the American Lutheran community rather than remain outside it. As a reflection of this attitude change, the name was changed from Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne to the more conventional St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church, or simply St. Mark Lutheran Church. The church was named in honor of a saint because, as the pastor put it, ''most American churches are called Saint this or Saint that.'' Accompanying the change in name were concomitant changes in the by-laws whose effect was intended to parallel and validate the change in name. Whereas previously membership was restricted to Slovak Lutherans and their spouses (through conversion to Lutheranism), now membership was opened to all Lutherans irrespective of nationality background. For all practical purposes the church became ''two churches' ' : Slovak Lutheran and American Lutheran, the former using the Slovak liturgy, and the latter utilizing the Common Service Book of 1917 (United Lutheran Church of America) until the mid-1960's, then the authorized Service Book and Hymnal (Lutheran Church of America, 1968). However, the opening up of the church to new membership, together with the standardization of the liturgy, failed to attract new members or to retain the young. The Slovak population of Duquesne, like that of McKeesport and all other local milltowns on the Monongahela, had largely been moving to outlying districts, first up on ''the hill,'' later further out to "suburbs. " Mobility of membership to nearby " American Lutheran" churches almost inevitably followed. In the same area of Duquesne as St. Mark Church were former Slovak Roman Catholic (Holy Trinity, Duquesne) and Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Catholic (Sts. Peter and Paul) churches . Sts. Peter and Paul had completed a new church far up on the hill in early 1960, and Holy Trinity completed a new church out in the suburb of West Mifflin in 1970. During the period from the 1940' s through the 1960' s, as the Slovaks moved " up and out," the area rapidly became settled by blacks , and the area quickly became unpopular even in the eyes of those Slovaks who remained and attended the Lutheran Church (which could not �96 SLOVAKIA afford to build elsewhere). The church could hardly retain its own members, let alone attract outsiders to what was quickly becoming called a deteriorated and unstable area. The former Slovak Catholic Holy Trinity Church building and rectory were given by the diocesan bishop to a local black church group, and the nearby vacated Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Church became a plaything for vandals. Many Catholic and Lutheran Slovak-Americans who had bought their first homes here or had grown up in this neighborhood said in disgust that this was no longer a place fit for a white man to live. It is significant that, despite all the vast changes that have taken place in the church, the original German-made oak tryptich altar, baptismal, and pulpit (of the 1920's) are retained by the church to the present. From time to time younger parishioners have suggested that the ancient pipe organ be replaced by a modern electric organ, but there has never been a concerted demand for such a replacement. I suspect that underlying this lack of pressure for costly remodeling and rennovation is first, the smallness of the congregation and hence the lack of large amounts of funds for such purposes, and second, the younger generation's relative lack of long-term future commitment to the parish and hence their acquiescence to the traditional preferences of the older generation . At present, an average of ten of those parishioners aged 60 and over attend the Slovak service; while between 40 and 50 of mostly younger parishioners and their families attend the English. Only a few elderly people are accompanied in the Slovak service by their children and grandchildren. However, many grandparents attend the English service with their children. Unexceptionably, the three-generation service is the English. A maximum of 15 attend the Slovak service, while at the English it approximates 60. The parish is rapidly losing members at both ends of the age range , the elder through deaths , and the younger with their families by moving away or joining more American Lutheran churches . Between 1960 and the end of 1970, the church lost 26 members over age 50 (out of a total of 32) of whom 14 were over age 70. Several parents in their 30 's and 40 's have told me of their intention of joining elsewhere after their own parents, stalwart members , pass on .* \ • Rarely have Slovak-ethnic organizations later becom~ stable supra-ethnic co=unity institutions . The direction of change seems one way . Ethnic parishes have declined dramatically in Slovak-American membership . The ethnic fratemals ' efforts at modernizing fis cally simply came too late . Moreover, the fratemals ' renewed efforts at in- �SLOVAKIA 97 , CONCLUSION This paper has examined religion and fraternal association among Slovak-Americans as institutional forms for the communication of cultural meaning. Although I have focused on a single Euro-American population, the perspectives and findings of this study should be applicable to and testable by data from comparable populations. Historical, documentary, ethnographic, and demographic data were adduced both to illustrate cultural patterns of communication and to offer the reader material by which my generalizations might be evaluated. I have emphasized that (a) there is much in Slovak-American adaptation that is built upon, indeed derived from, preadaptive characteristics of traditional culture which cannot be reduced to the demands of the host environment or to adaptive tools available in it; (b) the overall trend and categories of change in fraternals and churches is identical; (c) the study of institutional meaning is never removed, nor can it be abstracted from, the personal meanings of its participants who invest in social structures; (d) what from one point of view appears to be patently instrumental functions can be discerned simultaneously from another point of view as expressive functions (i.e., complementary); (e) the American cultural system was adopted by Slovak-Americans to achieve both traditional ends (often in new "language" or cultural content) and anti-traditional ends, the seeds of which were sown (as latent possibilities) in traditional Slovak family and social conflict; (f) the distinction between traditional and modern, and continuity and change, cannot be concluded on the basis of mere appearance, but must be detennined by the meanings communicated by the cultural actors; hence (g) continuity in form, function, and meaning can often be expressed, not despite, but strurnental change in service of ethnic, that is, expressive, revitalization was a futile attempt to reassemble functions that had already been severed by the membership for expressive reasons . One conspicuous exception is the Benedictine High School in Cleveland , Ohio . Another is the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Homestead, Pennsylvania (with branches in McKeesport and Clairton, also mill towns) , originally founded in 1914 by Slovak workers to assist in providing common funds for Slovak families now able and eager to purchase homes in the "hill" regions of the town up and away from their rented flats in the " lowland" or " bottoms " close to the mill . Perhaps a compelling reason for the success of the S & L association lies in its offer of supra-ethnic' ' social security '' resources from the beginning. That is, being primarily a financial institution, it stood the best chance of flourishing in the American cultural environment in which instrumental (e .g. , economic) functions were compartmentalized from expressive ones. �98 SLOVAKIA through a change in symbolic content; (h) although unmistakable trends of change have been noted, at any given moment the identified distinctive features of change may perform complementary or contradictory institutional functions; (i) the process of Americanization or acculturation cannot be seen as a unitary process directed either from within or from without the ethnic community, but must be analyzed in terms of sources of impetus for Americanization. The study of ethnicity is not the study of "tribes" as though they and their conceptually reified cultures persist statically unchanged. Rather, the study of ethnicity is the study of human relationships, the meanings which people attach to those relationships, the communication of those meanings in idiosyncratic or institutionalized forms, the process by which changed meanings lead to changes in relationships and how in tum ethnicity and thus identity itself comes to be redefined. Certainly the nativistic "New Ethnicity" advocated by many fraternal leaders and Slovak-American intelligentsia (Stein and Hill 1977) is not at all the unself-conscious native ethnicity of the pre-immigrant period. My research among some three- and four-generation SlovakAmerican families and institutions leads to to the inexorable conclusion that Slovak-American ethnicity over the past century has dramatically changed from a relatively homogeneous public expression of community form, function, structure, meaning, and relationship to a far more heterogeneous, individualized, private matter. This privatization of ethnicity had led many scholars to conclude that ethnicity has disappeared. This is nonsense: it has been repattemed, some elements retained, others given up. Although the American ethos has replaced the ethnic ethos as the core of personal and group identity, the spheres of life and the levels of the personality at which this replacement has occurred must be demonstrated and explained. What has unmistakably declined and is disappearing is the full complement of institutions which characteristically define a traditional community (cf. Arensberg and Kimball 1965) . However, as I have suggested in my previously cited works, unconsciously communicated loyalties, conflicts, values , expectation, and worldview in the intimate interior of even ethnically intermarried families results in continuities in surprising guises (e.g., the steel mill experienced as the old manorial latifundia: see Stein and Hill 1979; Hamey 1975) . , On the other hand, ethnic ties are often.maintained in the absence of conspicuously ethnic content - and here "conspicuity" refers all too often to the preoccupations and categories of the observer. Ethnicity takes on an especially "hidden" quality (Hill and May 1973) when the �SLOVAKIA 99 observer expects tradition~ meanings to take traditional representational forms. The more subtle, out-of-awareness (Hall 1977) aspects of ethnicity are the most intractible because they are pre-verbally ta.ken for granted and cannot be verbalized. Thus, for instance, I shall know that without a doubt a Slovak-American woman or man has acculturated more toward the core of the metaphoric personal ''onion'' when children - or the ethnographer! - are forcibly lavished copious quantities of food, when I am invited to visit with a family in their ''living room" or "dining room" instead of the kitchen; or when the implicit roles of maternal dominance and paternal distance in the home have become less pronounced, and the affective atmosphere affectively less brittle. Likewise, the inclusion of members from other ethnic groups within formerly exclusive tradition-maintaining fraternal and religious institutions, and the increasingly widespread phenomenon of intermarriage, are expressions of the simultaneous of group- or "ethnic" - and ego-boundaries. The formerly "other," often despised and alien, is now included within the possibilities of the "self." This fact requires a reassessment of our received wisdom about structural assimilation, namely, that inclusion is an act governed or regulated by the more mainstreamed "Americans" - that is, that it operates as a one-way process. Rather, inclusion is reciprocally a dynamic from within the ethnic group. Finally, this paper further confirms the tenet that ethnicity is a process operating at many levels, and is not a lineal continuum whose starting and terminal points can easily be plotted in terms of preconceived categories of "passing," "acculturation," "mobility," or "assimilation." It is the author's hope that future studies will not only provide greater breadth and depth in the study of Slovak-Americans, but will offer a comparative framework for the study of emigrant Slovaks in other nations (indeed, other regions of the U.S.), the internal transformation of Slovakia in the post-World War I period, and other European emigrant populations in their new contexts. Such studies will determine precisely how limited or widespread is the trend of culture change discussed in this paper. REFERENCES Anderson, Robert T. "Voluntary Associations in History," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 209-222. Arensberg, Conrad M. and Solon T. Kimball. Culture and Community . New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966. �100 SLOVAKIA Balch, Emily Greene. Our Slavic Fellow Citizens . New York : Amo Press, 1969 (orig. 1910) . Barton , Josef J . Peasants and Strangers : Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950. Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press, 1976. Bue, Bonaventure S. " Slovak Nationalism: Its Origins, Conflicts and Objectives." Master's thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1967. Fitzpatrick , Joseph P. " The Importance of ' Community' in the Process of Immigrant Assimilation, " International Migration Review 1(1)(1966) : 6-16. Fox, Paul. The Polish National Catholic Church . Scranton , Penna: School of Christian Living, n.d . Gluckman, Max. Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa . Manchester: Manchester University Press , 1964. Goldschmidt, Walter and E. J . Kunkel. " The Structure of the Peasant Family," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 1068-1076. Gould, Harold A. ' 'Some Preliminary Observations Concerning the Anthropology of Industrialization,'' In Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization . William Mangin, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970, pp. 137-149. Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture . Garden City, New York : Doubleday 1/ Anchor, 1977. Hamey, Robert F. "Ambiente and Social Class in North American Little Italies," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 2(2)(1976): 208-224. Hill, Robert F. and J . Thomas May. " Exploring Hidden Ethnicity: Problems and Methods ," American Society of Ethnohistory , Central State University, Edmond , Oklahoma, October 1973. Jansak Stefan. "The Land Question in Slovakia (I), " The Slavonic Review 8(1930) : 612626. Kerner, Robert J ., ed . Czechoslovakia . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940. Kirschbaum , Joseph M. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Europe. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Klein, Philip . A Social Study of Pittsburgh. New York : Columbia University Press, 1938. Koenig, Samuel. " Marriage and the Family among the Galician Ukrainians, " In Studies in the Science of Society . George P. Murdock, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937 , pp. 299-318 . Krajsa, Joseph C., Chairman, Editorial Board. Slovaks in America . Middletown, Penn.: The Slovak League of America, 1978. La Barre, Weston . The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion . New York: Dell, 1972. Lacko, Michael. '' A Brief Study of the History of the Slovak Catholics of the ByzantineSlavonic Rite," Slovak Studies 3(1963) : 199-224. Slovak Institute, Rome, Italy . Light, Ivan H. Ethnic Enterprise in America. Berkeley: University of California Press , 1972 . Macartney , C. A. Hungary and Her Successors . New York : Oxford University Press , 1937. Nelli, Humbert S. The Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility . New York : Oxford University Press, 1970. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and/ts People . New York: Robert Speller and Sons , 1960. Roucek , Joseph S. "Problems of Assimilation: A Study of Czecho-Slovaks in the United States ," Sociology and Social Research XVIl (1932-33) : 62-71. Roucek , Joseph S. " The Passing of American Czechoshivaks ," American Journal of Sociology 39(1933-34) : 611-626 . Roucek , Joseph S. " Czechoslovak Americans ," In Our Racial and National Minorities. �SLOVAKIA 101 Francis J . Brown and Joseph S. Roucek , eds . New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937, pp. 230246 . Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada. Cleveland, Ohio: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1966 (Jednota Printery, Middletown, Penna.) . Stein , Howard F . " An Ethno-Historical Study of Slovak-American Identity." Doctoral dissertation , University of Pittsburgh , 1972. Stein, Howard F. " Cultural Specificity in Patterns of Mental Illness and Health: A Slovak-American Case Study, " Family Process 12(March 1973): 69-82. Stein, Howard F. '' Envy and the Evil Eye among Slovak-Americans: An Exploration into the Psychological Ontogeny of Belief and Ritual," Ethos 2(1)(Spring 1974) : 16-46. Stein , Howard F. " Structural Change in Slovak Kinship: An Ethnohistoric Inquiry," Ethnology 14(1)(January 1976): 99-108 . Stein , Howard F. " A Dialectic Model of Illness and Health Attitudes and Behavior among Slovak-Americans ," International Journal of Mental Health 6(2)(Summer 1976) : 117-137. Stein , Howard F. " The Slovak-American 'Swaddling Ethos' : Homeostat for Family Dynamics and Cultural Continuity, " Family Process 17 (March 1978) : 32-46. (a) Stein, Howard F. ''Aging and Death among Slovak-Americans: A Study in the Thematic Unity of the Life Cycle ," The Journal of Psychological Anthropology 1(3)(Summer 1978) : 297-320. (b) Stein, Howard F. "The White Ethnic Movement, Pan-Ism, and the Restoration of Early Symbosis: The Psychohistory of a Group-Fantasy," The Journal of Psychohistory 6(3)(Winter 1979) : 319-360. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F . Hill. The Ethnic Imperative: Ewmining the New White Ethnic Mo vement. University Park , Penna .: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F. Hill. " Adaptive Modalities Among Slovak- and PolishAmericans : Some Issues in Cultural Continuity and Change ," Anthropology 3(1-2) (1979) : 96-107. Stolarik , M. Mark . " Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918." Doctoral dissertation , University of Minnesota , 1974. Wallace , A. F. C. Religion: An Anthropological View . New York: Random House, 1966. Yurchak , Peter Paul . The Slovaks . Whiting, Indiana: Obrana Press, 1946. Zatko , James J . " Slovaks in the U.S.A., 1900-1914," Slovakia 16(39)(1966) : 41-62 (Slovak League of America). �� 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 1980-81, Vol. 29 Description An account of the resource Vol. 29 (No. 53-54), 1980-81. 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 1980-81 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 53 An Ethnohistqry of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions HOW ARD F. STEIN INTRODUCTION: ETHNICITY, INSTITUTIONS AND THE STUDY OF MEANING The study of ethnicity is necessarily a study of systems of meaning and how that meaning is communicated. Ethnicity is far more than a matter of social mobility, group competition for scarce resources, acculturation, and the like. This paper focuses on what might be called the "life histories" of Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations as institutionalized expressors of a century of changing groupidentity and those meanings that represent the underlying group-identity. Special emphasis is placed on identifying precisely what about ethnic identity is communicated by these institutions. The central argument is that Slovak-American fraternal and religious associations perform important psychosocial functions - not merely social structural ones. Indeed, I propose that the former determines and sustains, and explains, the revitalization or atrophy of the latter. Another way of putting it is that the ''expressive'' dimension of ethnicity is inherent in the "instrumental" roles performed by fraternal and religious organizations. The world of the symbolic is never separated from the world of the practical. The term "ethnic fraternal" is used here in the sense of mutual benefit, self-help, voluntary associations (see Anderson 1971) that trace to diverse mid-nineteenth century immigrant populations to the U.S. However, the meaning of ethnic fraternalism should not be ac• A paper presented as part of a panel on ''Ethnicity as Communication in Southeastern Europe: A Comparative Approach,'' at the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, New Haven, October, 1979. 54 SLOVAKIA cepted as self-evident, since ethnic voluntary associations, like the religious institutions which they founded, have undergone considerable change of function, and indeed have served multiple, often contradictory functions. In both instances it will be necessary to specify the meaning of persistance and change alike. Elsewhere I have addressed issues of Slovak-American cultural continuity and change in identity at the levels of personality structure, family dynamics, child-rearing patterns, kinship structure, projective system, health and illness attitudes, psychopathology, and ethos (Stein _1973, 1974, 1975,_1976, 1978a; _Stein and Hill 197~, _19~_). No attempt~ here made at a comprehensive history of Slovaks in Europe or the United States. The reader is referred to two groups of works on Slovaks and Slovak-Americans. One genre can be regarded as "official histories," and includes works by Yurchak (1946), Kirschbaum (1960), O~do (1960), Zatko (1966), and Krajsa (1978); and the journals Slovak Studies and Slovakia. The second group consists of disparate studies whose common denominator is the absence of adherence to any prevailing ideology. Representatives of this genre include Balch (1910); Macartney (1937); Kerner (1940); Bue (1957); Roucek (1932-33, 1933-34, 1937); Stolarik (1974); Barton (1975); and Stein (1972). The sources in the first group reflect a particular point of view, namely, the alliance of Slovak Roman Catholicism with political nationalism (i.e., the First Catholic Slovak Union, the Slovak League of America). This also reminds us that traditionally among the majority of Slovaks, ethnicity and religion were fused. Slovak Studies is the publication of the Slovak Institute, Rome, and Slovakia has long been the official publication of the Slovak League. One could legitimately see the Slovak Republic as an expansion onto the level of the state of what had long been a fact at the local level: namely, the political importance of the clergy. Many past and present Slovak League leaders, scholars, and political activists on behalf of Slovak national autonomy in Europe are former leaders and intelligentsia of the short-lived Slovak Republic (1939-1945). That their genre of historiography would be ethno-national apologia is to be expected. However, the visibility of the Slovak League on the American scene in official American political circles has more to do with their anti-communism and their courtship by American political leaders than with cultural, political, or demographic fa~s intrinsic to the League. This highlights the oft neglected fact that American sociopolitical factors often heighten ethnicity, even help preserve it - through a not particularly laudable duplicitous manipulation of loyalties and fears. Among Slovak-Americans, as among all peoples, official histories SLOVAKIA 55 are those sacred myths of the past held and recorded by the putative leadership. Throughout this essay, I shall emphasize whose perspective on the past is being stated as I discuss those institutions that have been deeply concerned v,:ith the cultural sense of time. This leads to a final word of warning: jus\ as ''culture'' is inseparable from the people who constitute it, likewise for social "institutions." An "institution" is only a conventional shorthand. What this paper is about is the history of group consensus and conflict, continuity and change. The very inclusion of this essay in Slovakia attests to changes not only in ''editorial policy" or editorship, but to a more pervasive change in Slovak ethnicity itself in which there is greater openness to self-scrutiny. It is less necessary, shall I say, to toe a "party line." Neither Slovakia, nor Slovak ethnicity, is static. The focus of this paper is on large-scale social institutions as vehicles of continuity and change in meaning systems. Among SlovakAmericans, religious and fraternal organizations have served for nearly a century as articulators of cultural meaning, first reflecting the relatively uniform cultural system brought from Slovakia, later becoming increasingly removed from the very real pluralism of the Slovak-American population for whom they claim to speak. Both ethnographic research in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania (conducted intensively 1970-1972, and intermittently through the present) and documentary study have provided both an understanding of the dynamics within local churches and fraternal society lodges, and a picture of Slovak-American religion and voluntary association on the national scale. Ethnographic study in the Steel Valley of western Pennsylvania, especially the mill-cities of McKeesport and Duquesne, include participant obsevation at, and interviews with members of, the following religious and fraternal groups: parishes of Slovak Roman Catholic Latin Rite, Slovak and Ruthenian Roman Catholic Byzantine Rite, Slovak Independent Catholic Rite, Slovak Lutheran Rite; the First Catholic Slovak Union, Zivena, the Slovak League, Slovak Catholic Sokol, Sokol USA, National Slovak Society, Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Evangelical Union. I obtained valuable ethnographic and demographic data from interviews and documentary sources at the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, and with officers of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, United Societies of USA, and the Slovak Zion Synod-Lutheran Church of America. A careful study of old and recent fraternal newspapers and annual Kalendars, often stored not in official archives but in cabinets and basements, permitted comparison of ethnohistory recon- 56 SLOVAKIA structed from informants' current memory and self-presentation, with cultural meanings preserved in print.* Finally, actuarial data provided by the national offices of the National Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and United Societies of USA permitted a comparison to be made between a necessarily selected sample in which values, attitudes, expectations, criteria and policies of admission and exclusion, and the like were expressed; and statistics of actual participation in or withdrawal from fraternal associations based on trends in membership as reflected in the purchasing and cashing-in of life insurance policies. Ethnographic research both at the local and supra-level simultaneously complemented, explained, and tested the data obtained from tables of parish and fraternal society membership. The reader is referred to the following Tables 1-4 which identify both on the national level and in the region of ethnographic study the major Slovak-American religious and fraternal institutions. ETHNOGRAPHIC BASE LINE The Slovak-American institutions discussed here stem from the migration of over some half-million Slovak peasants and landless peasants from 1880 until the mid-1920's (Zatko 1966: 45), that is, from the period of the Magyar development of a monetary, technologized, labor intensive economy in the 1870's, to the exclusionary American Emergency Quota Laws of 1921-24 and the Immigration Act of 1924, and the National Origins Act of 1929. Roughly 85 percent of the immigrants were Latin or Byzantine Rite Catholics, and 15 percent were Lutherans and Calvinists. The highest rate of migration was from the most impoverished and overpopulated regions of Slovakia, namely, the foothills of the Tatra and Carpathian Mountains (Jansak 1930). As an overall pattern, the earliest Slovaks came to the anthracite coal mining district of eastern Pennsylvania, while later Slovaks came to the mill towns in the "Steel Valley" of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and westward (Cleveland, Gary, Chicago). The greater Pittsburgh region remains the highest concentration of Slovak-Americans in the U.S. (some 29,000 immigrants; 35,000 foreign stock in 1930 Censu~ Klein 1938: 288; Roucek 1933-34: 614) . It is the location of the national offices of the National • These include Narodne Noviny, Jednota, The Greek Catholic Union Messenger, Prosvita, Katolicky Sokol, Sokol USA Times; annual fraternal yearbooks or Kalenddrs ; and the journals Slovakia (Slovak League) and Slovak Studies (Slovak Institute, Cleveland and Rome). SLOVAKIA 57 TABLE 1 THE FOUNDING OF SOOVAK-AMERICAN RELIGION IN AMERICA I. Early Slovak Catholic Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Church in the Western Hemisphere, Hazleton, Penna., 1885 St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church* . .......... . (Cornerstone) Early Slovak Roman Catholic Churches in the Allentown, Penna. Diocese (anthracite coal mining area)* ................ . . . Bethlehem, Penna., 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius Saint Michael Archangel ... . .... . . . . .. . ..... Summit Hill, Langsford, Penna. , 1891 Saints Cyril and Methodius .... . .. .... ....... . .Reading, Penna., 1896 First Slovak Catholic parish school ............ .. . . .Chicago, ID., 1900 Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak Sisterhood: Motherhouse established .................... ... Danville, Pa., 1901 High School for Girls established ........... . .... Danville, Pa., 1922 First Vincentian Sisters of Charity arrived from Slovakia to serve St. Michael's Parish ........ Braddock, Pa., 1902 Priests' Society of St. Anthony's Burse in the USA (to support students interested in teaching and Slovak girls preparing to be teaching nuns) .... Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1903 Benedictine High School for Boys . .. . . .... . . . ...... Cleveland, 1927 II. Early Slovak Lutheran Institutional History in America Name Place and Year Founded First Slovak Lutheran Church in the Western Hemisphere: Saints Peter and Paul .............. Freeland, Penna., first services: 1883; Church built: 1886. • Slovak Lutheran Synod (Missouri Synod) ............ 1902 Slovak Zion Synod (left Missouri Synod, joined United Lutheran Church of America founded in 1919) . . ......... . . .. . . . . ..... .. 1920 • Source: Katolicky Sokol, July 21, 1971 (published in Passaic, New Jersey) . Evidently, the founding of the first Slovak church in the western hemisphere is a matter of considerable controversy - and competition. Professor M. Mark Stolarik kindly informed me of the feud between St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and St. Stephen's in Streator, Illinois for the honor of being "the first" (which, incidentally, is a very American preoccupation!) . Professor Stolarik found the St. Stephen records several years ago and deposited them at the Immigrant Archives in Minnesota. Thus St. Stephen's can document its claim to having been founded in 1884. On the other hand, St. Joseph's burned down at the tum of the century, and its records were lost. Thus its claim to having been founded in 1884 cannot be documented . Professor Stolarik suggests that the editor of Katolicky Sokol, John Sciranka, my original source for the 1886 date , tended to favor the Hazleton parish since he was from Pennsylvania (again , ethnicity in a meta-context, this time localism) (personal communication, 9 September 1979) . Passaic, N.J ., 1906 Cleveland, 1907 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1911 Slovak Catholic Sokol Slovak League of America Slovak Catholic Federation in America McKeesport, Pa ., 1902 Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1892 Freeland, Pa., 1893 New York, 1896 Greek Catholic Union Slovak Evangelical Union (since 1960: United Lut9eran Society) Sokol USA (orig.: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA) United Societies of USA (Sobranije) Cleveland, 1892 Cleveland, 1890 Cleveland ? Passaic, N.J . McKeesport Perth Amboy, N.J. Ligonier, Pa. Pittsburgh Cleveland Cleveiand Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious (Roman Catholic), political, cultural, fraternal Insurance, religious , political, fraternal Insurance, religious , cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, cultural, insurance, political, fraternal Insurance, religious (Greek Catholic), cultural, political, fraternal Gymnastic, religious (Roman Catholic), cultural, fraternal , insurance Political, cultural, religious Religious, political, cultural MAJOR NATIONALLY-BASED SLOVAK INSTITUTIONS Headquarters Place and Year Functions Pittsburgh, 1890 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal New York, 1891 Pittsburgh Insurance, cultural, political, fraternal First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union 2ivena Beneficial Society (women's equivalent to National Slovak Society, last joint convention with NSS, 1901) First Catholic Slovak Union (Jednota) Name National Slovak Society TABLE2 > 7' > ~ r I.I) CX) V, Saints Cyril and Methodius Slovak National Catholic Church, McKeesport, founded 1922; name originally Saints Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church ; changed name to present in the late 1930's for legal purposes due to loss of church building during the Depression; affiliated throughout its history with the Polish National Catholic Church, and in the 1940's with the Congregational Church. St. Mark Lutheran Church, Duquesne, Pa. (serving Duquesne and McKeesport), founded 1913 ; name originally: Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Congregation of Duquesne; church bought 1920; joined Slovak Zion Synod of the United Lutheran Church of America 1934; Sunday school founded, use of English in teaching confirmation class 1940; earlier schism over non-use of English by acculturated families ; name changed to present in the 1950's, accompanied by change in by-laws to open church to Lutherans of all nationalities . St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church , founded 1901 ; name originally "Greek Catholic," changed to " Byzantine" in the 1960's; schism in 1939. SWVAK CHURCHES SERVING THE McKEESPORT AREA Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church, founded 1892; the name "Slovak" officially dropped in the 1960's; first church building purchased and enlarged 1895 ; schism in 1922. ., TABLE3 '° u, 7' > > ~ r Vl SLOVAK FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS SERVING THE McKEESPORT PENNSYLVANIA AREA IN '' STEEL VALLEY'' Name Year Founded Membership, other comments Slovenskeho N. P. Spolok (Slovak December 16, 1888 Protestant or Catholic, but Slavic Sick Benefit Soc.) preceded the local lodge of the National Slovak Society, with which it merged in 1890 National Slovak Society, Lodge 31 1890 Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic mostly Slovak Jednota (First Catholic Slovak 1892 (women's lodge, Roman Catholic, Slovak Union) , Lodge 60 276 , formed later) Greek Catholic Union, Lodge 2 1892 Mostly Greek Catholic, but also Roman Catholic, Rusin, and Slovak United Societies of USA (Sobranije) , 1902 Schism within the Greek Catholic Union headquarters and Lodge 1 Sokol USA (Slovensky Sokol), Lodge 1903 (ladies assembly Protestant or Catholic , but Slavic 46 11, formed later) mostly Slovak Slovak Evangelical Union, Assembly 1899 Slovak Lutheran 63 (Duquesne , Pa. , serv~g McKeesport as well) Slovak Club , White Street Hall, 1896, sold to Catholic Fellowship, men's club , social, drinking McKeesport War Veterans 1970 activities First Federal Savings and Loan 1914 Association formed to assist Slovak workers Association of Homestead in obtaining funds to purchase a home ; Federal Charter 1937 ; branch offices in McKeesport (1964), Clairton (1969) ; and Braddock (1969) ; serves Monongahela Valley Communities; (originally names: First Slovak Building and Loan Association) TABLE4 > ;;,;; < > l/1 r 0 ~ SLOVAKIA 61 Slovak Society, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies of USA. The town of Munhall, located in the Steel Valley, is the site of an eparchate or diocese of. the Byzantine Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Union, founded iq. 1892 in Wilkes-Barre, Penna. , the heart of the anthracite mining region, moved its headquarters in 1910 to the Steel Valley. Although one's place of settlement was greatly influenced by the availability of desirable work, the type of work one sought, and the reasons for choosing that work (originally, to amass greater wealth so that one could return to one's home and village and live better with higher status), it was also strongly influenced by the location of prior immigrant kinsmen, village associates, and even more remotely "related" compatriots of the same geographic, political, and dialect district or iupa - who in tum could advise prospective emigrants of the labor market. Mining and factory towns were not arbitrarily populated by people identifying with the abstract term ' 'Slovak.'' Instead, members of the same village or of adjacent villages commonly sought to live with one another in the New World. Indeed, "ethnicity" changed meanings in the process of settlement in the United States: expanding from more localized, inter-village loyalties, and reciprocal obligation, to supra-local ties based on common religion, dialect, and finally to the emergence in America of an encompassing sense of national "Slovakness" that heretofore had never existed (cf. Gould 1970). It was only after a national sense of identity became established (and this, tenuously, because of the intense factionalism among Slovaks) that the appeal of . President Wilson and Secretary of State House during World War I to Slovak nationalism was possible. A document such as the ' ' Pittsburgh Pact" was thus heretofore unthinkable. Any conceptually neat separation of religion (or churches) from fratemalism is heuristically spurious. Indeed, the history of Slovak religion and mutual benefit societies encompasses the spectrum of alliance and schism, and between them, conflict. The history of the relationship between the two types of associations is the history of each. Moreover, both types of organizations are firmly rooted in east-central European social structure. The village organization functioned much like a vastly extended family, in which kin and extra-kin ties of reciprocity were part of the fabric of everyday life . A group-psychology of community solidarity bound the village tightly together. Even the collapse of manorialism in the mid-19th century did not obliterate this essentially pre-Magyar ethno-psychology. One might say that it functioned preadaptively in the American host environment, and facilitated the earliest " insurance" and cultural- 62 SLOVAKIA perpetuative efforts. After all, the extended family was one's life, accident, and sickness "insurance." There was litsrally no conception of the "individual" apart from the family, church, and village group. Fitzpatrick (1966) correctly identifies Euro-American ethnic communities as bridges or "beachheads" to the wider host society (see also Nelli, 1970). Likewise, Anderson notes "the capacity voluntary associations have to facilitate the transition of individuals and societies to participation in the modem world" (1971:216). He further proposes that ' 'the new associations seem founded to meet needs not previously the responsibility of any older organization" (Ibid.). As this paper will emphasize, however, the new associations built on the firm foundations of elements within traditional organizations; the change lay in the repatterning of those elements - a repatteming which, I might add, has been continuous. I wish to stress that there is nothing automatic, inherently ''natural,' ' or inevitable about the Slovak-American adaptation. The need for "survival" does not explain how or why a particular "survival strategy" for "problem solving" is adopted. Stated differently, it is not the stimulus situation of the stress, but the meaning of the stress and the individual or group characteristic response to it that determines the type of adaptation that will be made (La Barre, 1972; Stein and Hill, 1979). One must inquire both into the nature of the new environment and into the cultural tools a group adapts with. "Necessity" by itself does not explain the "invention" (see Light 1972) . The Slovak-American inventions, themselves variations on traditional psychosocial organization, values, and worldview, must be regarded as preadaptations within the cultural repertoire by which the Slovaks recapitulated much of the Old World in the New (see Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) . The traditional ethos determined both how new " necessities" were perceived and the group-organizational responses based on those perceptions. I cannot here pursue in detail the thorny question as to just what " is" a Slovak. Suffice it to say that the approach taken in this paper is essentially " emic": that is, Slovak based on self-identification and / or ancestry. Thus, for instance, there are several thousand Slovak-Americans, Catholic and Lutheran, whose most ~ediate ancestry traces to Croatia rather than northern Hungary. In the mid:17th century aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian expulsion of the Turks, Maria Theresa invited those peoples inhabiting the already overpopulated Hungarian northlands to migrate to the newly opened land. For the most part, these Slovaks remained Slovaks. Identifying the "ethnic" boundary between Slovaks and Rusins or SLOVAKIA 63 Ruthenians of far eastern Slovakia, southern Galicia, and the western Ukraine is a far stickier matter (see Stein, 1972) . Indeed, many who are Rusin in ancestry, but who lived in what was geopolitically Slovakia, became accultured insidiously through daily contact with the more westernized Slovaks, through the influence of the Latin and Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic Churches, through the centralizing tendencies of Vienna, and last but not least through affiliation and identification with Slovaks following migration to the United States - that is, many became Slovaks in the U.S. I Over at least the past three centuries, the "ethnic boundary" between Slovaks and Rusins has been progressing further eastward. Had the great immigration taken place two centuries ago, virtually all the immigrants would have been of Byzantine Catholic or Orthodox faith and Rusin ethnicity! To the religious conflict must be added, especially since the World War I era, a conflict of nationalisms and proto-nationalisms. Among the permutations of the conflict: (1) Many Ukrainian nationalists insist that eastern ''Slovaks'' and "Rusins" do not exist, but in fact are Ukrainians; (2) Slovakia has undertaken a program of attempting to Slovakize the remaining Rusins; (3) Both the conflict over ethnic identity and the gradual process of Slovakization of Rusins has taken place in the U.S. (a) in such organizations as the Greek Catholic Union and the United Societies of USA, and (b) through the continued process of Latinization whereby many Greek or Byzantine Catholics joined Slovak Latin Rite parishes. A considerable official literature (see Lacko 1963) prepared by the Slovak Institute of Cleveland, Ohio and Rome, Italy is devoted to demonstrating that Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite, in Europe and America, are bona fide Slovaks and Catholics. Many Slovak peasant immigrants and their children passionately argued the same point (Stein 1972). The author's justification for including such organizations as Byzantine Rite churches, the Greek Catholic Union, and the United Societies as Slovak is that (a) by self-identification many of their officers, priests, and members speak of themselves as Slovaks, and (b) ethnicity is a process, not a static given. THE FOUNDING OF SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS For the most part, the Slovak-American fraternal societies began in the 1880's through the early 1900's as self-help, mutual assistance organizations. The arrangement of regular social activities such as dances , plays, gymnastic groups, and literary clubs, and the organiza- 64 SLOVAKIA tion, construction, and support of Slovak parishes followed later. In all earnestness I emphasize that the link between fraternal and church lay in their division of labor: the fraternal association would first establish insurance in this world; the church would become the guarantor of insurance in the next world. The most immediate needs were mortuary funds, land for the burial of the dead, and death-sickness-and-accident insurance for workers and their families in the U.S. and Slovakia. The new "foreign" dead were often unwelcome in established cemetaries. Slovak burial societies were formed to purchase separate tracts of land, often on the periphery of the town, a considerable distance from the burial sites of the dominant population. Slovak work life was chronically uncertain by the absence of stable unionization in the steel mills until 1936 and thereafter. Wages were low (though admittedly, the immigrant laborers earning a living unheard of in their villages of origin). Periods of steady work fluctuated with periods of layoff. Working conditions were contemptously hazardous. The management of the factories and mines provided no assistance for the injured or for the families of workers killed or maimed on the job. The urban Slovak-American "peasantry" experienced much the same basic insecurity as did they and their progenitors on the manorial latifundia or as landless workers. In one sense, conditions were worse, because in the American capitalistentrepreneurial system there was no personal bond of reciprocity and obligation between manorial lord and serf - although, however, the political system of patronage in the urban wards perpetuated at least an attenuated version of this function. For those immigrants who discovered themselves to be outside the civil and moral community of those recognized as ''Americans,'' the organization of burial-deathaccident-and-sick benefit societies was a means of reconstructing a community. In employment as with religion, Slavic-Americans were for the most part seen as outside the domain of civic and religious responsibilities. This led in tum to a defensive attitude toward American society, even as the belief in the American Dream strongly persisted. Exclusion from without led to a degree of defensive self-exclusion from within. The "enclave mentality," heir to a heightened self-" consciousness of kind," was a product of ethnic-American conflict, not simple cultural transplantation. I am tempted to suggest that much on the organizational level which we might mistake for w~at was traditionally native has a distinctively nativistic quality to it. , For instance, in one multi-Slavic fraternal club, the early by-laws SLOVAKIA 65 specified that only members of Slavic ethnic groups could qualify as members and be permitted on the premises of the club. This qualification arose as a response to the fact that representatives of the mill management would attend meetings incognito, sit at the bar, listen for comments by dissident millworkers, and report them to the management which would summarily fire them for potential insubordination. A first-generation Catholic Slovak-American who came to the United States in the late 1920's said of the Slovak Club of McKeesport, Pennsylvania (a large mill town): The Slovak Club 's By-Laws were written in 1896. Only Slavs were accepted. You had to: you didn 't know who' s your enemy in those days. Johnny Bulls, or the Irish, might be in there, before the ByLaws were adopted . If you said anything against somebody, they report you. The only way to make sure you could speak your mind and not be afraid was to make the By-Laws . Ethnic " elective affinity" was more out of forced circumstance than choice . Those who were regarded and treated as the same created a survival strategy, becoming far more homogeneous in the process than they might had the constraints been fewer . Let me give two brief examples of the hierarchy of functions in the early fraternals . My first example is Lodge No. 2 of the Greek Catholic Union. Prior to regulation of insurance fraternals by the actuarial rules of the Pennsylvania State Insurance Department in the 1920' s, a member would pay $1.00 monthly dues for the mortuary fund and for death benefits to family , the latter of which is derived by subtracting the mortuary costs from the principal. The $1.00 formal dues would be collected from every member regardless of age or age of joining. In addition to the formally recorded $1.00 , he would pay 3 cents a month for relief benefit , so that, for instance, if he lost an arm in a mill accident he would receive $500 . An additional local assessment was 5 cents monthly for sickness benefit, which provided for food and bought medicine when the member could not work because of poor health. Today, this latter has become a " flower fund " to provide flowers at the funeral of a member or a member 's spouse. Any further needs were met by proportionate assessment of the membership . A second example is that of the Slovak Sick Benefit Society, organized in McKeesport in 1888, and which in 1890 merged with the founding of Lodge No. 31 of the National Slovak Society. This local organization collected monthly dues of $1.00 for males . In addition to the regular dues , if a man died , the men paid $1.00 ; if a woman died, the women paid 50 cents extra - for funeral expenses , given to the sur- 66 SLOVAKIA vivor of the deceased. At that time, the sick benefit was $6.00 a week for 13 weeks . After 13 weeks, up to the 21st week, $3.00 a week was given. After the 21st, nothing. The main economic function was to assist those who became sick or suffered an accident in the mill, since at this time there existed neither a union nor a commitment by management to provide such benefits. The Society also had something of an ambulatory service: two members of the society visited the sick person, or went to the scene of the accident, and took him to the hospital, to his home, or where he could be given proper care. While in their initial phase, ethnic fraternals were a response to the often hostile host environment, voluntary associations were long an inescapable part of the American social landscape. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830's, resiliently self-reliant Americans were also habitual joiners. This may help to explain how and why initially exclusive self-preservation societies became internally acculturated clubs and lodges at the local and national levels. That is to say, they became largely American cultural organizations with ethnic ancestry. Criteria for membership became ethnically less restrictive. At the same time, there occurred a gradual yet massive attrition of membership in the totemic Slovak-ethnic associations, and an equally gradual yet dramatic increase in membership by the same Slovak-Americans in lower middle class totemic American clubs such as Eagles, Moose, Elks; such service related groups as Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Catholic War Veterans ; employment related union clubs; and finally local public or private restaurant-bar-entertainment clubs. While there has certainly been, especially in the 1940's and 1960's, considerable compartmentalizing of membership, dual allegiance, something of voluntaristic "double descent, " at the present time American fratemalism has already been the dominant trend. In fact many Slovak-Americans with whom I worked who still maintain their fraternal insurance policies do so for economic reasons; their fraternal affiliation lies elsewhere. Originally, in the ethnic enclave, one's kinship network, resources, and the fraternal were one' s insurance. When the ethnic community network itself was one 's guaranteed insurance, there was no need for a separate entity labeled " insurance, " let alone insurance policies outside that community. Only as many ties within the corporate ethnic community were attenuated or severed cl.id the need arise for American style individual insurance coverage. And only since World War II did the originally multiple functional fraternal societies become primarily insurance companies, that is, businesses. In both cases, American as well as ethnic insurance companies served both instrumental (eco- SLOVAKIA 67 nomic) and expressive (ethos) functions: security by affiliation in the ethnic sense, and self-reliance in the American sense. THE PROBLEM OF PERPETUATION AND ACCULTURATION IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS During the first and second decades of each of the fraternal organizations, the emphasis gradually shifted from immediate self-help requirements to more long-range, future-oriented plans associated with revitalizing Slovak culture in America. Whereas the initial years were preoccupeid with self-preservation, the subsequent years became concerned with perpetuation. The insurance / protective aspects were incorporated in a wider institutional framework that elaborated on the traditional cultural model. Once Slovak immigrants decided to make America their permanent home, churches were founded and supported, Sokol gymnastic programs were initiated, and so forth. It quickly became evident to the founding generation that something must be done to enlist the younger generation in these activities or institutions lest Slovak culture disappear with the passing of the first generation. The younger generation must be socialized into the new institutions and activities the immigrant parents had founded. Thus each fraternal organization instituted a juvenile branch or age grade to prepare the younger generation for adult membership. There were thus established two age sets within each fraternal, the adult and the juvenile. Subsequently, most fraternals also added a Sokol or gymnastic branch (if they were not already Sokol fraternals), originally intended as a middle age grade, but which became an adult unit on par with the "General" or "Adult" branch. The lower age limit for transfer from juvenile to the adult branch seems to be 16-18 in the Greek Catholic Union, and the upper age limit is 25 in the National Slovak Society. Typically, a parent would buy a life insurance policy for an infant shortly after birth and pay for the policy until the child's majority. At that time the former junior member would become a responsible adult member, transfer his or her policy to the adult branch, and begin paying for it himself or herself. Thus was the problem of continuity initially solved. For the third and fourth generations continuity was not so readily assured. Many of the second and third generations themselves withdrew or terminated their own policies and did not enroll their children. Many immigrant and second generation informants spoke bitterly of how they felt that officers of their fraternals had used their position for 68 SLOVAKIA self-advancement (internal mobility?), pocketed some of the dues, especially during the pre-1920 days prior to state-enforced bookkeeping, and terminated members' policies or foreclosed on home mortgages during the Great Depression days when dues were not forthcoming (the internal transformation from personalized ties to impersonalized business venture). In some families where the children had been dutifully enrolled in infancy, the children took advantage of the fact that the parents paid for the juvenile policies, and upon reaching majority or "going out on their own," they turned in the policy for cash value, and enrolled themselves later in large "American" insurance companies. With large-scale industrial unionization in the mid- and late-1930's and the opening up of "American" insurance corporations to the now'' American'' descendants of the ''foreigners,'' many of the purely economic insurance functions fulfilled by the ethnic fraternals were replaced by more attractive, sounder economic policies elsewhere. As the lodges have been losing young and elderly members, the middle-aged members have become the core of their lodges, and those who will be perpetuating them will, like their counterparts in the Americanized Slovak churches, be those who have transformed their lodges and their athletics according to the model of the American prototype. With the great decrease in membership and hence in lodge population, lodge consolidation (GCU, United Societies, NSS) and the widening of intervals between meetings have taken place. Where a lodge meeting until the late 1930's was an enormous and lively social affair, often coordinated with a meal or a play in Slovak, since the Second World War it has become a cut-and-dry business meeting, where members stream in and out, pay their dues, often bring the dues of a friend or two with him (or with her), the older ones stopping to chat with a friend or two in Slovak - and then leave. The monthly business meeting of Jednota Lodge No. 60 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania usually keeps ten listeners besides the six officers and collectors at their long table. During the monthly meetings of the Sokol, the ULS, and the NSS, a table of officers sits in a room of empty chairs in the Slovak Club. Occasionally members drift in and out. The local lodge of the United Societies no longer meets; members brin~ in their dues or mail them in. Likewise for lodges of the GCU. The ULS lodge in Duquesne in 1970 changed its monthly meeting to bimonthly, because, as one officer said: "There's no use sitting down there at the empty church all afternoon every month waiting for a few people to show up." In the early 1970's, over 75 percent of the 1,300 GCU lodges were inactive. For the important annual meeting at which officials were to be elected at GCU Homestead Lodge No. 2 in 1971, only 15 of the 160 members attended. SLOVAKIA 69 \ To this should be added that only one of the Slovak fraternal lodges in McKeesport presently has any social or athletic program. Jednota Ladies' Lodge No. 276 has a bowling team, which members from Lodge No. 60 and the nearby borough of Port Vue can join. Lodge No. 60 dropped its bowling team in 1956. Bookkeeping changes have consolidated the Sokol and General Branches of the lodges. Today they function as little more than local insurance agents and collectors. All the national offices of the Slovak fratemals modernized and streamlined their policies to make membership attractive to those of the younger generation for whom Slovakness was not a major attraction, and further, to attract non-Slovaks. To a considerable extent, present-day Slovak fratemals are primarily modem insurance com· panies which would like to stay in business. The fact that all of them are far over the required solvency guarantees nothing about the future, for which they are greatly concerned. As the national president of the GCU remarked to me: The way things are now, it's only a matter of time before the GCU is finished. Sure we have an excellent solvency. But without new members, it's just on borrowed time. You just can't rely on monetary figures alone to tell you how we're doing. Of course we're in good financial shape, but that's because today people buy bigger policies - you can't pay for a funeral for $1000 today. Most of our policies are naturally larger, and the figure they give for assets ... would lead you to believe that we're doing great. That's the way the older ones felt. They always looked at the status quo and never at anything else. (1972) Of course the schism in the 1930's cost the GCU half of its more than 135,000 membership, which crisis did not occur in the other Slovak (and Slovak / Rusin) organizations. Nevertheless the same gradual decline in activity and membership has been the experience and plague of every Slovak fraternal. Slovak-American officials at the national level frequently speak of consolidating the adult, juvenile, and Sokol branches for fiscal reasons and because of poor attendance at meetings. They likewise speak of merging lodges for similar reasons, with the hope that perhaps with greater numbers the fraternal spirit may be rekindled. But they are pessimistic and in offhand, tentative ways consider the possibility of merging not only lodges within a given fraternal, but combining many Slovak-American fratemals under a single economic umbrella - anything that will help the solvency problem and postpone the inevitable disappearance of insurance fratemalism. Everywhere in Slovak-American fratemalism, the number of purchased insurance certificates is far 70 SLOVAKIA fewer than the number of deaths, maturities, disabilities, expirations, surrenders, and lapses of policies. Beyond founding the churches, many of the church-affiliated fraternals remain a major support of the church, both financially and by requiring that their members are practitioners of the faith in good standing (for instance, Jednota). Lodge meetings are held in the church (Jednota, United Societies, Slovak Catholic Sokol, GCU), rather than the secular Slovak Hall (where the Sokol USA, NSS, and ULS McKeesport lodges meet). Except for the Lutheran group (whose Duquesne counterpart does meet in the Slovak Lutheran church), the non-religious affiliated groups meet in secular settings, while the religiousaffiliated groups meet in church halls under the aegis of the priest. Until World War II, most of the Slovak fraternal groups at the local and national levels supported the political activity of the Slovak League of America, a non-fraternal, political-cultural group organized to publicize and lobby for the cause of Slovak independence (first in relation to the Hungarians, and later the Czechs). Its stress on Catholicity, its demands for Slovak separatism (rather than federated autonomy), and its support for the politically active Slovak priests Hlinka and Tiso of the Slovak People 's Party during the Nazi period alienated from it the support of the non-Catholic Sokols and the National Slovak Society. Presently, the Slovak League is primarily affiliated with, and is somewhat the political arm of, the First Catholic Slovak Union. All, however, collaborated in the period from 1907 (the year of the League's founding) throughout the First World War and in the early postwar period, toward the founding of the (First) Republic of Czecho-Slovakia (as the Slovaks prefer to spell it). The Slovak Catholic priesthood has always been at odds with the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, frequently accusing its members of being atheists and communists. The latter, however, have historically supported Slovak national aspirations, though apart from any religious considerations. This is reflected in the membership of the non-Catholic Sokols and the NSS, where only Slav-ness, not religion, was a qualification for membership. As a consequence, the Slovak Catholic (Latin and Byzantine Rite) religious dissidents, as well as Slovak Protestants , tended to gravitate to the Slovensky Sokol, and the NSS rather than to Jednota or the Katolicky Sokol. Furthermore, the -0verlap in membership equally relfects this distinction. Members would mosi; likely belong to Katolicky Sokol. Slovak Lutherans , of course , would join the Slovensky Sokol and the NSS. The above politico-religious concerns , however, refer only to the SLOVAKIA 71 \ older and middle age groups, who are the mainstay of the fraternal organizations. For the younger age group, under 36, Slovak national concerns are for the most part a matter of ancestry rather than immediacy. Apart from religious issues, criteria of membership in Slovak fraternals have during the past decades gradually become less exclusivistic. In the early by-laws, Slovak birth or descent was usually specified (together with a particular religious affiliation, where relevant). By the period following World War I, membership was widened to those of Slavic origin or ancestry (with religious specificity, where relevant). In 1937 the NSS extended membership to non-Slovak spouses married to Slovak members and their children. In the 1930's, the GCU extended membership to spouses so long as the spouse was Catholic. In the 1960's, membership in the Catholic organization was opened to Catholics of any nationality, while in the non-religious affiliated Slovak-American fratemals membership was opened to "anyone," implicitly or explicitly referring to whites of Christian faith. A young officer of the GCU said that he would like to see a change in bylaws that would open the organization to all Christians, removing the restriction to Catholics. Accompanying the opening of membership has been a gradual change in the organizations' names, first from the full length Slovak name to a shortened name, normally one word from the full name (Jednota from the First Catholic Slovak Union, Sobranije from the Greek Catholic Union). Then from the 1930's and on, the English title became more important and today predominates. Names became less European-sounding: the Slovak Evangelical Union became in 1960 the United Lutheran Society; the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol of the USA became Sokol USA. The young official of the GCU mentioned above suggested that if membership were opened to all Christians, he would like to see the name of the organization officially changed to the initials GCU only, and later "we might call it the Greater Beneficial Union / the name changed from German Beneficial Union / no, that's the GBU ... but you know what I mean.'' The direction then, would be that of an American-sounding name. Similar to this trend has been that from Slovak (or Rusin and Eastern Slovak in the Greek Catholic organizations) to English in the official publications or newspapers of fratemals. The newspapers themselves were founded shortly after the organization of the fratemals and were entirely in Slovak (with the above distinction). At the beginning of the 1930's, under pressure of the American-born membership, pages began to be devoted to stories, articles, and announcements in the 72 SLOVAKIA English language. It should be added, however, that from the days of World War I, all of the papers and English-language sections were on American history, patriotism, the American constitution, government, and citizenship. By the 1950's, 50 percent and more of the space was in the English language. For instance, after the 1964 Milwaukee Convention of Sokol USA, Slovensky Sokol devoted 76 percent of its space to English material. At the 1966 National Convention in Tampa, through an act of the General Assembly of the convention, the name of the official publication was changed from Slovensky Sokol to Sokol Times, and the paper is now entirely English-language, as is that of the United Societies, Prosvita (Enlightenment). Nevertheless, such papers as Jednota, Katolicky Sokol, and the GCU Messenger are half-English, halfSlovak; Narodne Noviny is about 25 percent Slovak. What I emphasize here is the overall direction of change. The annual Kalendar or Yearbook of the Greek Catholic Union provides an excellent and generalizable source by which changes since the first decade of the 20th century can be observed and traced. I examined the annual Kalendar of the GCU spanning the years 1903 through 1972 (with considerable gaps in the 1930's and 1940's due to schism within the society over the issue of clerical celibacy). Although the GCU was founded in 1892, the oldest available Kalendar in storage was that of 1903. The following table gives the title on the cover, a summary of advertisements which reflect contemporary issues (migration, home owning, etc.), the nature of written characters for non-English sections (Latin or Cyrillic), subjects of early essays on Americanization (1903-1932), and the language employed by the exarch / bishop in his introductory message. By the late 1960's, at least half of the Kalendar (totaling in the 1960's 90 pages) was in English. (See Table 6). To summarize the table: Through the 1930's, there were advertisements in the Kalendar for such goods and services as banks, saloons, hotel, liquors, a variety of medicinal cures, boat tickets, home building (financing, mortgages, titles, etc.), shipping from overseas, etc. Essays were written on such subjects as American history (including praiseworthy accounts of American founding heroes and legendary leaders), an explanation of American government and how to participate in it, why and how to obtain citizenship, descriptions of the nature of the population and geography of the United States, accounts of farming in the United States and of technolo~cal innovations from the zeppelin through the airplane. Considerable space was likewise devoted to a description of the Slovak-Rusin homeland, culture, religious SLOVAKIA 73 \ customs, etc. Although much of the writing through the 1930's was in eastern Slovak-Rusin dialect and written in either or both Cyrillic and Latin characters, English was used in essays on American history and government as early as 1905, when the article was printed in both languages. Americanization, more specifically, bridge-building between the insular ethnic world and the more expanding American world, was one of the major early agendas of the fraternals. Americanization was also one of the major points of stress between traditionalists and acculturationists that led to attrition of membership and schism in churches and fraternals alike. On the one hand, the Polish National Catholic Church and the Slovak National Catholic Church, a variety of independent Rusin-eastern, Slovak-western, and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, and the United Societies of USA (among others) broke with their Americanizing-Irishizing-Latinizing denationalizing parent organizations and became bastions of tradition (e.g., in liturgy, in customs, etc.) - only to acculturate internally. On the other hand, even the most traditionalist societies zealously urged Americanization both by exhortation and by the example of its leadership - including the clergy. SCHISM, DECLINE, AND CULTURE Let me use several nodal points in the history of the Greek Catholic Union to illustrate the convulsions to which conflict between the acculturationists and traditionalists led. The GCU schism of 1902 led to the founding of a new fraternal association, the United Societies of USA (Sobranije). At the 1902 Convention of the Greek Catholic Union, there was strong debate over whether or not the largely Magyarone RusinSlovak clergy leadership would be permitted to retain their official position, since they insisted on remaining citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary. The convention overwhelmingly voted that henceforth all officers of the GCU would have to be American citizens. Moreover, there was a long-standing resentment against domination of Slovak or Rusin parishioners by a Magyar or Magyarone clergy. In Hungary, the laity could do nothing about it. But in America, former peasants could vote out those who were either of the Hungarian aristocracy or had used the church - and ethnic assimilation - as a means of social mobility. The orientation toward a secular leadership made the process complete: the Byzantine Catholic laity of the fraternal would be a strong supporter of the Church but would not be its tool. The United Societies of USA, conversely, retained priests among .. .. ... .. .. .. . .. .. • • ---- ___________ KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOIJC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES. GEORGE BATYKO) Message by Advertisements Written Exarch I Characters Bishop Year Cyrillic Slovak Rus. Eng. Early Americanization Topics Cover Title - -- - - - - - - Amerikansko-Russko- J ·1903 Banks• , Saloons, Slovensky Kalendar Hotels , Liquors , Medical Cures , • Boat Tickets• Am. History (Rusin) 1904 • Amerikansky-Russko- 1905 Am. Government (Rusin & English) • Slovensky Kalendar Am. fanning, airplane, zeppelin 1909 (Eng.) Amerikansko-Russko- 1914 Banking-Shipping•, Am . Hist. (Rus .), population • Slovensky Kalendar Cures, Liquors of U. S. (Eng.) Banking•• Sokola Sojedinenija Citizenship / naturalization / 1921 • • govt. (Eng.) ,, Am. Hist., govt., loyalty, how Banking** 1924 • to use checking (Eng.) Kai. Soj . Gr. Kaft. 1926 Banking**, Financing, Russkich Bratstv. Home Building, y • • Religious Publications Am . Hist. , govt. (Rus.) , Cit. / 1932 Title & Mortgage Nat. (Eng.) Guarantee co., • • Banks , Boat Tick...,.. ets, Medical Cures K. Gr. Kaft. Sod . none 1953 S. S. A. • 1955 • • TABLE5 > A > < r 0 V, .:,. '-I " " " " " " 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 Gr. Kaft. Sod . S.S. A . " " " " " " " " " " Message by Exarch I B ishop • • . . . • . • ..• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . .• . Cyrillic_ Slovak Eng . . Early Americanization Topics - -- - - - Rus. Written Characters • Rovnianek (Pittsburgh) in particular •• Money orders, drafts, credit, savings , import, interest *** Diamond Jubilee Almanac GCU Calendar GCU of USA*** Gr. Kaft. Sod . v S. S. A. GCU Calendar " " " " " 1956 D. Gr . Kaft. Sod. S.S. A. " First Federal S&L of Homestead none Year -- Cover Title Advertisements KALENDARS (YEARBOOKS) OF THE GREEK CATHOLIC UNION (COURTESY OF PRES . GEORGE BATYKO) TABLE 5 (Continued) ., Vl 'I )> A < )> r 0 V) 76 SLOVAKIA its officials through the present; its birth dates from when a number of delegates walked out of the GCU convention in 1902 and founded its first church-affiliated lodge in McKeesport. At the height of its membership in the mid-1920's, United Societies counted some 27,000 in its adult and juvenile branches. By 1970, the last year for which actuarial figures were made available to me, membership had declined to 5,600; since 1930, membership enrollment by young adults has precipitously declined . (See the following Tables 6 -9 assembled from the actuarial records of the United Societies of USA, public domain.) Within the GCU during the intervening years, a second, even more dramatic schism took place in the 1930's over the issue of priestly celibacy - reflecting the conflict between the traditionalists, who argued in favor of a married priesthood and the acculturationists or ''Latinizers ," who advocated clerical celibacy. While no documented figures were available to me, a number of informants agreed that some 60,000 to 70,000 members, or roughly half the membership, defected. The GCU had been organized in 1892; the Juvenile Branch in 1906; the Gymnastic Branch in 1910. It totals some 1,300 lodges and is licensed as an insurance corporation in 12 states (United Societies, in 6). At the height of membership in 1929, the GCU numbered some 60,000 members in its General or Adult Branch, 20,000 in its Falcon Branch, and 65,000 in its Juvenile Branch. The cataclysm which cost the GCU half its membership occurred in 1929. As early as 1924, the Pope had dispatched Bishop Takach back to the United States with instructions that married priests , common in the Byzantine Rite in Europe, were not to be ordained. However, ordination continued for several years through what were described as "loopholes. " In 1929 came a specific papal decree, Cum Data, forbidding the ordination of married priests in the United States. This finalization led to the immediate defection of thousands of GCU members. If this were not earthquake enough, during the 1920's all ethnic fratemals in Pennsylvania were brought under the increasingly strict regulation of the Insurance Department, which consequence was an immediate precipitous drop in the membership of all Slovak-American insurance-related fratemals. Members could no longer be assessed equally, and amounts collected varied from month to month on the basis of the past month's claims, but were rate\f according to the National Fraternal Congress table of "attained age a~ June, l, 1933." That is, members were required to pay on the basis of age, with premiums increasing with age . The new rates were adopted in June 1932 by the GCU. The National Slovak Society and the men 's and ladies' divisions 0 4 5 12 35 51 68 51 42 10 12 28 49 69 83 82 77 88 75 0 70 1 85+ 0 0 0 1 ., 0 1 1 0 6 1 4 7 18 29 15 35 33 34 69 80 0 1 In the Adult Branches, the Falcon and Main Branches have always been combined for bookkeeping purposes . 2 This figure gives the total membership in United Societies . It should be noted that at age 16, one is eligible to transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch (Main or Falcon) . One may transfer from the Juvenile Branch to the Adult Branch between the 16th and 18th birthday. 3 The report for 1950 was missing, so the 1949 figures were used instead . 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. This means that it is no longer possible to compare membership at ages 16 and 18 in the Juvenile Branch with that in the Adult Branch. 5 An e xplanation for the increase lies in the adoption by the United Societies of the Byzantine Life Savings policy in August, 1968. It is a policy that is sold by agents of the United Societies, an effort to expand the boundaries of fratemalism on a more traditionally commercial basis . It is a 21-year savings program, which one may enter up to age 45 . At the end of the 21 years, the money is returned to the policy owner. Its advantage is that it is insured savings, although the insurance coverage decreases with each year. For the older people , it provides the certainty of a little income . United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports (Penna., Ohio, New Jersey , West Virginia, etc.) Membership: Adult and Juvenile ADULT: MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES! Membership per attained age categories Total : Adult & Total : Year Juvenile2 Adult 55 60 65 16 18 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 46 16 3 8652 135 128 131 236 272 367 279 185 1924 565 275 212 1926 346 517 1928 55 28 1930 19339 10159 320 372 342 114 135 227 254 290 233 191 70 153 186 227 165 122 30 7472 61 127 177 120 1935 13393 36 41 86 85 51 41 111 152 192 135 92 1940 8857 5464 7 59 70 51 73 130 151 145 49 76 106 107 99 1945 7399 5235 18 19493 48 67 69 86 63 57 58 146 133 130 6285 4739 4 18 19554 43 72 44 46 54 82 78 82 56 65 106 107 5472 25 76 89 47 43 5290 68 52 44 15 55 57 97 1960 73 78 42 37 17 27 53 46 41 1965 4812 90 63 50 19705 47 45 5628 101 60 52 38 99 107 129 118 40 27 - TABLES "" )> A < )> Vl r 0 ,,.. - 63 60 101 52 44 5456 91 613 237 231 18 68 90 16 348 418 191 299 153 93 72 6 This figure is for age 17, as it is the last listed, no figure being given for age 18 in the Juvenile Branch. 7 See Note . 4 on previous page . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Membership: Adult and Juvenile JUVENILE BRANCH Membership per attained age categories Total Year Juvenile 0 1 2 10 1928 201 282 549 672 1930 9180 183 426 647 1935 5921 301 456 1940 3393 45 47 48 195 1945 2164 32 81 64 134 1949 1546 28 28 40 62 48 81 51 50 19557 1960 133 150 84 69 1965 33 74 80 88 1970 9 31 30 83 TABLE7 > )> ;ii;;: < r 0 V') 0:, " 1 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted Ond Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches. W - Written Rev. - Revived Rec . - Received Iner. - Increased Mat. - Maturity Surr. - Surrender Dec . - Decrease Exp. - Expiry Other - non-specified (However, for 1935, I would suspect that the 81 in this category belong elsewhere, probably in 'Surrender.') United Societies of the USA : Annual State Insurance Dept. Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches ADULT: (se e below for abbreviations) - - MAIN AND FALCON BRANCHES Benefit Certificates . . . In force In force Dec . 31 Dec. 31 Year last yr. W this yr. Death Lapse Rev . Rec. Iner. Surr. Dec. Exp. Other -Mat. 1925 14908 2220 15574 133 1524 103 1926 15574 3833 18141 145 1121 1928 10704 11102 114 10313 1930 527 77 10159 . 652 1 1935 7534 279 80 7472 89 332 81 5621 1940 80 15 5464 98 154 1945 5296 139 4 5235 93 91 20 1949 4864 47 4739 113 23 35 1 19551 5356 360 5472 105 19 86 34 5514 1960 217 5290 108 248 41 44 1965 4907 160 4812 103 74 16 36 26 1970 5054 599 193 5628 91 91 30 5 1 TABLES ~ "'° 7' > > < Vl r 0 1702 81 16 723 2g3 Transfer 1 The figures for the Juvenile Branch list only up to age 16, so it is ambiguous as to whether Juveniles past their 16th birthday are included in tne figure of 9401. 2 transfer to Falcon Branch . 3 transfer to Senior (Main) Branch. 4 Beginning with 1955, the United Societies adopted One Fund Bookkeeping, using a single ledger system and combining figures for Juvenile and Adult Branches . United Societies of the USA: Annual State Insurance Dept . Reports Exhibit of Certificates: Adult and Juvenile Branches JUVENILE BRANCH: Benefit Certificates In force In force Dec . 31 Received Dec . 31 Terminated b1: last yr. by transfer Increased this yr. Year Written Revived Death Lapse 19281 9401 884 49 42 1930 9239 9180 810 968 1935 6384 597 5921 11 7 470 1940 3740 136 10 3393 223 1945 2356 115 2164 12 1949 1636 60 1546 1 120 19554 1960 1965 ,,, . 1970 - TABLE9 > 7' > ~ r (./') ~ SLOVAKIA 81 of the First Catholic Slov~ Union (Jednota) had been the first to comply in 1930. The state requirement of solvency was reflected in high premiums for the older members who, in the Depression years, could not pay. Each insurance company had to make up the deficit. The 1929 law required that all fraternal societies re-rate their policies within five years. Not that this external policing had not been attempted before. But now, like the papal decree on celibacy, the law was final. Between 1892 and 1909 or 1910, each member of the GCU had been assessed 50 cents, 60 cents, or 75 cents a month, depending on how much was customarily collected at a given lodge. There was no uniformity of policy even within the GCU. In 1909 or 1910, the GCU lodges went under an '' Assessment System,'' such that the amount due from each member was determined by the claims of the past month. Thus the assessment varied from month to month, but was internally regulated by the lodge. Around 1910, the state began to appear in the picture, proposing that members of fraternals pay according to age. Some fraternals put a lien on each member's policy, but this did not sufficiently raise revenues. In 1918 , the National Fraternal Congress Table of Mortality provided a uniform schedule according to which each member was to be rated according to the age at which he or she had joined the organization. But, even where this table was applied, it did not bring lodges or national offices anywhere approaching solvency. In Pennsylvania, the Insurance Department saw that the fraternals were functionally decentralized and operated on a day-to-day economic calculus - which, incidentally, was the traitional Slovak way of pooling resources in the extended family. It applied pressure for greater fraternal centralization and economic foresight. As of 1924, new members were to be rated according to the American Experience Table of Rates. However, the old members could continue to pay the prior National Fraternal Congress rate. This, too, did not greatly move the GCU and other Slovak-American fraternals toward solvency. Finally, the 1929 Pennsylvania law was implemented, and its effect paradoxical: it "worked" with amazing effectiveness according to the canons of American economic planning, but utterly disrupted the Slovak way of doing business. To summarize, then : the most compelling factors in declining membership within the Slovak-American fraternals were (a) the increasing cultural Americanization of their members and the availability of fraternal and insurance options within the cultural mainstream; (b) the increased influence of external (e .g., state) forces in the management of the internal affairs of the associations; (c) the devastating in- 82 SLOVAKIA fluence of the Great Depression over members' abilities to keep up payment of premiums on policies (undoubtedly influenced by " b " ); (d) the fraternal officials ' internal acculturation of the associations into "American" institutions (self-motivated as well as impelled by "b"). There remains an extremely potent factor in fraternal schism and attrition much less obvious to the observer's eye than those already discussed, one which the national president of a Slovak-American fraternal in his early 70' s poignantly articulated: ... we are still declining, there is an explanation for it. There was nothing ever done in this society. There was feeble attempts made to try to get the younger generation to become interested in our / fraternal society / . . .. we now lose, on an average of 1200 members a year .... you take in our generation, our parents were interested in our society and as soon as kids were born they put them in the lodge, the mother or father would always make sure that they would come to the meeting once a month and pay their dues. Even after they got married, the would pay their dues , do you follow me? Now, after they were on their own, had their own families they would say: "Here is your policy. Do you want to keep it. We pay till now. You can make your wife your beneficiary. " Lot of them kept it, and a lot of them turned around and cashed whatever they could get for it. See, where the old people wouldn't do that, and this younger generation isn't like the older generation. They say: " I don't need this or that." Now once again I say, it's not all of them, but the majority. They aren't worried so much like the old people were about their future. All they care is they get a new car, or good times, and when they are in trouble they come to their parents to help them out. Shortly thereafter, he spoke of local lodge meetings: The younger kids, they come, some of them come, some come and just pay their dues. They're in a hurry. They're always in a hurry. You see , I'll tell you. I think the biggest dam fault in all our fraternals. We used to have meetings every month at every lodge. I know I went as a younster, we came to the League, as a young fellow, 18, 19 years old, 20, 21. We would go to the Assemblies. All these old timers come to the meetings. It was always in the Slovak language, and if you\wanted the floor or ask permission to say something, and if you couldn""t. explain yourself well in the Slovak language, say in butchered up language, Slovak and English mixed together, the president of SLOVAKIA 83 _ _ _ _ says: "Sit down you snot nose you. You can't express yourself in Slovak, you can sit down. You are out of order." Well, naturally these younger people think, they say "Oh, my goodness gracious." You get red in the face, these young people, then they don't know what to do. Then they sit through it and first chance that they got to go home, "They won't get me back here with a bull rope." Instead of being nice to them and courteous, ''OK, we understand you, go ahead and say in English what you want to say. We want you to come." And once you drive them away, oh boy, it's hard to bring them back. That's been the trouble all these fratemals, whether it's the Slovak Catholic, whether it's the National Slovak Society or the. First Catholic Slovak Union. It's the same condition and a lot of those old timers, when they held office, they thought they were supposed to be there till they die. The younger people, they need to bring these people in . . . . Another official, participating in the interview, later interjected: ... That old fellow who would come to the conventions, and make a rousing speech, "We have got to get our young people to take over our offices in our local assemblies, in the national,'' yet he wouldn 't give up his damn job .... (from field notes, June 1978) The chronic, occasionally acute conflict (expressed institutionally in schism) which these officers articulate is a generational conflict be- tween fathers and sons, once contained within the traditional familiar and manorial system, but now run openly rife in the expressively more permissive American cultural setting. We have already seen this conflict in another form: the 1902 schism within the GCU which led to the founding of the United Societies of USA, precipitated by the issue of allegiance to the U.S. versus allegiance to the parental-land and representatives of its authority. This conflict at the macro-institutional level is dynamically identical with the deeply traditional family struggle in Slovak culture: parental holding on versus letting go of authority, power, status, property, and roles. What I have discussed elsewhere in terms of traditional and Slovak-American personality, family dynamics, and culture change (Stein 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1979, Stein and Hill 1977, 1979) is dynamically identical and isomorphic with the conflict at the macro-institutional level. Traditionally as well as in the New World, unquestioning respect for and obedience to the will and authority of elders was paramount. In the official cultural ethos, the father's word and will were absolute; 84 SLOVAKIA deference was due to him no matter what. With the breakdown of the manorial order in Slovakia between 1848 and the great migration of 1880-1920 , sons began demanding a greater say in the running of family affairs . If fathers refused to relinquish some of their traditional prerogatives , sons now had options from setting up separate households to emigration . The vastly extended " joint family " diminished into the " stem family " (Goldschmidt and Kunkel 1971) in which frequently only a son or two, and daughter or two would live with or near the parents (cf. Koenig 1937) . The children now were able to place demands upon the parents , and to leave if dissatisfied. This is precisely what happened openly in the U.S., which official ethos was based on revolutionary separation from parents who, as the motto goes , exacted " taxation without representation, " an experience that strikes at the heart of the Slovak experience as well. Of course, this never was a matter of either / or. As I have demonstrated in the above cited works , moves centrifugal toward autonomy have evoked enormous ambivalence , guilt, restitution, and centripetal countervailing moves on the part of parents. Nonetheless , the above officials have identified as a decisive ingredient in the attrition of the young from Slovak-American fratemals the demand by the young for respect by the elders, a reversal of tradition that is at the same time traditionally and quintessentially '' American.'' It is thus not enough to say that the young defectors had been " Americanized ," and that the diehards remained doggedly "traditional. '' The elder officials of the Slovak-American fratemals could not mobilize the constraints they once yielded under the much hated manorial and Magyar yoke to compel those who they contemptuously regarded as " snotty nosed" youth to speak their language: Slovak. It should further be noted that language was wielded by the officials as a tool of power - but an impotent tool. Ironically, the youth, in the 1910's and 1920' s , attempted to express their interest in ethnicity in English, but were dismissed as out of order by parental-clergy-fraternal-elder figures who sought to safe-guard their venerable Slovak ethnicity by passing it on through institutional measures (churches, gynmastics , literary clubs). However, the fact of institutionalization of tradition was disqualified by the attitude of the founders toward those who would succeed them - which very " success " aroused their fear and countervailing animosity toward the Slovak-American youth. The very nature of many officers ' traditionalism led to the ardent Americanization by the young, whose consequence for the fratemals was decline in membership. ' SLOVAKIA 85 ATHLETIC PROGRAMS IN SLOVAK-AMERICAN FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS: INTERNAL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY Similar directional change can be seen in the history of athletic programs within the Slovak-American fraternals. The baseline was the Slovak Sokol (Falcon) or gymnastic society. The earliest Sokols had been founded in Bohemia in 1862 by Jindrich Fuegner and Miroslav Tyrs , derived from the German Turnvereine . The Sokols were used in Europe both as vehicles for nativism and Pan-Slavic solidarity. In the U.S. , they tended to follow ethnic lines and intra-ethnic schisms. Initially most of the fraternal organizations were divided into full membership branches: general (adult), juvenile (up to ages 16-18) , and Sokol. Between the ages of 16 and 18, one transferred from the juvenile branch to either the general or the Sokol branch. The Sokol branch stressed group gymnastics. Beyond local activities, each branch combined with other lodges, organizations, and conducted district, regional, national, and international slets (mass calisthenic displays) . Separate Sokol / insurance fraternals later developed. During the first decades of the twentieth century, baseball attracted considerable interest in fraternal and church groups , and if not competed for time with the gymnastic activity, it at least paralleled it. By the 1930's, Sokol activity began a slow decline, while baseball was attracting more interest. And in the mid and late 1930' s, the first fraternal bowling leagues were formed, later organized into district, regional, and national competition along the same lines as were the gymnastics. With the preparation for and American entry into World War II Sokol programs were drastically cut when the young Sokols and Sokolettes and instructors took part in the war. Great hopes were placed on a revival following the war, but there was no such revival. Quite the reverse . Those lodges which were discontinued during the war were never revived. ' ' At least fifty percent of the former gymnastically-active lodges became dormant ; numerous Sokol halls were lost; and most of the prewar instructors and directors disappeared from the physical education field . The indifference and apathy on the part of .. . Sokol membership , and officers as well, also were responsible for this decline ." (Andrew Venglarcik, Jr., " President's Column," Sokol Times, Jan . 14, 1972 , p. 3). Despite efforts by the Supreme Lodge of Sokol USA and other control bodies to induce renewal by the appropriation of larger funds for the Sokols , promises of salaries and the payment of travel expenses, there was little positive response on the part 86 SLOVAK IA of the membership . The Sokol USA slet held in 1966 was a veritable miniature compared with those of the 1920's. The influence of World War II was pervasive on both those who participated in it and in the home communities. Two facts are especially noteworthy: (a) that the virtual collapse of Sokol gynmastics was merely one small aspect of this transformation from Slovak to American, and (b) that the fact of the war did not so much cause the change as it rapidly accelerated a process already under way. Baseball, already popular before the war, was equally popular during the war in the informal games by American soldiers at recreation in training or overseas. Although the soldiers returned with baseball, they did not return it to their fraternal lodges, but instead to their industrial teams, American Legion teams, war veterans ' teams, and so forth . At the Sokol lodges, bowling became the sport. Only in the 1960's did local bowling lodge teams begin to decline. From the late 1940's and early 1950's bowling began to compete with golf, which was subsequently organized in districts, regions, and nationally. From the mid-1960 's , golf became the major activity, all of this taking place as the elderly are passing on, the young either not joining or cashing in their policies when they mature , the lodges becoming smaller and more difficult to justify and maintain. What is the meaning of the transformation in athletic activities? What has changed, and what has remained? The only remnant is that of group competition. Slets displayed competitive gymnastic groups, and baseball, bowling, and golf were organized as competitive tournaments at the various levels . But there is a gradual incorporation into the group of increasing individualism, in contrast with the "mechanical solidarity" of group gymnastics . In all of these, what the individual does is for the sake of the group effort. But the individual as a separate entity is increasingly emphasized. The team-orientation of a baseball team is far greater than that of the bowling team, because, as in the group gymnastic display, all of the members ' (or at least the playing members ' ) actions must be coordinated. This is not the case in bowling or golf, where the group is cumulative and sequential, rather than synchronized. In bowling and golf, individual efforts (and accomplishments) are not directly coordinated with tho'se of others, although they are added to them. In these '' individualistic' •· sports, individual actions are apart from the group , not subsumed under group effort as they necessarily are in the slet and in sports like baseball. Psychologically, the meaning of these sports differs greatly from the earlier " team" sports , where the individual could never be " taken out" of the group . SLOVAKIA 87 \ This point has been well made by Andrew J. Valusek, President of Sokol USA: '' ... we believe in mass training more than emphasis on individual excellence, even though outstanding Sokol athletes are honored and play an important role in the life and achievements of the movement itself (Souvenir Book, 15th Sokol USA Slet, July 1-3, 1966, New York). This transformation in atheltics reflects what is simultaneously a cultural and psychological transformation: from Slovak to American, from group-oriented to individual-oriented, from coordinated interdependence to self-reliant independence. Furthermore, the incorporation of American athletic activities represented a new social status for the group . The lodge members had adopted within an ethnic framework typically mainstream American social activities. Increasingly, ancestral ethnicity was the basis for association, while categories of American culture dominated the content of the activity. MEN'S CLUB AND SECRET SOCIETY My final consideration in the history of the Slovak-American fraternals is its vital ' 'latent'' function as an exclusive men's club. This refers, of course, to male fraternal organizations or a compartmentalized activity of a male fraternal. The men's club provided and safeguarded a haven and refuge from women, family, and responsibility. It occasioned regularized " rituals of rebellion" (Gluckman 1954; Wallace 1966). This is not a matter of the writer's interpretations but derives from informants ' statements as well as the writer's observations. In Slovakia and Ruthenia, the village tavern had fulfilled this release function. In those Slovak-American organizations whose meetings were held under the strict supervision of the priest, the conclusion of a meeting was frequently followed by a visit to the Slovak Club . Many fraternals held their lodge meetings in one of the rooms at the Slovak Club. At the club , heavy drinking, card and craps playing, mournful and boisterous Slovak folk song, and " men' s talk" occupied the hours and filled the air. Abetted by the influences of "boilermakers'' (a shot of whiskey with a beer as chaser), the unspeakable literally emptied into the open. Taboos were cavalierly broken - at least in word. Built on shared experiences and conflicts, the male associations offered one of the few opportunities for male solidarity. Both in Europe and in the first several decades in the U.S., Saturday night was the ritual occasion for the unbottling of the week's pent up burdens. In the U.S. , the male solidarity of Slovak-American fraternal and the Slovak Club came to be predominantly associated with the immi- 88 SLOVAKIA grant generation. With the second and later generations, from the 1940's and on, this function became transferred to union halls, service veterans' clubs, American fraternal orders, and local bars, whether located adjacent to the mill or in one's neighborhood. These became places where men from varied ethnic backgrounds (though as exclusively white as they were exclusively male) could commiserate and boast of extracurricular feats on the war front and on the home front alike, out of reach of female domination and ridicule. In the original Slovak tavern the American Slovak Club, and later supra-ethnic American adaptations, lusty fiction compensated for social realities too miserable to acknowledge, and over which one felt no control. Through group support, one was able, without too great a burden on the conscience, to take a temporary moral holiday. And a man knew that later confession and communion could always undo - again temporarily what he had dared to think or say or do under the influence of potent spirits. SLOVAK-AMERICAN CHURCHES: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TRENDS A detailed history of Slovak-American parishes at the local and national levels, over the past century, exactly duplicates the history of the fraternals . For this reason, and for economy of space, I would like to review the major trends and give a brief ''life history'' of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, which history will embody these trends. Each of the churches in which I conducted fieldwork (Latin Rite, Byzantine Rite, Independent Rite Catholic, and Lutheran) either experienced the convulsion of schism or was a product of schism. Each of these parishes experiences the on-going drama of conflict between traditionalists and acculturationists. And in each of these parishes, the resolution is identical: (a) outward mobility of dissident acculturationists (and, in some cases, traditionalists for whom even the majority of parish traditionalists have compromised too much); (b) internal acculturation and inter-marriage, creating supra-ethnic denominationalized parishes ; (c) the "territorialization" of "nationality '' parishes (this language comes from khe Catholic diocesan context, but is univerally applicable) . The same directional change is evidenced since the 1930's in Slo- SLOVAKIA " 89 vak-American churches as in fratemals: that is, away from ethnic exclusiveness and insularity. Initially, religion, like fratemalism, was an inseparable functional component of ethnicity. Today, in the context of an individual's increasingly personal community" (Gould 1970: 148), a traditional social structural view is empirically invalidated. "Religion" and "ethnicity" have become increasingly separate domains of one's life. This is true even for those originally nationality parishes which, in the 1960's or early 1970's, still maintained a large membership and which could afford to build a new parish further "up the hill" or out in suburbia. I think, for instance, of two parishes in Duquesne, Pennsylvania: Holy Trinity (Slovak) Roman Catholic Church, which, in the late 1960's, built a dazzlingly modem church in the suburb of West Mifflin in which many of the second and third generation lived, but which became de jure a supra-ethnic territorial parish in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh; and Sts. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church, originally located in the same neighborhood as Holy Trinity, but which built a modem church building in the mid-1960's a mile or two further up the hill, in a stable white, middle-class, poly-ethnic neighborhood. Cross-cutting denominational lines is the decisive influence of World War Il in accelerating, though not causing, the Americanization process within Slovak-American parishes, and with it, division or further schism. The ubiquity of this process I have discovered from discussions with Latin and Byzantine Rite Catholic, Lutheran, and Independent Catholic Slovak-American clergymen and parishioners. A Slovak Lutheran minister in his late forties, who grew up in Johnstown, Penna., relates his experience there and generalizes from it: In my church in Johnstown, there was no English until 1942 - at least until 1942, when I left for World War II. When I left, no English had been introduced. But after war, the young people coming back demanded that English be adopted as a separate service. The effect of the war was to put people of all different backgrounds together, and the common language there was English. The men thought and spoke and felt in English, so that when they got home after the war, their native towns and churches were like a foreign country. The delicate questions, then, as always, was how to contain or try to contain change within continuity. In McKeesport, Penna., Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic Church had been founded in 1895 as a "nationality" parish within the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese (Holy Trinity 1970; Slovak Catholic Par- 90 SLOVAKIA ishes and Institutions, 1955). In 1921 the church had a membership of some 1, 700 individuals and 325 families. In that year, the bishop appointed a priest of Alsatian-German ancestry to succeed the Slovak priest who many elderly parishioners allege returned to Slovakia under dubious circumstances (e.g. , with church funds?). Not so much the new priest's ethnicity as his antagonistic, condescendingly anti-Slovak style precipitated a schism in which some 300 families left to found Sts . Peter and Paul Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, later renamed Sts. Cyril and Methodius. This priest remained the pastor of the church until his death in 1963, and was succeeded by a second-generation Slovak-American priest who remained pastor until his retirement in the mid-1970's. This period witnessed considerable Americanization of everything from liturgy to architecture to the aesthetics of the sanctuary. The immense wood-spires gave way to marble. The dusty baldachino was taken down in the 1960' s. The sanctuary of the church has fewer and fewer statues and candles. The interior became increasingly lighter and brightly lit. The Slovak mass on Sunday morning (one mass out of the four) , attended mostly by the older people, was phased out by the late 1960's. At the Diamond Jubilee Celebration (75 yrs.) in 1970, no Slovak was used in the special mass. (As I left the service, I overheard one man , perhaps in this 60 's, exclaim to a friend: " Couldn 't he have said something in Slovak?'') In 1975, a young third-generation Slovak-American priest became pastor and initiated weekly Charismatic Renewal Services , held in the church social hall and open to and attended by Catholics from parishes throughout McKeesport. Thus, what began as an exclusively ethnic parish has become internally a multi-ethnic territorial Roman Catholic parish though with explicitly acknowledged ties to an ethnic past. Moreover, it is the site for decidedly contemporary American cultic activity that stresses the direct, personal religious experience. The possible conflict between the priest and Eucharist-centererd formalism of the traditional mass (now in the vernacular English) and the participatory Charismatic Service of heightened self-expression and testimonial has at least for the moment been settled by compartmentalization. At the present time (see Table 10), the membership is large enough (roughly 1,800 members) , and its >decline due to the greater proportion of deaths over baptisms gradual e:eough to assure the parish at least several decades of "life." But, clearly the nature of the religious experience has changed decisively over the past 85 years . The word ' 'Slovak '' was officially dropped from the name of the church in SLOVAKIA 91 \ the 1960's. • The parish is becoming increasingly working-class Catholic in its expressive function. The so-called Latinization and Irishization of the church has most recently been succeeded by a new type of American religious nativism: here , however, the change is induced far less from without than from within. To date, St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Independent National Catholic Church, and St. Mark Lutheran Church have solved the generational gap between traditionalists and acculturationists through separate services. Sts. Cyril and Methodius alternates Sundays with English and Slovak services. At St. Mark, the Slovak service typically takes place early on Sunday, followed by the English service . At the much larger St. Nicholas, the Slavonic Mass is one of three masses offered on Sunday morning, the other two in English (for detailed histories of these parishes , see Stein 1972). If at Holy Trinity, " Latinization" mediated by " Irishization " underlay much internal conflict, at St. Nicholas a less direct though powerful Latinization has taken place, here mediated by the supra-local hierarchy from Byzantine Catholic bishop through Rome. Just as in Latin Rite Slovak-American parishes, the conglomerate of IrishizationLatinization-Americanization was a means of social mobility for the priesthood ; likewise within Byzantine Rite Slovak-American parishes, Latinization-Americanization, bypassing the Latin Rite, Irish-dominated Church , was a means of social mobility for its priesthood. This, however, was not original to the American context. For centuries, both Byzantine and Latin Rite Slovak priests frequently used Magyarization as a means of mobility in Slovakia. Likewise, in Europe as in America, Germanization was a means of social mobility for Slovak Lutheran clergy. In all cases , the process in America was continuous with that in Europe: only the specific content or reference group(s) changed. • Let me furthe r pursue the issue of " What' s in a name? " , the importance of name as personal meaning and identity, from the point of view of baptismal records in this parish . Both in traditional Slovakia, and in parish records through the early 1920' s, baptismal names we re largely Biblical , or reflected more eastern Slavic influence . Thus, most males were named Michael, John, Thomas , Andrew , George, Paul, Joseph, Stephen , Be rnard , Albert, Rudolph, Charles, and Ivan ; and females were named Martha, Helen , Margaret , Mary, Anna , Elizabeth , and Ivana. American names, including the addition of a middle name, began to appear sporadically in the late 1910's , but grew in the 1920's and thereafter . For instance : Ella Sue, Stanley J oseph , Ethel Elizabeth, Emma Marie , Virginia , Robert William , George Edward (all before 1930) , Anna Mae, Rose Marie , Dorothy Mae , Virginia Louise, Patricia J ane , Lucille Diane , Gary Michael, William John , and so forth . SLOVAKIA 92 TABLE 10 Diocese of Pittsburgh Holy Trinity (Slovak) Catholic Church Allegheny County McKeesport, PA Church reports at five year intervals (1896-1971): Year 1896 1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 1941 1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1974+ Souls (approximate)• 600 Families (approximate)• 180 905 210 1060 250 1200 1300 1800 2500 2700 300 300 400 600 600 600 600 600 500 600 600 610 675 667 2900 2886 3170 3180 3500 3500 2725 2540 2140 Baptisms 144 151 175 177 160 140 137 131 86 72 127 86 78 66 41 26 16 Deaths 50 . 67 109 30 48 50 30 45 38 37 24 36 39 40 35 37 50 • Priest' s estimate derived from traditional annual blessing of homes after Epiphany. + Last year data available. Moreover, this was hardly a process imposed exclusively from without or by the pastor. In the absence of schism, and in the aftermath of schism for those who chose to remain loyal to church and pastor, the direction taken by the pastor coincided with the direction sought by a majority of the congregation, through passive assent if not active work toward change. The matter is somewhat different for Sts. Cyril and Methodius, an independent Slovak Catholic church that has literally struggled for survival since its creation in 1921. Beginning with some 300 zealous families as Sts. Peter and Paul, it has now barely 100 members. In the 1920's it ambitiously built a new church, only to lose it to the bank in 1937. Just as, prior to building its own edifi<z, the church held services in Slovak Hall and in churches where it was welcomed, likewise after 1937, it held services at the YWCA and the Baptist Mission. In order to be exempt from any past or future debts incurred under its original SLOVAKIA 93 \ name , Sts. Peter and Paul changed its name to Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the late 1930's . In its early period, the church had been served by a priest ordained by the Czecho-Slovak Independent Church in Slovakia. Later, when no priest could be found, Sts. Cyril and Methodius became affiliated with the parallel nativistic Polish National Catholic movement which had begun in Scranton, Penna. in 1897 (Fox, n .d.). Services were conducted at the local, inner-city Polish National Catholic Church , served by a Polish-American priest who said mass in Polish, while responsorials and hymns were sung in Slovak by the congregation. During the late 1960's, the Polish church began a building program in suburban McKeesport. At the same time, a Swedish Evangelical Free Church was vacating its church on the "hill" and moving to a more outlying district - where its members tended to be living, and away from the area in which blacks were now living in increasing numbers . The Slovak Independent church voted to purchase the Swedish church outright in 1967. So the church now had a home, but few members. Many had, in the intervening year, returned to Holy Trinity. Others joined Catholic or Protestant churches near their homes . Still others gravitated in increasing numbers to the Polish National Catholic Church: an institution which acted both to safeguard the Slovak church and as an agent of acculturation to the PNCC tradition. Indeed , one of the greatest areas of chronic conflict within Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been those who resist and resent the PNCC influence and those who accept it. From the outset, the Slovak National Catholic Church movement has been numerically small and politically weak in comparison with the PNCC, which now claims several hundreds of thousands of members in some 140 churches in the U.S. alone - and which movement diffused in the 1920's back to the mother country . Thus the direction of change in Sts. Cyril and Methodius has been toward PNCC and American acculturation. Like St. Mark, whose ' 'life history '' I present immediately below in detail rather than fragment , the membership of Sts. Cyril and Methodius is highly skewed toward the end of the life cycle , unbalanced by a substantial middle-aged population to compensate for the outward migration of young adults and the virtually non-existent birth-rate. While these examples are sufficient to illustrate the trend of culture change , I would like to tum to the history of St. Mark Lutheran Church , which should provide a depth missing in the breadth of the " trends " I have covered for the other churches . 94 SLOVAKIA ST. MARK LUTHERAN CHURCH: AN INSTITUTIONAL ''LIFE HISTORY'' St. Mark's was founded in 1913 by 25 members from the Slovak Evangelical Union Assembly 53 (a fraternal organization) organized in 1899 in Duquesne. The church was named the Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne. Between 1913 and 1919, ''lacking funds to either build or buy a place for a church site, the Church council called upon the nearby existing Grace Reformed Church ... for permission to use the church for services" (50th Anniversary Book, St. Mark Ev. Lutheran Church, Oct. 27, 1963) . Toward the end of the decade , Grace Reformed Church's growth compelled it to seek larger quarters elsewhere in Duquesne, making the building available for purchase. Slovak Lutherans from Duquesne and from the nearby communities of McKeesport and Glassport purchased the church building. In 1920, the parish was able to send a call for its first full-time pastor. In 1934, after no prior synodical affiliation, the church joined the Slovak Zion Synod, Lutheran Church of America, in which it has been a member ever since. In the 1930's, the Slovak Lutheran parish in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, experienced a schism between the more Americanized members and the traditionalists. The more Americanized members wanted English introduced into the service, and wanted to establish a Sunday School for their children in which English was the language of instruction. The more adamant Slovaks refused to permit any change. Between one-third and one-half of the congregation (over 150 members) left. They took up membership at the nearby German Lutheran and Engish Lutheran churches. The loss of membership in the 1930's precipitated a compromise initiated in 1940: an English-language Sunday School was founded, and English was adopted in the Vacation Bible School and in the Confirmation Class. The services, however, remained entirely in Slovak. The Second World War acted as a great catalyst of change toward the more rapid Americanization of the parish - not merely of this parish but thoughout Slovak Lutheran parishes. The younger members, many of them returning veterans, insisted on a separate English service. This structural change solved in part the probl~m of the different intergenerational linguistic and cultural orientatibns. Each age set, indeed cultural set, would have its own separate service. The Sunday morning Slovak service at the Duquesne parish is now a much shortened version of the traditional service. In this way, it has been adopted to the Ameri- SLOVAKIA 95 can time-sense (e.g., hymns of an original 16-20 stanzas now reduced to 4-6). For occasions such •s Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday, and Confirmation, joint services are held, with roughly half in English and half in Slovak, equally distributed throughout the service. In the 1960's, further measures were taken to Americanize the church. A majority of the younger members felt that the word "Slovak" in its name , as with the lengthy European-sounding name as a whole, discouraged non-Slovaks from joining. The younger age set wished to become an integrated member of the American Lutheran community rather than remain outside it. As a reflection of this attitude change, the name was changed from Slovak Evangelical Augsburg Lutheran Congregation of Duquesne to the more conventional St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church, or simply St. Mark Lutheran Church. The church was named in honor of a saint because, as the pastor put it, ''most American churches are called Saint this or Saint that.'' Accompanying the change in name were concomitant changes in the by-laws whose effect was intended to parallel and validate the change in name. Whereas previously membership was restricted to Slovak Lutherans and their spouses (through conversion to Lutheranism), now membership was opened to all Lutherans irrespective of nationality background. For all practical purposes the church became ''two churches' ' : Slovak Lutheran and American Lutheran, the former using the Slovak liturgy, and the latter utilizing the Common Service Book of 1917 (United Lutheran Church of America) until the mid-1960's, then the authorized Service Book and Hymnal (Lutheran Church of America, 1968). However, the opening up of the church to new membership, together with the standardization of the liturgy, failed to attract new members or to retain the young. The Slovak population of Duquesne, like that of McKeesport and all other local milltowns on the Monongahela, had largely been moving to outlying districts, first up on ''the hill,'' later further out to "suburbs. " Mobility of membership to nearby " American Lutheran" churches almost inevitably followed. In the same area of Duquesne as St. Mark Church were former Slovak Roman Catholic (Holy Trinity, Duquesne) and Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Catholic (Sts. Peter and Paul) churches . Sts. Peter and Paul had completed a new church far up on the hill in early 1960, and Holy Trinity completed a new church out in the suburb of West Mifflin in 1970. During the period from the 1940' s through the 1960' s, as the Slovaks moved " up and out," the area rapidly became settled by blacks , and the area quickly became unpopular even in the eyes of those Slovaks who remained and attended the Lutheran Church (which could not 96 SLOVAKIA afford to build elsewhere). The church could hardly retain its own members, let alone attract outsiders to what was quickly becoming called a deteriorated and unstable area. The former Slovak Catholic Holy Trinity Church building and rectory were given by the diocesan bishop to a local black church group, and the nearby vacated Slovak / Rusin Byzantine Church became a plaything for vandals. Many Catholic and Lutheran Slovak-Americans who had bought their first homes here or had grown up in this neighborhood said in disgust that this was no longer a place fit for a white man to live. It is significant that, despite all the vast changes that have taken place in the church, the original German-made oak tryptich altar, baptismal, and pulpit (of the 1920's) are retained by the church to the present. From time to time younger parishioners have suggested that the ancient pipe organ be replaced by a modern electric organ, but there has never been a concerted demand for such a replacement. I suspect that underlying this lack of pressure for costly remodeling and rennovation is first, the smallness of the congregation and hence the lack of large amounts of funds for such purposes, and second, the younger generation's relative lack of long-term future commitment to the parish and hence their acquiescence to the traditional preferences of the older generation . At present, an average of ten of those parishioners aged 60 and over attend the Slovak service; while between 40 and 50 of mostly younger parishioners and their families attend the English. Only a few elderly people are accompanied in the Slovak service by their children and grandchildren. However, many grandparents attend the English service with their children. Unexceptionably, the three-generation service is the English. A maximum of 15 attend the Slovak service, while at the English it approximates 60. The parish is rapidly losing members at both ends of the age range , the elder through deaths , and the younger with their families by moving away or joining more American Lutheran churches . Between 1960 and the end of 1970, the church lost 26 members over age 50 (out of a total of 32) of whom 14 were over age 70. Several parents in their 30 's and 40 's have told me of their intention of joining elsewhere after their own parents, stalwart members , pass on .* \ • Rarely have Slovak-ethnic organizations later becom~ stable supra-ethnic co=unity institutions . The direction of change seems one way . Ethnic parishes have declined dramatically in Slovak-American membership . The ethnic fratemals ' efforts at modernizing fis cally simply came too late . Moreover, the fratemals ' renewed efforts at in- SLOVAKIA 97 , CONCLUSION This paper has examined religion and fraternal association among Slovak-Americans as institutional forms for the communication of cultural meaning. Although I have focused on a single Euro-American population, the perspectives and findings of this study should be applicable to and testable by data from comparable populations. Historical, documentary, ethnographic, and demographic data were adduced both to illustrate cultural patterns of communication and to offer the reader material by which my generalizations might be evaluated. I have emphasized that (a) there is much in Slovak-American adaptation that is built upon, indeed derived from, preadaptive characteristics of traditional culture which cannot be reduced to the demands of the host environment or to adaptive tools available in it; (b) the overall trend and categories of change in fraternals and churches is identical; (c) the study of institutional meaning is never removed, nor can it be abstracted from, the personal meanings of its participants who invest in social structures; (d) what from one point of view appears to be patently instrumental functions can be discerned simultaneously from another point of view as expressive functions (i.e., complementary); (e) the American cultural system was adopted by Slovak-Americans to achieve both traditional ends (often in new "language" or cultural content) and anti-traditional ends, the seeds of which were sown (as latent possibilities) in traditional Slovak family and social conflict; (f) the distinction between traditional and modern, and continuity and change, cannot be concluded on the basis of mere appearance, but must be detennined by the meanings communicated by the cultural actors; hence (g) continuity in form, function, and meaning can often be expressed, not despite, but strurnental change in service of ethnic, that is, expressive, revitalization was a futile attempt to reassemble functions that had already been severed by the membership for expressive reasons . One conspicuous exception is the Benedictine High School in Cleveland , Ohio . Another is the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Homestead, Pennsylvania (with branches in McKeesport and Clairton, also mill towns) , originally founded in 1914 by Slovak workers to assist in providing common funds for Slovak families now able and eager to purchase homes in the "hill" regions of the town up and away from their rented flats in the " lowland" or " bottoms " close to the mill . Perhaps a compelling reason for the success of the S & L association lies in its offer of supra-ethnic' ' social security '' resources from the beginning. That is, being primarily a financial institution, it stood the best chance of flourishing in the American cultural environment in which instrumental (e .g. , economic) functions were compartmentalized from expressive ones. 98 SLOVAKIA through a change in symbolic content; (h) although unmistakable trends of change have been noted, at any given moment the identified distinctive features of change may perform complementary or contradictory institutional functions; (i) the process of Americanization or acculturation cannot be seen as a unitary process directed either from within or from without the ethnic community, but must be analyzed in terms of sources of impetus for Americanization. The study of ethnicity is not the study of "tribes" as though they and their conceptually reified cultures persist statically unchanged. Rather, the study of ethnicity is the study of human relationships, the meanings which people attach to those relationships, the communication of those meanings in idiosyncratic or institutionalized forms, the process by which changed meanings lead to changes in relationships and how in tum ethnicity and thus identity itself comes to be redefined. Certainly the nativistic "New Ethnicity" advocated by many fraternal leaders and Slovak-American intelligentsia (Stein and Hill 1977) is not at all the unself-conscious native ethnicity of the pre-immigrant period. My research among some three- and four-generation SlovakAmerican families and institutions leads to to the inexorable conclusion that Slovak-American ethnicity over the past century has dramatically changed from a relatively homogeneous public expression of community form, function, structure, meaning, and relationship to a far more heterogeneous, individualized, private matter. This privatization of ethnicity had led many scholars to conclude that ethnicity has disappeared. This is nonsense: it has been repattemed, some elements retained, others given up. Although the American ethos has replaced the ethnic ethos as the core of personal and group identity, the spheres of life and the levels of the personality at which this replacement has occurred must be demonstrated and explained. What has unmistakably declined and is disappearing is the full complement of institutions which characteristically define a traditional community (cf. Arensberg and Kimball 1965) . However, as I have suggested in my previously cited works, unconsciously communicated loyalties, conflicts, values , expectation, and worldview in the intimate interior of even ethnically intermarried families results in continuities in surprising guises (e.g., the steel mill experienced as the old manorial latifundia: see Stein and Hill 1979; Hamey 1975) . , On the other hand, ethnic ties are often.maintained in the absence of conspicuously ethnic content - and here "conspicuity" refers all too often to the preoccupations and categories of the observer. Ethnicity takes on an especially "hidden" quality (Hill and May 1973) when the SLOVAKIA 99 observer expects tradition~ meanings to take traditional representational forms. The more subtle, out-of-awareness (Hall 1977) aspects of ethnicity are the most intractible because they are pre-verbally ta.ken for granted and cannot be verbalized. Thus, for instance, I shall know that without a doubt a Slovak-American woman or man has acculturated more toward the core of the metaphoric personal ''onion'' when children - or the ethnographer! - are forcibly lavished copious quantities of food, when I am invited to visit with a family in their ''living room" or "dining room" instead of the kitchen; or when the implicit roles of maternal dominance and paternal distance in the home have become less pronounced, and the affective atmosphere affectively less brittle. Likewise, the inclusion of members from other ethnic groups within formerly exclusive tradition-maintaining fraternal and religious institutions, and the increasingly widespread phenomenon of intermarriage, are expressions of the simultaneous of group- or "ethnic" - and ego-boundaries. The formerly "other," often despised and alien, is now included within the possibilities of the "self." This fact requires a reassessment of our received wisdom about structural assimilation, namely, that inclusion is an act governed or regulated by the more mainstreamed "Americans" - that is, that it operates as a one-way process. Rather, inclusion is reciprocally a dynamic from within the ethnic group. Finally, this paper further confirms the tenet that ethnicity is a process operating at many levels, and is not a lineal continuum whose starting and terminal points can easily be plotted in terms of preconceived categories of "passing," "acculturation," "mobility," or "assimilation." It is the author's hope that future studies will not only provide greater breadth and depth in the study of Slovak-Americans, but will offer a comparative framework for the study of emigrant Slovaks in other nations (indeed, other regions of the U.S.), the internal transformation of Slovakia in the post-World War I period, and other European emigrant populations in their new contexts. Such studies will determine precisely how limited or widespread is the trend of culture change discussed in this paper. REFERENCES Anderson, Robert T. "Voluntary Associations in History," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 209-222. Arensberg, Conrad M. and Solon T. Kimball. Culture and Community . New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966. 100 SLOVAKIA Balch, Emily Greene. Our Slavic Fellow Citizens . New York : Amo Press, 1969 (orig. 1910) . Barton , Josef J . Peasants and Strangers : Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950. Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press, 1976. Bue, Bonaventure S. " Slovak Nationalism: Its Origins, Conflicts and Objectives." Master's thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1967. Fitzpatrick , Joseph P. " The Importance of ' Community' in the Process of Immigrant Assimilation, " International Migration Review 1(1)(1966) : 6-16. Fox, Paul. The Polish National Catholic Church . Scranton , Penna: School of Christian Living, n.d . Gluckman, Max. Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa . Manchester: Manchester University Press , 1964. Goldschmidt, Walter and E. J . Kunkel. " The Structure of the Peasant Family," American Anthropologist 73(1971): 1068-1076. Gould, Harold A. ' 'Some Preliminary Observations Concerning the Anthropology of Industrialization,'' In Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization . William Mangin, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970, pp. 137-149. Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture . Garden City, New York : Doubleday 1/ Anchor, 1977. Hamey, Robert F. "Ambiente and Social Class in North American Little Italies," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism 2(2)(1976): 208-224. Hill, Robert F. and J . Thomas May. " Exploring Hidden Ethnicity: Problems and Methods ," American Society of Ethnohistory , Central State University, Edmond , Oklahoma, October 1973. Jansak Stefan. "The Land Question in Slovakia (I), " The Slavonic Review 8(1930) : 612626. Kerner, Robert J ., ed . Czechoslovakia . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940. Kirschbaum , Joseph M. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Europe. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Klein, Philip . A Social Study of Pittsburgh. New York : Columbia University Press, 1938. Koenig, Samuel. " Marriage and the Family among the Galician Ukrainians, " In Studies in the Science of Society . George P. Murdock, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937 , pp. 299-318 . Krajsa, Joseph C., Chairman, Editorial Board. Slovaks in America . Middletown, Penn.: The Slovak League of America, 1978. La Barre, Weston . The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion . New York: Dell, 1972. Lacko, Michael. '' A Brief Study of the History of the Slovak Catholics of the ByzantineSlavonic Rite," Slovak Studies 3(1963) : 199-224. Slovak Institute, Rome, Italy . Light, Ivan H. Ethnic Enterprise in America. Berkeley: University of California Press , 1972 . Macartney , C. A. Hungary and Her Successors . New York : Oxford University Press , 1937. Nelli, Humbert S. The Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility . New York : Oxford University Press, 1970. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and/ts People . New York: Robert Speller and Sons , 1960. Roucek , Joseph S. "Problems of Assimilation: A Study of Czecho-Slovaks in the United States ," Sociology and Social Research XVIl (1932-33) : 62-71. Roucek , Joseph S. " The Passing of American Czechoshivaks ," American Journal of Sociology 39(1933-34) : 611-626 . Roucek , Joseph S. " Czechoslovak Americans ," In Our Racial and National Minorities. SLOVAKIA 101 Francis J . Brown and Joseph S. Roucek , eds . New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937, pp. 230246 . Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada. Cleveland, Ohio: The First Catholic Slovak Union, 1966 (Jednota Printery, Middletown, Penna.) . Stein , Howard F . " An Ethno-Historical Study of Slovak-American Identity." Doctoral dissertation , University of Pittsburgh , 1972. Stein, Howard F. " Cultural Specificity in Patterns of Mental Illness and Health: A Slovak-American Case Study, " Family Process 12(March 1973): 69-82. Stein, Howard F. '' Envy and the Evil Eye among Slovak-Americans: An Exploration into the Psychological Ontogeny of Belief and Ritual," Ethos 2(1)(Spring 1974) : 16-46. Stein , Howard F. " Structural Change in Slovak Kinship: An Ethnohistoric Inquiry," Ethnology 14(1)(January 1976): 99-108 . Stein , Howard F. " A Dialectic Model of Illness and Health Attitudes and Behavior among Slovak-Americans ," International Journal of Mental Health 6(2)(Summer 1976) : 117-137. Stein , Howard F. " The Slovak-American 'Swaddling Ethos' : Homeostat for Family Dynamics and Cultural Continuity, " Family Process 17 (March 1978) : 32-46. (a) Stein, Howard F. ''Aging and Death among Slovak-Americans: A Study in the Thematic Unity of the Life Cycle ," The Journal of Psychological Anthropology 1(3)(Summer 1978) : 297-320. (b) Stein, Howard F. "The White Ethnic Movement, Pan-Ism, and the Restoration of Early Symbosis: The Psychohistory of a Group-Fantasy," The Journal of Psychohistory 6(3)(Winter 1979) : 319-360. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F . Hill. The Ethnic Imperative: Ewmining the New White Ethnic Mo vement. University Park , Penna .: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977. Stein, Howard F. and Robert F. Hill. " Adaptive Modalities Among Slovak- and PolishAmericans : Some Issues in Cultural Continuity and Change ," Anthropology 3(1-2) (1979) : 96-107. Stolarik , M. Mark . " Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 18701918." Doctoral dissertation , University of Minnesota , 1974. Wallace , A. F. C. Religion: An Anthropological View . New York: Random House, 1966. Yurchak , Peter Paul . The Slovaks . Whiting, Indiana: Obrana Press, 1946. Zatko , James J . " Slovaks in the U.S.A., 1900-1914," Slovakia 16(39)(1966) : 41-62 (Slovak League of America).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Ethnohistory of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions Description An account of the resource Howard F. Stein Slovakia, Vol. 29 (No. 53-54), 1980-81 pp. 53-101 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stein, Howard F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980-81 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/675915bc9f7c8105845af9639076bf73.pdf 344aedb74161c78ddb173dbcaacff698 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 13 Immigration and Eastern Slovak Nationalism M. MARK STOLARIK The Cleve/,a,nd State University Nineteenth century nationalism affected Slovaks both in Europe and in the United States. In its early stages this movement gripped people in all parts of northern Hungary. Later, the center of gravity shifted to central Slovakia while the east seemed doomed to Magyarization. Many eastern Slovaks who had moved to America, however, rediscovered their ethnic identity here and joined the struggle for national survival. European nationalism, which had its roots in the early Romantic period of the late eighteenth century, received a tremendous, if unexpected, boost from the reforms of Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Joseph, "that Convention in a single man" (1) who ruled the empire from 1780 to 1790, tried to modernize his realm with various reforms, including one that established German as the sole administrative language in his lands . This reform, among others, aroused the Magyar element of the nobility of Hungary, over which Joseph ruled, and set them on the road to national revival. They rejected German as the administrative language of Hungary and, starting in 1791, enacted through their Diet a series of laws which, by 1843, made Magyar the official language of their part of the empire. (2) This ethno-centrism destroyed the "a-national" (3) Hungarian kingdom which had previously employed Latin as the official language and turned it into a Magyar state that began to wage war upon all non-Magyar nationalities. Slovaks resisted attempts to assimilate them from the start. Even before the Magyars started fostering their own language, the Reverend Anton Bernolak codified the Slovak language and urged his countrymen to use it . His codification, which first appeared in print in 1787, utilized the western Slovak dialect and won wide acceptance among Catholics for the next fifty years. (4) Not only did western and central Slovak Catholics adopt Bernolak's codification, but their eastern counterparts accepted it as well. As Imrich Sedlak has recently shown, a group of Bernolak's fellow-priests in 1789 sent out an appeal from the Bratislava seminary to all Slovak nationalists to unite in a " Slovenske ucene tovarysstvo" (Slovak Literary Guild) which would promote Bernolak's reforms . Western, central and eastern Slovaks joined in this movement. Main branches of this learned society, which had its headquarters in the western city of Trnava, sprang up immediately in eastern communities such as Solivar, �14 SLOVAKIA Saris, and in central communities such as Roznava, Gerner, and Jager, now in Hungary. (5) In the 1820s other branches appeared in the eastern cities of Spisske Podhradie, Spis and Kosice, Abauj. (6) In the 1830s, student societies for the promotion of Slovak nationalism appeared also at the gymnasiums of Levoca and Kezmarok, Spis and Presov, and Saris. (7) While Bernolak' s codification did help to promote nationalism among Catholic Slovaks, it did not win wide acceptance among the Lutheran minority, nor among easterners. Lutherans continued using Old Czech, as found in their Bible, throughout the Bernolak era. Eastern Slovaks, when confronted with the choice between the western and central dialects, preferred central because they could better comprehend it. Perceiving this linguistic disunity, I.:udovit Stur, a Lutheran minister and professor at the Bratislava lyceum, decided to re-codify Slovak using the central dialect. He completed his work in 1846 and the students at the Levoca gymnasium immediately accepted it. Other eastern Slovak centers soon followed suit, as did most central and western ones, including those run by Catholics and Lutherans. (8) Therefore, by the middle of the nineteenth century, most Slovak intellectuals, whether from the east, west or center, were united in their support of the central dialect as the literary language of all the people. Slovak nationalism suffered its first setback in the 1848 revolution and continued to lose ground thereafter. As Julius Mesaros has pointed out, the followers of Stur participated in the 1848 revolution by fighting on the side of Vienna against Hungary, but certain rivals of Stur, led by the poet Jan Kollar, managed to win the approval of Vienna for their own cause, which was the use of Czech by the Slovaks. Vienna sanctioned the use of Czech in Slovak districts but only as a second language because the repressive regime of Alexander Bach, which lasted from 1849 to 1859, preferred to use German on all occasions. As a result, all nine gymnasiums in Hungary which had used Slovak as the language of instruction were Germanized by 1857. (9) From 1859 to 1867, while Vienna negotiated with Budapest about a possible accord between the Habsburgs and the Magyars, Slovak leaders took advantage of the relative freedom that prevailed and demanded recognition as a nation. In 1861, over 5,000 nationalists from all parts of the country met in Turciansky Sviity Martin in central Slovakia and drafted a "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation" to the Budapest Parliament. Besides demanding certain civil rights, they asked for home rule in the region called "Upper Hungary" . However, nobles who had promised to present this Memorandum to the Parliament backed down when they realized that its acceptance would mean a loss of their special privileges . The Magyars then merely denounced the Memorandum as "separatism" and ignored it. The only tangible achievement during this period of calm was the founding in �SLOVAKIA 15 1863 of the 'Matica Slovenska', a literary and cultural society with headquarters in Martin. For the next decade, it published hundreds of books and periodicals and became the coordinator and center of national life. (10) \ Slovak leaders next took advantage of a new order which prevailed between 1867 and 1872. In 1867 the Habsburgs and Magyars reached the famous 'Ausgleich' (Compromise) which divided the empire between them and left the Magyars supreme in Hungary. Under the relatively enlightened leadership of Francis Deak and Joseph Eotvos, the Hungarian Parliament in 1868 passed a "Law of Nationalities" which permitted, among other things, that the citizenry in all nonMagyar districts might use their mother tongue. Slovak Catholics immediately built a new gymnasium in Klastor pod Znievom and Lutherans built one in Turciansky Svaty Martin and enlarged one in Revuca. In 1869 Catholic Slovaks also established, after ten years of effort, the Society of St. Vojtech in Trnava, dedicated to publishing Catholic books and periodicals in the national language. (11) In 1873, after a change of leadership, the Magyars began to persecute the Slovaks. Bela Grunwald, vice-governor of the county of Zvolen, helped set up a "Magyar szovetseg" (Magyar Union) to Magyarize the nationalities. In addition, Grunwald petitioned Budapest "on behalfof the Slovak people" to close the three Slovak gymnasiums because they were "bastions of pan-Slavism". Led by Prime Minister Koloman Tisza, who declared in 1875 that ''there is no Slovak nation'', the Hungarian government seized the three new gymnasiums in 18741875 and had the 'Matica Slovenska' sacked in 1874. (12) Using the control of county governments which the 1867 Compromise had guaranteed them, the Magyars next attacked nationalist students and tried to disrupt the unity of the Slovak nation. In the 1880s county governments expelled fifty Slovaks from their gymnasiums, including seven from the Levoca and seven from the Presov institutions. In 1881, the government of Saris decided to test Bela Grunwald's Magyarization plans on the people of that country. And, as Ladislav Tajtak has shown, county officials began publishing books in the Saris dialect in the hope that this act would break eastern Slovaks off from the rest of their nation and make them easier to Magyarize. The plan seemed to be working in the 1880s; western and central Slovaks could find few nationalist leaders, books or newspapers in the eastern counties. (13) While the future of Slovak identity and unity seemed thus in jeopardy in Hungary, nationalist leaders took heart from events in America. In 1886, they learned from an American Magyar publication that Slovaks in Pittsburgh had begun to publish a newspaper. (14) It catered to eastern Slovaks from Saris and Zemplin, who had not one single periodical of their own in the Old Country. (15) Nationalists in Martin were delighted to learn that Slovaks in �16 SLOVAKIA America had begun " to read and like newspapers ." (16) This good news was followed by more. In 1890 a Magyarone priest in the United States indignantly wrote to a Budapest newspaper that American Slovaks were turning into ' 'Pan-Slavs'', and that they were not heeding the call to stay loyal to Hungary which he expounded in his newspaper. (17) Eastern Slovaks in America became nationalists largely through the efforts of one man, Peter V. Rovnianek, a native of Trencin county, central Slovakia, who had studied theology at the Budapest Roman Catholic seminary before being expelled in 1887 for "Pan-Slavism". After having visited with national leaders in Turciansky Svaty Martin, Rovnianek made his way to America in response to a call by the Bishop of Cleveland for a priest for the local Slovak community. (18) Shortly after his acceptance into the Cleveland seminary in September of 1888, Rovnianek began to contribute articles to Nova Vlast' (New Homeland), a weekly publication in the central dialect by Edo Schwarz-Markovic, a former police captain of Levoca, who had become a nationalist in America. (19) Markovic, however, had strong competition from the much larger weekly Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News). Rovnianek realized that if he was to convert eastern Slovaks to nationalism, then he would have to do it in the larger and more popular newspaper. (20) The publishers of Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, the first Slovak newspaper in America, did not start out as nationalists. Jan Slovensky and Julius Wolf, cousins of mixed German-Slovak parentage from the county of Spis in the eastern region, came to America as loyal citizens of Hungary. They had both studied at the Magyarized teachers' college at Klastor pod Znievom in central Slovakia and, upon graduation in 1879, decided to go lion-hunting in Africa. Unscrupulous immigration agents placed them, instead, on a ship bound for New York and soon both men found themselves working in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Very shortly thereafter Slovensky took a job as ''information officer'' at the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Pittsburgh while Julius Wolf worked in a grocery store. (21) At the consulate Slovensky came into daily contact with eastern Slovaks seeking news from the Old Country. He tired of answering their many questions and decided to post a weekly Bulletin of all the information that he had from home. So popular did this publication become that he began distributing it in the local saloons in order to keep Slovaks from swamping the consulate every week. Perceiving the possibility of financial rewards, Slovensky then joined Wolf in establishing in the fall of 1886 AmerikanskoSlovenske Noviny . The paper employed the eas'tern Slovak dialect and Magyar orthography because the editors had never studied central Slovak and they were not nationalists . (22) Ladislav Tajtak speculated that had Slovensky and Wolf not met P . V. Rovnianek and come into · financial difficulty in 1889, the newspaper might very well have �SLOVAKIA 17 retained its eastern dialect and its pro-Hungarian stance. (23) Rovnianek converted the publishers of Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the Slovak national cause. He began by contributing articles in central Slovak, and, despite some protests in letters to the editor, Slovensky published the~ as submitted. Rovnianek then urged the editors to publish the entire newspaper in the literary language for the sake of national unity. Slovensky and Wolf remained unconvinced until 1889. That year their printery burned down and they needed a large sum of money to rebuild it. Rovnianek then left the seminary, contributed some money to the building fund and entered into partnership with Slovensky and Wolf. Finally, Rovnianek persuaded them to make him editor. From then on all articles in the newspaper appeared in central Slovak and the editorials persistently decried Magyar oppression in the homeland. (24) Hungarian government officials subsequently labeled him a "pernicious and dangerous Pan-Slav agitator". (25) After Rovnianek succeeded in converting Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the literary language, most other Slovak newspapers in America followed suit. Leaders in the Old Country proudly observed in 1896 that American Slovaks, who had come from the most Magyarized counties of Hungary (eastern Slovakia), supported thirteen newspapers and not one appeared in the eastern dialect. (26) Certain American Slovak leaders, however, remained unconvinced and tried to foster the use of the outmoded dialect. The Magyarone priest Jozef Kossalko, for instance, published a weekly Zcistava (Flag) in eastern Slovakia in 1889 in order to combat the influence of Rovnianek' s paper. (27) Since he found very few subscribers, his paper folded after nine months. A group of Slovak socialists in Jersey City tried in 1892 to establish a weekly Robotnik (Worker) using the eastern dialect but it survived for only a few months. (28) The weekly Slebodni Orel (Free Eagle) of New York, published with the support of Father Imrich Haitinger of Passaic, a Magyarone colleague of Jozef Kossalko, also utilized the Saris dialect and had a shaky run of four years. It ceased publication in 1904. (29) Even Father Matus Jankola, president in 1900 of the First Catholic Slovak Union, and Albert Mamatey, president in 1918 of the Slovak League of America (both central Slovak nationalists), mistakenly believed that eastern Slovaks would rather read newspapers in their own dialect. (30) P. V. Rovnianek fought all such attempts, believing it would destroy the unity of the Slovak nation to publish in any other but the literary language. Rovnianek also opposed attempts at codifying eastern Slovak. (31) More importantly, eastern Slovak laymen in America also opposed writing in their own dialect . A certain "Malcicky from Zemplin" explained to his intellectual superiors that ''Germans have a large number of dialects and yet use only one literary form to preserve their unity;" therefore, "American editors are wrong in trying to publish in �18 SLOVAKIA eastern Slovak dialects." (32) Another even denounced his former schoolteacher in the village of Budimir, Saris, who had arrogantly written in eastern Slovak to accuse him of being a ''Pan-Slav scoundrel. '' Matik replied in central Slovak that his friends in Budimir would fight the Magyars and Magyarones to the bitter end and he bitingly asked this teacher how he could have forgotten his origins so quickly. (33) Besides affirming their nationalism, many from the eastern counties also acted it out. An immigrant from Liptov, one of the most nationalist of Slovak counties, reported that in 1890, three years after his arrival in America, a group of Saris natives persuaded him to join the National Slovak Society. (34) A little later a group of easterners in Passaic wrote a letter in their native dialect to the nationalists in Turciansky Svaty Martin and asked for central Slovak books and hymnals for their newly-established library. (35) Even more surprisingly, two lodges of Rockland Lake, New York, resolved to foster the literary form and sent money to N<irodne noviny (National News) in Martin to help their brethren do the same. And yet the officers communicated this information in eastern Slovak because they had not learned the dialect which had become the national symbol, but they promised to do so. (36) American-Slovak priests as well as the Hungarian government recognized the triumph of nationalism among eastern Slovaks in the United States. In 1903, at a meeting of the "Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests," in Philadelphia, delegates resolved to preach henceforth in the central dialect in order to keep the nation united. Such a resolution, passed in the presence of the Magyarone priest Imrich Haitinger, could never have succeeded had not the overwhelming number of eastern Slovak laymen supported it. (37) The Hungarian government concurred and unwittingly complimented easterners in the United States by declaring that "one stream of PanSlavism comes from Turciansky Svaty Martin and the other from America." (38) Slovak nationalism manifested itself, then, not only in Hungary but also in America; and it affected not only central and western but also eastern Slovaks. In the early stages of-its growth, leaders in all sections of northern Hungary presented a united front. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the Magyars concentrated upon splitting off eastern Slovakia from the movement and by the 1880's appeared to be winning .that objective, partly by publishing books in the regional dialect. However, eastern Slovaks who had migrated to America accepted P. V. Rovnianek's urgings to use central Slovak as their literary language. After 1890 they rejected Magyarone and even some misguided central Slovak suggestions to codify the eastern dialect and to publish in it. Therefore, while central Slovaks �SLOVAKIA 19 formed the bulwark against Magyarization in the Old Country, eastern Slovaks did so in America. FOOTNOTES \ (1) A. J . P . Taylor, The Habsburg Mnnarchy, 1809-1918 (New York, 1948), 19. (2) R. W. Seton-Watson, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks (London, 1943), 257-60. (3) George Barany, "Hoping against Hope: The Enlightened Age in Hungary," American Historical Review, 76 (April, 1971), 347. (4) Jan Tibensky, "Fonnovanie sa ideol6gie slovenskej feudalnej narodnosti a burzoazneho naroda " (The Forming of the Ideology of the Slovak Feudal Nation and of the Bougeois Nation), Historicky tasopis, XIX (No. 4, 1971), 585. (5) Imrich Sedlak, Strieborny uek: narodno-kulturny a literarny pohyb na u-jchodnom Slouensku u obdobi ntirodneho obrodenia (The Silver Age : The National Cultural and Literary Movement in Eastern Slovakia During the National Awakening), (2 Vols., Kosice, 1970) I, 33-46. (6) Ibid., 91-104. (7) Ibid., 135-51. (8) Ibid., 177-88 and 224-33; see also Seton-Watson, History of the Czechs and Slovaks, 259-61. (9) Julius Mesaros et. al., Dejiny Slouenska II: od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (A History of Slovakia, II: From 1848 to 1900) , (Bratislava, 1968) 102-112. (10) " Memorandum naroda slovenskeho k vysokemu snemu krajiny uhorskej ... " (Memorandum of the Slovak Nation to the High Parliament of Hungary .. . ), in Dr. Vacovsky (Milan Ivanka), Slouaci a Macfari: politicko-historicka uuaha (The Slovaks and the Magyars: A Politico-Historical Dissertation) , (Pittsburgh, 1914) 113-23; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 179-200. (11) Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson) , Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908), 136-56; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 264; and Jan Poestenyi, Dejiny Spolku su. Vojtecha (History of the Society of St. Vojtech) , (Trnava, 1930) 5-17. (12) Scotus Viator, Racial Problems in Hungary, 167; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 27281. (13) Narodnie nouiny (Martin), September 30, 1882, p . l; Ladislav Tajtak, "K otazke vydavania ucebnic vo vychodoslovenskom nareci" (Concerning the Question of the Publication of Textbooks in the Eastern Slovak Dialect), Noue Obzory, VI (1964), 4364; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 289-93. (14) Amerikai Nemzetoei, as quoted in Narodnie nouiny, October 26, 1886, p. 3. (15) Ntirodnie nouiny, November 3, 1886, p. 1. (16) Ibid., August 27, 1887, pp. 1-2 . (17) Jozef Kossalko in Budapesti Hirlap as reprinted in Narodnie nouiny, April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (18) P. V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za iiua pochouaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive), (Pittsburgh, 1924) 14-51. (19) J . A. Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Literature in America) , Sbornik Narodneho Slouenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 22. (20) Ibid., 22 and 24; and Konstantin Culen, J. Slouensk-j: Ziuotopis zakladatefapru-jch slouensk-jch nouin u Amerike (J. Slovensky: A Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America), (Winnipeg, 1954) 105, 116-117. �20 SLOVAKIA (21) Culen, J. Slovensky, 16-88; and Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo," 21-22. (22) Culen, J . Slovensky, 91-96; and Feriencik, ''Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo,'' 22. (23) Ladislav Tajtak , "K zaciatkom Amerik<insko-Slovenskych Navin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny), in Josef Polisensky, ed . , Zai!iatky i!eskej a slovenskej emigr<icie do USA (The beginnings of Czech and Slovak Emigration to the U.S .A.), (Bratislava, 1970) 189. (24) Ibid., 191; and Culen, J. Slovensky, 123-126. (25) Prime Minister of Hungary to the governor of Spis, August 28, 1902, Slovak State Archives , Levoca, hlavny zupan (governor), 43, 1902. (26) N<irodnie noviny, 1896, No. 25, p . 3. (27) Ibid., April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (28) Mesaros, Dejiny Slovenska II, p. 539. (29) Konstantin Culen , Slovenske i!asopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America), (Cleveland, 1970) 167. (30) Stefan Furdek to Frantisek Sasinek, December 11, 1900, Literary Archives of the Matica Slovenska in Martin (hereafter LAMS), 37-045; and Obrana (Cleveland), November 27, 1918, pp. 6-7. (31) Obrana, November 27, 1918, p. 7; and Rovnianek, Z<ipisky, 111. (32) Slovak vAmerike (New York), June 14, 1907, p. 3. (33) Jednota (Middletown, Pa.), July 22, 1914, p . 2; and Kritika (Cleveland), May 6, 1914, p. 5. (34) Pavel Svihra, " Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers), N<irodny Kalend<ir, 1930, 169. (35) Jan Nemetz to N<irodnie noviny, May 17 and June 20, 1897, LAMS, 37-054 and 37056. (36) Slovaks of Rockland Lake, N.Y. to N<irodnie noviny, May 5, 1898, LAMS, 37-056. (37) Ms. Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests Under the Protection of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Minutes (in Slovak), September 1, 1903, Society of St. Vojtech, Trnava, fasc . 299, C, No . 14 (on microfilm also at the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota). (38) Governor of Abauj County to all his subordinates, notice on Pan-Slavism, Slovak State Archives, Kosice, podfopan (vice-governor), X, 13051, 1905. � SLOVAKIA 13 Immigration and Eastern Slovak Nationalism M. MARK STOLARIK The Cleve/,a,nd State University Nineteenth century nationalism affected Slovaks both in Europe and in the United States. In its early stages this movement gripped people in all parts of northern Hungary. Later, the center of gravity shifted to central Slovakia while the east seemed doomed to Magyarization. Many eastern Slovaks who had moved to America, however, rediscovered their ethnic identity here and joined the struggle for national survival. European nationalism, which had its roots in the early Romantic period of the late eighteenth century, received a tremendous, if unexpected, boost from the reforms of Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Joseph, "that Convention in a single man" (1) who ruled the empire from 1780 to 1790, tried to modernize his realm with various reforms, including one that established German as the sole administrative language in his lands . This reform, among others, aroused the Magyar element of the nobility of Hungary, over which Joseph ruled, and set them on the road to national revival. They rejected German as the administrative language of Hungary and, starting in 1791, enacted through their Diet a series of laws which, by 1843, made Magyar the official language of their part of the empire. (2) This ethno-centrism destroyed the "a-national" (3) Hungarian kingdom which had previously employed Latin as the official language and turned it into a Magyar state that began to wage war upon all non-Magyar nationalities. Slovaks resisted attempts to assimilate them from the start. Even before the Magyars started fostering their own language, the Reverend Anton Bernolak codified the Slovak language and urged his countrymen to use it . His codification, which first appeared in print in 1787, utilized the western Slovak dialect and won wide acceptance among Catholics for the next fifty years. (4) Not only did western and central Slovak Catholics adopt Bernolak's codification, but their eastern counterparts accepted it as well. As Imrich Sedlak has recently shown, a group of Bernolak's fellow-priests in 1789 sent out an appeal from the Bratislava seminary to all Slovak nationalists to unite in a " Slovenske ucene tovarysstvo" (Slovak Literary Guild) which would promote Bernolak's reforms . Western, central and eastern Slovaks joined in this movement. Main branches of this learned society, which had its headquarters in the western city of Trnava, sprang up immediately in eastern communities such as Solivar, �14 SLOVAKIA Saris, and in central communities such as Roznava, Gerner, and Jager, now in Hungary. (5) In the 1820s other branches appeared in the eastern cities of Spisske Podhradie, Spis and Kosice, Abauj. (6) In the 1830s, student societies for the promotion of Slovak nationalism appeared also at the gymnasiums of Levoca and Kezmarok, Spis and Presov, and Saris. (7) While Bernolak' s codification did help to promote nationalism among Catholic Slovaks, it did not win wide acceptance among the Lutheran minority, nor among easterners. Lutherans continued using Old Czech, as found in their Bible, throughout the Bernolak era. Eastern Slovaks, when confronted with the choice between the western and central dialects, preferred central because they could better comprehend it. Perceiving this linguistic disunity, I.:udovit Stur, a Lutheran minister and professor at the Bratislava lyceum, decided to re-codify Slovak using the central dialect. He completed his work in 1846 and the students at the Levoca gymnasium immediately accepted it. Other eastern Slovak centers soon followed suit, as did most central and western ones, including those run by Catholics and Lutherans. (8) Therefore, by the middle of the nineteenth century, most Slovak intellectuals, whether from the east, west or center, were united in their support of the central dialect as the literary language of all the people. Slovak nationalism suffered its first setback in the 1848 revolution and continued to lose ground thereafter. As Julius Mesaros has pointed out, the followers of Stur participated in the 1848 revolution by fighting on the side of Vienna against Hungary, but certain rivals of Stur, led by the poet Jan Kollar, managed to win the approval of Vienna for their own cause, which was the use of Czech by the Slovaks. Vienna sanctioned the use of Czech in Slovak districts but only as a second language because the repressive regime of Alexander Bach, which lasted from 1849 to 1859, preferred to use German on all occasions. As a result, all nine gymnasiums in Hungary which had used Slovak as the language of instruction were Germanized by 1857. (9) From 1859 to 1867, while Vienna negotiated with Budapest about a possible accord between the Habsburgs and the Magyars, Slovak leaders took advantage of the relative freedom that prevailed and demanded recognition as a nation. In 1861, over 5,000 nationalists from all parts of the country met in Turciansky Sviity Martin in central Slovakia and drafted a "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation" to the Budapest Parliament. Besides demanding certain civil rights, they asked for home rule in the region called "Upper Hungary" . However, nobles who had promised to present this Memorandum to the Parliament backed down when they realized that its acceptance would mean a loss of their special privileges . The Magyars then merely denounced the Memorandum as "separatism" and ignored it. The only tangible achievement during this period of calm was the founding in �SLOVAKIA 15 1863 of the 'Matica Slovenska', a literary and cultural society with headquarters in Martin. For the next decade, it published hundreds of books and periodicals and became the coordinator and center of national life. (10) \ Slovak leaders next took advantage of a new order which prevailed between 1867 and 1872. In 1867 the Habsburgs and Magyars reached the famous 'Ausgleich' (Compromise) which divided the empire between them and left the Magyars supreme in Hungary. Under the relatively enlightened leadership of Francis Deak and Joseph Eotvos, the Hungarian Parliament in 1868 passed a "Law of Nationalities" which permitted, among other things, that the citizenry in all nonMagyar districts might use their mother tongue. Slovak Catholics immediately built a new gymnasium in Klastor pod Znievom and Lutherans built one in Turciansky Svaty Martin and enlarged one in Revuca. In 1869 Catholic Slovaks also established, after ten years of effort, the Society of St. Vojtech in Trnava, dedicated to publishing Catholic books and periodicals in the national language. (11) In 1873, after a change of leadership, the Magyars began to persecute the Slovaks. Bela Grunwald, vice-governor of the county of Zvolen, helped set up a "Magyar szovetseg" (Magyar Union) to Magyarize the nationalities. In addition, Grunwald petitioned Budapest "on behalfof the Slovak people" to close the three Slovak gymnasiums because they were "bastions of pan-Slavism". Led by Prime Minister Koloman Tisza, who declared in 1875 that ''there is no Slovak nation'', the Hungarian government seized the three new gymnasiums in 18741875 and had the 'Matica Slovenska' sacked in 1874. (12) Using the control of county governments which the 1867 Compromise had guaranteed them, the Magyars next attacked nationalist students and tried to disrupt the unity of the Slovak nation. In the 1880s county governments expelled fifty Slovaks from their gymnasiums, including seven from the Levoca and seven from the Presov institutions. In 1881, the government of Saris decided to test Bela Grunwald's Magyarization plans on the people of that country. And, as Ladislav Tajtak has shown, county officials began publishing books in the Saris dialect in the hope that this act would break eastern Slovaks off from the rest of their nation and make them easier to Magyarize. The plan seemed to be working in the 1880s; western and central Slovaks could find few nationalist leaders, books or newspapers in the eastern counties. (13) While the future of Slovak identity and unity seemed thus in jeopardy in Hungary, nationalist leaders took heart from events in America. In 1886, they learned from an American Magyar publication that Slovaks in Pittsburgh had begun to publish a newspaper. (14) It catered to eastern Slovaks from Saris and Zemplin, who had not one single periodical of their own in the Old Country. (15) Nationalists in Martin were delighted to learn that Slovaks in �16 SLOVAKIA America had begun " to read and like newspapers ." (16) This good news was followed by more. In 1890 a Magyarone priest in the United States indignantly wrote to a Budapest newspaper that American Slovaks were turning into ' 'Pan-Slavs'', and that they were not heeding the call to stay loyal to Hungary which he expounded in his newspaper. (17) Eastern Slovaks in America became nationalists largely through the efforts of one man, Peter V. Rovnianek, a native of Trencin county, central Slovakia, who had studied theology at the Budapest Roman Catholic seminary before being expelled in 1887 for "Pan-Slavism". After having visited with national leaders in Turciansky Svaty Martin, Rovnianek made his way to America in response to a call by the Bishop of Cleveland for a priest for the local Slovak community. (18) Shortly after his acceptance into the Cleveland seminary in September of 1888, Rovnianek began to contribute articles to Nova Vlast' (New Homeland), a weekly publication in the central dialect by Edo Schwarz-Markovic, a former police captain of Levoca, who had become a nationalist in America. (19) Markovic, however, had strong competition from the much larger weekly Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News). Rovnianek realized that if he was to convert eastern Slovaks to nationalism, then he would have to do it in the larger and more popular newspaper. (20) The publishers of Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, the first Slovak newspaper in America, did not start out as nationalists. Jan Slovensky and Julius Wolf, cousins of mixed German-Slovak parentage from the county of Spis in the eastern region, came to America as loyal citizens of Hungary. They had both studied at the Magyarized teachers' college at Klastor pod Znievom in central Slovakia and, upon graduation in 1879, decided to go lion-hunting in Africa. Unscrupulous immigration agents placed them, instead, on a ship bound for New York and soon both men found themselves working in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Very shortly thereafter Slovensky took a job as ''information officer'' at the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Pittsburgh while Julius Wolf worked in a grocery store. (21) At the consulate Slovensky came into daily contact with eastern Slovaks seeking news from the Old Country. He tired of answering their many questions and decided to post a weekly Bulletin of all the information that he had from home. So popular did this publication become that he began distributing it in the local saloons in order to keep Slovaks from swamping the consulate every week. Perceiving the possibility of financial rewards, Slovensky then joined Wolf in establishing in the fall of 1886 AmerikanskoSlovenske Noviny . The paper employed the eas'tern Slovak dialect and Magyar orthography because the editors had never studied central Slovak and they were not nationalists . (22) Ladislav Tajtak speculated that had Slovensky and Wolf not met P . V. Rovnianek and come into · financial difficulty in 1889, the newspaper might very well have �SLOVAKIA 17 retained its eastern dialect and its pro-Hungarian stance. (23) Rovnianek converted the publishers of Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the Slovak national cause. He began by contributing articles in central Slovak, and, despite some protests in letters to the editor, Slovensky published the~ as submitted. Rovnianek then urged the editors to publish the entire newspaper in the literary language for the sake of national unity. Slovensky and Wolf remained unconvinced until 1889. That year their printery burned down and they needed a large sum of money to rebuild it. Rovnianek then left the seminary, contributed some money to the building fund and entered into partnership with Slovensky and Wolf. Finally, Rovnianek persuaded them to make him editor. From then on all articles in the newspaper appeared in central Slovak and the editorials persistently decried Magyar oppression in the homeland. (24) Hungarian government officials subsequently labeled him a "pernicious and dangerous Pan-Slav agitator". (25) After Rovnianek succeeded in converting Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the literary language, most other Slovak newspapers in America followed suit. Leaders in the Old Country proudly observed in 1896 that American Slovaks, who had come from the most Magyarized counties of Hungary (eastern Slovakia), supported thirteen newspapers and not one appeared in the eastern dialect. (26) Certain American Slovak leaders, however, remained unconvinced and tried to foster the use of the outmoded dialect. The Magyarone priest Jozef Kossalko, for instance, published a weekly Zcistava (Flag) in eastern Slovakia in 1889 in order to combat the influence of Rovnianek' s paper. (27) Since he found very few subscribers, his paper folded after nine months. A group of Slovak socialists in Jersey City tried in 1892 to establish a weekly Robotnik (Worker) using the eastern dialect but it survived for only a few months. (28) The weekly Slebodni Orel (Free Eagle) of New York, published with the support of Father Imrich Haitinger of Passaic, a Magyarone colleague of Jozef Kossalko, also utilized the Saris dialect and had a shaky run of four years. It ceased publication in 1904. (29) Even Father Matus Jankola, president in 1900 of the First Catholic Slovak Union, and Albert Mamatey, president in 1918 of the Slovak League of America (both central Slovak nationalists), mistakenly believed that eastern Slovaks would rather read newspapers in their own dialect. (30) P. V. Rovnianek fought all such attempts, believing it would destroy the unity of the Slovak nation to publish in any other but the literary language. Rovnianek also opposed attempts at codifying eastern Slovak. (31) More importantly, eastern Slovak laymen in America also opposed writing in their own dialect . A certain "Malcicky from Zemplin" explained to his intellectual superiors that ''Germans have a large number of dialects and yet use only one literary form to preserve their unity;" therefore, "American editors are wrong in trying to publish in �18 SLOVAKIA eastern Slovak dialects." (32) Another even denounced his former schoolteacher in the village of Budimir, Saris, who had arrogantly written in eastern Slovak to accuse him of being a ''Pan-Slav scoundrel. '' Matik replied in central Slovak that his friends in Budimir would fight the Magyars and Magyarones to the bitter end and he bitingly asked this teacher how he could have forgotten his origins so quickly. (33) Besides affirming their nationalism, many from the eastern counties also acted it out. An immigrant from Liptov, one of the most nationalist of Slovak counties, reported that in 1890, three years after his arrival in America, a group of Saris natives persuaded him to join the National Slovak Society. (34) A little later a group of easterners in Passaic wrote a letter in their native dialect to the nationalists in Turciansky Svaty Martin and asked for central Slovak books and hymnals for their newly-established library. (35) Even more surprisingly, two lodges of Rockland Lake, New York, resolved to foster the literary form and sent money to N<irodne noviny (National News) in Martin to help their brethren do the same. And yet the officers communicated this information in eastern Slovak because they had not learned the dialect which had become the national symbol, but they promised to do so. (36) American-Slovak priests as well as the Hungarian government recognized the triumph of nationalism among eastern Slovaks in the United States. In 1903, at a meeting of the "Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests," in Philadelphia, delegates resolved to preach henceforth in the central dialect in order to keep the nation united. Such a resolution, passed in the presence of the Magyarone priest Imrich Haitinger, could never have succeeded had not the overwhelming number of eastern Slovak laymen supported it. (37) The Hungarian government concurred and unwittingly complimented easterners in the United States by declaring that "one stream of PanSlavism comes from Turciansky Svaty Martin and the other from America." (38) Slovak nationalism manifested itself, then, not only in Hungary but also in America; and it affected not only central and western but also eastern Slovaks. In the early stages of-its growth, leaders in all sections of northern Hungary presented a united front. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the Magyars concentrated upon splitting off eastern Slovakia from the movement and by the 1880's appeared to be winning .that objective, partly by publishing books in the regional dialect. However, eastern Slovaks who had migrated to America accepted P. V. Rovnianek's urgings to use central Slovak as their literary language. After 1890 they rejected Magyarone and even some misguided central Slovak suggestions to codify the eastern dialect and to publish in it. Therefore, while central Slovaks �SLOVAKIA 19 formed the bulwark against Magyarization in the Old Country, eastern Slovaks did so in America. FOOTNOTES \ (1) A. J . P . Taylor, The Habsburg Mnnarchy, 1809-1918 (New York, 1948), 19. (2) R. W. Seton-Watson, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks (London, 1943), 257-60. (3) George Barany, "Hoping against Hope: The Enlightened Age in Hungary," American Historical Review, 76 (April, 1971), 347. (4) Jan Tibensky, "Fonnovanie sa ideol6gie slovenskej feudalnej narodnosti a burzoazneho naroda " (The Forming of the Ideology of the Slovak Feudal Nation and of the Bougeois Nation), Historicky tasopis, XIX (No. 4, 1971), 585. (5) Imrich Sedlak, Strieborny uek: narodno-kulturny a literarny pohyb na u-jchodnom Slouensku u obdobi ntirodneho obrodenia (The Silver Age : The National Cultural and Literary Movement in Eastern Slovakia During the National Awakening), (2 Vols., Kosice, 1970) I, 33-46. (6) Ibid., 91-104. (7) Ibid., 135-51. (8) Ibid., 177-88 and 224-33; see also Seton-Watson, History of the Czechs and Slovaks, 259-61. (9) Julius Mesaros et. al., Dejiny Slouenska II: od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (A History of Slovakia, II: From 1848 to 1900) , (Bratislava, 1968) 102-112. (10) " Memorandum naroda slovenskeho k vysokemu snemu krajiny uhorskej ... " (Memorandum of the Slovak Nation to the High Parliament of Hungary .. . ), in Dr. Vacovsky (Milan Ivanka), Slouaci a Macfari: politicko-historicka uuaha (The Slovaks and the Magyars: A Politico-Historical Dissertation) , (Pittsburgh, 1914) 113-23; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 179-200. (11) Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson) , Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908), 136-56; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 264; and Jan Poestenyi, Dejiny Spolku su. Vojtecha (History of the Society of St. Vojtech) , (Trnava, 1930) 5-17. (12) Scotus Viator, Racial Problems in Hungary, 167; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 27281. (13) Narodnie nouiny (Martin), September 30, 1882, p . l; Ladislav Tajtak, "K otazke vydavania ucebnic vo vychodoslovenskom nareci" (Concerning the Question of the Publication of Textbooks in the Eastern Slovak Dialect), Noue Obzory, VI (1964), 4364; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 289-93. (14) Amerikai Nemzetoei, as quoted in Narodnie nouiny, October 26, 1886, p. 3. (15) Ntirodnie nouiny, November 3, 1886, p. 1. (16) Ibid., August 27, 1887, pp. 1-2 . (17) Jozef Kossalko in Budapesti Hirlap as reprinted in Narodnie nouiny, April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (18) P. V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za iiua pochouaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive), (Pittsburgh, 1924) 14-51. (19) J . A. Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Literature in America) , Sbornik Narodneho Slouenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 22. (20) Ibid., 22 and 24; and Konstantin Culen, J. Slouensk-j: Ziuotopis zakladatefapru-jch slouensk-jch nouin u Amerike (J. Slovensky: A Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America), (Winnipeg, 1954) 105, 116-117. �20 SLOVAKIA (21) Culen, J. Slovensky, 16-88; and Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo," 21-22. (22) Culen, J . Slovensky, 91-96; and Feriencik, ''Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo,'' 22. (23) Ladislav Tajtak , "K zaciatkom Amerik<insko-Slovenskych Navin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny), in Josef Polisensky, ed . , Zai!iatky i!eskej a slovenskej emigr<icie do USA (The beginnings of Czech and Slovak Emigration to the U.S .A.), (Bratislava, 1970) 189. (24) Ibid., 191; and Culen, J. Slovensky, 123-126. (25) Prime Minister of Hungary to the governor of Spis, August 28, 1902, Slovak State Archives , Levoca, hlavny zupan (governor), 43, 1902. (26) N<irodnie noviny, 1896, No. 25, p . 3. (27) Ibid., April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (28) Mesaros, Dejiny Slovenska II, p. 539. (29) Konstantin Culen , Slovenske i!asopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America), (Cleveland, 1970) 167. (30) Stefan Furdek to Frantisek Sasinek, December 11, 1900, Literary Archives of the Matica Slovenska in Martin (hereafter LAMS), 37-045; and Obrana (Cleveland), November 27, 1918, pp. 6-7. (31) Obrana, November 27, 1918, p. 7; and Rovnianek, Z<ipisky, 111. (32) Slovak vAmerike (New York), June 14, 1907, p. 3. (33) Jednota (Middletown, Pa.), July 22, 1914, p . 2; and Kritika (Cleveland), May 6, 1914, p. 5. (34) Pavel Svihra, " Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers), N<irodny Kalend<ir, 1930, 169. (35) Jan Nemetz to N<irodnie noviny, May 17 and June 20, 1897, LAMS, 37-054 and 37056. (36) Slovaks of Rockland Lake, N.Y. to N<irodnie noviny, May 5, 1898, LAMS, 37-056. (37) Ms. Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests Under the Protection of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Minutes (in Slovak), September 1, 1903, Society of St. Vojtech, Trnava, fasc . 299, C, No . 14 (on microfilm also at the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota). (38) Governor of Abauj County to all his subordinates, notice on Pan-Slavism, Slovak State Archives, Kosice, podfopan (vice-governor), X, 13051, 1905. � 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 1976, Vol. 26 Description An account of the resource Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976. 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 1976 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 13 Immigration and Eastern Slovak Nationalism M. MARK STOLARIK The Cleve/,a,nd State University Nineteenth century nationalism affected Slovaks both in Europe and in the United States. In its early stages this movement gripped people in all parts of northern Hungary. Later, the center of gravity shifted to central Slovakia while the east seemed doomed to Magyarization. Many eastern Slovaks who had moved to America, however, rediscovered their ethnic identity here and joined the struggle for national survival. European nationalism, which had its roots in the early Romantic period of the late eighteenth century, received a tremendous, if unexpected, boost from the reforms of Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Joseph, "that Convention in a single man" (1) who ruled the empire from 1780 to 1790, tried to modernize his realm with various reforms, including one that established German as the sole administrative language in his lands . This reform, among others, aroused the Magyar element of the nobility of Hungary, over which Joseph ruled, and set them on the road to national revival. They rejected German as the administrative language of Hungary and, starting in 1791, enacted through their Diet a series of laws which, by 1843, made Magyar the official language of their part of the empire. (2) This ethno-centrism destroyed the "a-national" (3) Hungarian kingdom which had previously employed Latin as the official language and turned it into a Magyar state that began to wage war upon all non-Magyar nationalities. Slovaks resisted attempts to assimilate them from the start. Even before the Magyars started fostering their own language, the Reverend Anton Bernolak codified the Slovak language and urged his countrymen to use it . His codification, which first appeared in print in 1787, utilized the western Slovak dialect and won wide acceptance among Catholics for the next fifty years. (4) Not only did western and central Slovak Catholics adopt Bernolak's codification, but their eastern counterparts accepted it as well. As Imrich Sedlak has recently shown, a group of Bernolak's fellow-priests in 1789 sent out an appeal from the Bratislava seminary to all Slovak nationalists to unite in a " Slovenske ucene tovarysstvo" (Slovak Literary Guild) which would promote Bernolak's reforms . Western, central and eastern Slovaks joined in this movement. Main branches of this learned society, which had its headquarters in the western city of Trnava, sprang up immediately in eastern communities such as Solivar, 14 SLOVAKIA Saris, and in central communities such as Roznava, Gerner, and Jager, now in Hungary. (5) In the 1820s other branches appeared in the eastern cities of Spisske Podhradie, Spis and Kosice, Abauj. (6) In the 1830s, student societies for the promotion of Slovak nationalism appeared also at the gymnasiums of Levoca and Kezmarok, Spis and Presov, and Saris. (7) While Bernolak' s codification did help to promote nationalism among Catholic Slovaks, it did not win wide acceptance among the Lutheran minority, nor among easterners. Lutherans continued using Old Czech, as found in their Bible, throughout the Bernolak era. Eastern Slovaks, when confronted with the choice between the western and central dialects, preferred central because they could better comprehend it. Perceiving this linguistic disunity, I.:udovit Stur, a Lutheran minister and professor at the Bratislava lyceum, decided to re-codify Slovak using the central dialect. He completed his work in 1846 and the students at the Levoca gymnasium immediately accepted it. Other eastern Slovak centers soon followed suit, as did most central and western ones, including those run by Catholics and Lutherans. (8) Therefore, by the middle of the nineteenth century, most Slovak intellectuals, whether from the east, west or center, were united in their support of the central dialect as the literary language of all the people. Slovak nationalism suffered its first setback in the 1848 revolution and continued to lose ground thereafter. As Julius Mesaros has pointed out, the followers of Stur participated in the 1848 revolution by fighting on the side of Vienna against Hungary, but certain rivals of Stur, led by the poet Jan Kollar, managed to win the approval of Vienna for their own cause, which was the use of Czech by the Slovaks. Vienna sanctioned the use of Czech in Slovak districts but only as a second language because the repressive regime of Alexander Bach, which lasted from 1849 to 1859, preferred to use German on all occasions. As a result, all nine gymnasiums in Hungary which had used Slovak as the language of instruction were Germanized by 1857. (9) From 1859 to 1867, while Vienna negotiated with Budapest about a possible accord between the Habsburgs and the Magyars, Slovak leaders took advantage of the relative freedom that prevailed and demanded recognition as a nation. In 1861, over 5,000 nationalists from all parts of the country met in Turciansky Sviity Martin in central Slovakia and drafted a "Memorandum of the Slovak Nation" to the Budapest Parliament. Besides demanding certain civil rights, they asked for home rule in the region called "Upper Hungary" . However, nobles who had promised to present this Memorandum to the Parliament backed down when they realized that its acceptance would mean a loss of their special privileges . The Magyars then merely denounced the Memorandum as "separatism" and ignored it. The only tangible achievement during this period of calm was the founding in SLOVAKIA 15 1863 of the 'Matica Slovenska', a literary and cultural society with headquarters in Martin. For the next decade, it published hundreds of books and periodicals and became the coordinator and center of national life. (10) \ Slovak leaders next took advantage of a new order which prevailed between 1867 and 1872. In 1867 the Habsburgs and Magyars reached the famous 'Ausgleich' (Compromise) which divided the empire between them and left the Magyars supreme in Hungary. Under the relatively enlightened leadership of Francis Deak and Joseph Eotvos, the Hungarian Parliament in 1868 passed a "Law of Nationalities" which permitted, among other things, that the citizenry in all nonMagyar districts might use their mother tongue. Slovak Catholics immediately built a new gymnasium in Klastor pod Znievom and Lutherans built one in Turciansky Svaty Martin and enlarged one in Revuca. In 1869 Catholic Slovaks also established, after ten years of effort, the Society of St. Vojtech in Trnava, dedicated to publishing Catholic books and periodicals in the national language. (11) In 1873, after a change of leadership, the Magyars began to persecute the Slovaks. Bela Grunwald, vice-governor of the county of Zvolen, helped set up a "Magyar szovetseg" (Magyar Union) to Magyarize the nationalities. In addition, Grunwald petitioned Budapest "on behalfof the Slovak people" to close the three Slovak gymnasiums because they were "bastions of pan-Slavism". Led by Prime Minister Koloman Tisza, who declared in 1875 that ''there is no Slovak nation'', the Hungarian government seized the three new gymnasiums in 18741875 and had the 'Matica Slovenska' sacked in 1874. (12) Using the control of county governments which the 1867 Compromise had guaranteed them, the Magyars next attacked nationalist students and tried to disrupt the unity of the Slovak nation. In the 1880s county governments expelled fifty Slovaks from their gymnasiums, including seven from the Levoca and seven from the Presov institutions. In 1881, the government of Saris decided to test Bela Grunwald's Magyarization plans on the people of that country. And, as Ladislav Tajtak has shown, county officials began publishing books in the Saris dialect in the hope that this act would break eastern Slovaks off from the rest of their nation and make them easier to Magyarize. The plan seemed to be working in the 1880s; western and central Slovaks could find few nationalist leaders, books or newspapers in the eastern counties. (13) While the future of Slovak identity and unity seemed thus in jeopardy in Hungary, nationalist leaders took heart from events in America. In 1886, they learned from an American Magyar publication that Slovaks in Pittsburgh had begun to publish a newspaper. (14) It catered to eastern Slovaks from Saris and Zemplin, who had not one single periodical of their own in the Old Country. (15) Nationalists in Martin were delighted to learn that Slovaks in 16 SLOVAKIA America had begun " to read and like newspapers ." (16) This good news was followed by more. In 1890 a Magyarone priest in the United States indignantly wrote to a Budapest newspaper that American Slovaks were turning into ' 'Pan-Slavs'', and that they were not heeding the call to stay loyal to Hungary which he expounded in his newspaper. (17) Eastern Slovaks in America became nationalists largely through the efforts of one man, Peter V. Rovnianek, a native of Trencin county, central Slovakia, who had studied theology at the Budapest Roman Catholic seminary before being expelled in 1887 for "Pan-Slavism". After having visited with national leaders in Turciansky Svaty Martin, Rovnianek made his way to America in response to a call by the Bishop of Cleveland for a priest for the local Slovak community. (18) Shortly after his acceptance into the Cleveland seminary in September of 1888, Rovnianek began to contribute articles to Nova Vlast' (New Homeland), a weekly publication in the central dialect by Edo Schwarz-Markovic, a former police captain of Levoca, who had become a nationalist in America. (19) Markovic, however, had strong competition from the much larger weekly Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News). Rovnianek realized that if he was to convert eastern Slovaks to nationalism, then he would have to do it in the larger and more popular newspaper. (20) The publishers of Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, the first Slovak newspaper in America, did not start out as nationalists. Jan Slovensky and Julius Wolf, cousins of mixed German-Slovak parentage from the county of Spis in the eastern region, came to America as loyal citizens of Hungary. They had both studied at the Magyarized teachers' college at Klastor pod Znievom in central Slovakia and, upon graduation in 1879, decided to go lion-hunting in Africa. Unscrupulous immigration agents placed them, instead, on a ship bound for New York and soon both men found themselves working in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Very shortly thereafter Slovensky took a job as ''information officer'' at the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Pittsburgh while Julius Wolf worked in a grocery store. (21) At the consulate Slovensky came into daily contact with eastern Slovaks seeking news from the Old Country. He tired of answering their many questions and decided to post a weekly Bulletin of all the information that he had from home. So popular did this publication become that he began distributing it in the local saloons in order to keep Slovaks from swamping the consulate every week. Perceiving the possibility of financial rewards, Slovensky then joined Wolf in establishing in the fall of 1886 AmerikanskoSlovenske Noviny . The paper employed the eas'tern Slovak dialect and Magyar orthography because the editors had never studied central Slovak and they were not nationalists . (22) Ladislav Tajtak speculated that had Slovensky and Wolf not met P . V. Rovnianek and come into · financial difficulty in 1889, the newspaper might very well have SLOVAKIA 17 retained its eastern dialect and its pro-Hungarian stance. (23) Rovnianek converted the publishers of Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the Slovak national cause. He began by contributing articles in central Slovak, and, despite some protests in letters to the editor, Slovensky published the~ as submitted. Rovnianek then urged the editors to publish the entire newspaper in the literary language for the sake of national unity. Slovensky and Wolf remained unconvinced until 1889. That year their printery burned down and they needed a large sum of money to rebuild it. Rovnianek then left the seminary, contributed some money to the building fund and entered into partnership with Slovensky and Wolf. Finally, Rovnianek persuaded them to make him editor. From then on all articles in the newspaper appeared in central Slovak and the editorials persistently decried Magyar oppression in the homeland. (24) Hungarian government officials subsequently labeled him a "pernicious and dangerous Pan-Slav agitator". (25) After Rovnianek succeeded in converting Amerikcinsko-Slovenske Noviny to the literary language, most other Slovak newspapers in America followed suit. Leaders in the Old Country proudly observed in 1896 that American Slovaks, who had come from the most Magyarized counties of Hungary (eastern Slovakia), supported thirteen newspapers and not one appeared in the eastern dialect. (26) Certain American Slovak leaders, however, remained unconvinced and tried to foster the use of the outmoded dialect. The Magyarone priest Jozef Kossalko, for instance, published a weekly Zcistava (Flag) in eastern Slovakia in 1889 in order to combat the influence of Rovnianek' s paper. (27) Since he found very few subscribers, his paper folded after nine months. A group of Slovak socialists in Jersey City tried in 1892 to establish a weekly Robotnik (Worker) using the eastern dialect but it survived for only a few months. (28) The weekly Slebodni Orel (Free Eagle) of New York, published with the support of Father Imrich Haitinger of Passaic, a Magyarone colleague of Jozef Kossalko, also utilized the Saris dialect and had a shaky run of four years. It ceased publication in 1904. (29) Even Father Matus Jankola, president in 1900 of the First Catholic Slovak Union, and Albert Mamatey, president in 1918 of the Slovak League of America (both central Slovak nationalists), mistakenly believed that eastern Slovaks would rather read newspapers in their own dialect. (30) P. V. Rovnianek fought all such attempts, believing it would destroy the unity of the Slovak nation to publish in any other but the literary language. Rovnianek also opposed attempts at codifying eastern Slovak. (31) More importantly, eastern Slovak laymen in America also opposed writing in their own dialect . A certain "Malcicky from Zemplin" explained to his intellectual superiors that ''Germans have a large number of dialects and yet use only one literary form to preserve their unity;" therefore, "American editors are wrong in trying to publish in 18 SLOVAKIA eastern Slovak dialects." (32) Another even denounced his former schoolteacher in the village of Budimir, Saris, who had arrogantly written in eastern Slovak to accuse him of being a ''Pan-Slav scoundrel. '' Matik replied in central Slovak that his friends in Budimir would fight the Magyars and Magyarones to the bitter end and he bitingly asked this teacher how he could have forgotten his origins so quickly. (33) Besides affirming their nationalism, many from the eastern counties also acted it out. An immigrant from Liptov, one of the most nationalist of Slovak counties, reported that in 1890, three years after his arrival in America, a group of Saris natives persuaded him to join the National Slovak Society. (34) A little later a group of easterners in Passaic wrote a letter in their native dialect to the nationalists in Turciansky Svaty Martin and asked for central Slovak books and hymnals for their newly-established library. (35) Even more surprisingly, two lodges of Rockland Lake, New York, resolved to foster the literary form and sent money to N<irodne noviny (National News) in Martin to help their brethren do the same. And yet the officers communicated this information in eastern Slovak because they had not learned the dialect which had become the national symbol, but they promised to do so. (36) American-Slovak priests as well as the Hungarian government recognized the triumph of nationalism among eastern Slovaks in the United States. In 1903, at a meeting of the "Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests," in Philadelphia, delegates resolved to preach henceforth in the central dialect in order to keep the nation united. Such a resolution, passed in the presence of the Magyarone priest Imrich Haitinger, could never have succeeded had not the overwhelming number of eastern Slovak laymen supported it. (37) The Hungarian government concurred and unwittingly complimented easterners in the United States by declaring that "one stream of PanSlavism comes from Turciansky Svaty Martin and the other from America." (38) Slovak nationalism manifested itself, then, not only in Hungary but also in America; and it affected not only central and western but also eastern Slovaks. In the early stages of-its growth, leaders in all sections of northern Hungary presented a united front. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the Magyars concentrated upon splitting off eastern Slovakia from the movement and by the 1880's appeared to be winning .that objective, partly by publishing books in the regional dialect. However, eastern Slovaks who had migrated to America accepted P. V. Rovnianek's urgings to use central Slovak as their literary language. After 1890 they rejected Magyarone and even some misguided central Slovak suggestions to codify the eastern dialect and to publish in it. Therefore, while central Slovaks SLOVAKIA 19 formed the bulwark against Magyarization in the Old Country, eastern Slovaks did so in America. FOOTNOTES \ (1) A. J . P . Taylor, The Habsburg Mnnarchy, 1809-1918 (New York, 1948), 19. (2) R. W. Seton-Watson, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks (London, 1943), 257-60. (3) George Barany, "Hoping against Hope: The Enlightened Age in Hungary," American Historical Review, 76 (April, 1971), 347. (4) Jan Tibensky, "Fonnovanie sa ideol6gie slovenskej feudalnej narodnosti a burzoazneho naroda " (The Forming of the Ideology of the Slovak Feudal Nation and of the Bougeois Nation), Historicky tasopis, XIX (No. 4, 1971), 585. (5) Imrich Sedlak, Strieborny uek: narodno-kulturny a literarny pohyb na u-jchodnom Slouensku u obdobi ntirodneho obrodenia (The Silver Age : The National Cultural and Literary Movement in Eastern Slovakia During the National Awakening), (2 Vols., Kosice, 1970) I, 33-46. (6) Ibid., 91-104. (7) Ibid., 135-51. (8) Ibid., 177-88 and 224-33; see also Seton-Watson, History of the Czechs and Slovaks, 259-61. (9) Julius Mesaros et. al., Dejiny Slouenska II: od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (A History of Slovakia, II: From 1848 to 1900) , (Bratislava, 1968) 102-112. (10) " Memorandum naroda slovenskeho k vysokemu snemu krajiny uhorskej ... " (Memorandum of the Slovak Nation to the High Parliament of Hungary .. . ), in Dr. Vacovsky (Milan Ivanka), Slouaci a Macfari: politicko-historicka uuaha (The Slovaks and the Magyars: A Politico-Historical Dissertation) , (Pittsburgh, 1914) 113-23; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 179-200. (11) Scotus Viator (R. W . Seton-Watson) , Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908), 136-56; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 264; and Jan Poestenyi, Dejiny Spolku su. Vojtecha (History of the Society of St. Vojtech) , (Trnava, 1930) 5-17. (12) Scotus Viator, Racial Problems in Hungary, 167; Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 27281. (13) Narodnie nouiny (Martin), September 30, 1882, p . l; Ladislav Tajtak, "K otazke vydavania ucebnic vo vychodoslovenskom nareci" (Concerning the Question of the Publication of Textbooks in the Eastern Slovak Dialect), Noue Obzory, VI (1964), 4364; and Mesaros, Dejiny Slouenska II, 289-93. (14) Amerikai Nemzetoei, as quoted in Narodnie nouiny, October 26, 1886, p. 3. (15) Ntirodnie nouiny, November 3, 1886, p. 1. (16) Ibid., August 27, 1887, pp. 1-2 . (17) Jozef Kossalko in Budapesti Hirlap as reprinted in Narodnie nouiny, April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (18) P. V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za iiua pochouaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive), (Pittsburgh, 1924) 14-51. (19) J . A. Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Literature in America) , Sbornik Narodneho Slouenskeho Spolku, I (1915), 22. (20) Ibid., 22 and 24; and Konstantin Culen, J. Slouensk-j: Ziuotopis zakladatefapru-jch slouensk-jch nouin u Amerike (J. Slovensky: A Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America), (Winnipeg, 1954) 105, 116-117. 20 SLOVAKIA (21) Culen, J. Slovensky, 16-88; and Feriencik, "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo," 21-22. (22) Culen, J . Slovensky, 91-96; and Feriencik, ''Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo,'' 22. (23) Ladislav Tajtak , "K zaciatkom Amerik<insko-Slovenskych Navin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny), in Josef Polisensky, ed . , Zai!iatky i!eskej a slovenskej emigr<icie do USA (The beginnings of Czech and Slovak Emigration to the U.S .A.), (Bratislava, 1970) 189. (24) Ibid., 191; and Culen, J. Slovensky, 123-126. (25) Prime Minister of Hungary to the governor of Spis, August 28, 1902, Slovak State Archives , Levoca, hlavny zupan (governor), 43, 1902. (26) N<irodnie noviny, 1896, No. 25, p . 3. (27) Ibid., April 19, 1890, pp. 1-2. (28) Mesaros, Dejiny Slovenska II, p. 539. (29) Konstantin Culen , Slovenske i!asopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America), (Cleveland, 1970) 167. (30) Stefan Furdek to Frantisek Sasinek, December 11, 1900, Literary Archives of the Matica Slovenska in Martin (hereafter LAMS), 37-045; and Obrana (Cleveland), November 27, 1918, pp. 6-7. (31) Obrana, November 27, 1918, p. 7; and Rovnianek, Z<ipisky, 111. (32) Slovak vAmerike (New York), June 14, 1907, p. 3. (33) Jednota (Middletown, Pa.), July 22, 1914, p . 2; and Kritika (Cleveland), May 6, 1914, p. 5. (34) Pavel Svihra, " Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers), N<irodny Kalend<ir, 1930, 169. (35) Jan Nemetz to N<irodnie noviny, May 17 and June 20, 1897, LAMS, 37-054 and 37056. (36) Slovaks of Rockland Lake, N.Y. to N<irodnie noviny, May 5, 1898, LAMS, 37-056. (37) Ms. Society of Slovak Roman Catholic Priests Under the Protection of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Minutes (in Slovak), September 1, 1903, Society of St. Vojtech, Trnava, fasc . 299, C, No . 14 (on microfilm also at the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota). (38) Governor of Abauj County to all his subordinates, notice on Pan-Slavism, Slovak State Archives, Kosice, podfopan (vice-governor), X, 13051, 1905.  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 Immigration and Eastern Slovak Nationalism Description An account of the resource M . Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976 pp. 13-20 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/293943c0b83f61cc8975d8cf3f6e79af.pdf 507d35d0db53abcb327341f0ff214eca PDF Text Text 80 SLOVAKIA Immigration, Education and the Social Mobility of Slovaks, 1870-1930* M. MARK STOLARIK In the last few decades the social mobility of ethnic groups in American society has drawn the attention of numerous scholars from a variety of disciplines. Their research has raised some important questions about the nature and meaning of this phenomenon. Particularly influential has been the work of the sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Reinhard Bendix. In their Social Mobility in Industrial Society, (1) Lipset and Bendix demonstrated that moving up or down the socio-economic ladder was an integral and continuing aspect of the process of industrialization. They did not explain, however, what caused some people to move up, others to remain where they were and others still to move down. Josef Barton, trained in both history and sociology, sought to answer these questions by comparing the relative rates of movement of three ethnic groups in Cleveland in Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 18901950. (2) Barton found that education, family size and the occupation of the father played a pivotal role in the traditional American '' success story." The Rumanians, who came from peasant backgrounds similar to that of the Slovaks and Italians, stressed extended public education for their children, they limited the size of their families and their fathers tended to move from blue-collar to white-collar occupations more often than did Italians or Slovaks. As a result, more than fifty per cent of Rumanian children moved from manual to non-manual employment in the period 1900-1950 while less than twenty per cent of Italians and Slovaks did so. (3) What Barton did not explain was why the Rumanians had such a strong commitment to education, to small families and why the fathers were so mobile in contrast to Italians and Slovaks. Part of the answer lies, I submit, in the Old World background of the various groups and • This paper was presented to the Bicentennial Symposium on "Religious Freedom: Churches and Ethnic Communities in the American City, " at Saint Joseph's College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 21 , 1975. Reprinted from Immigrants and Religion in Urban America, (edited by Randall Miller and Thomas Marzik, copyright 1977) with the kind permission of the original publisher, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pa. �SLOVAKIA 81 in their attitude towards life as molded by their religions. To illustrate this hypothesis the Slovak experience will be examined in detail. Before the mass migration of Slovaks to America began in the 1880's, lay leaders in the Old World had stressed the value of education for social mobility and their people seemed to agree with them. As early as 1845, for example, Jan Cipka, a student at Vienna's polytechnic institute, anticipated the abolition of serfdom and urged his countrymen to prepare themselves for the approaching industrial age by sending their children to technical schools. (4) The editors of N arodni hlasnik agreed and in subsequent decades urged the founding of Slovak trade and high schools.(5) The editors of Obzor added the sobering comment that "knowledge is power." (6) Reacting to the urgings of their leaders, the Slovak people built and supported educational institutions whenever possible. By 1870 they had established three 'gymnasiums' (high schools) and operated 1,822 religious grammar schools, with the result that every second village had its own schoolhouse. So successful was the Slovak educational system that by 1885 it enrolled 88 percent of all children in its districts , the highest percentage in the entire Kingdom of Hungary.(7) The Hungarian government, rather than applauding such efforts, set out to thwart them because they conflicted with its official policy of Magyarization. Shortly after they reached the famous Compromise of 1867 with the Habsburgs, the Magyars of Hungary set out to assimilate their subject nationalities by attacking their school systems. Thus, they closed the three Slovak gymnasiums in 1874 on the pretext that they propagated "Pan-Slavism". Furthermore, the Minister of Education seized upon the fact that many village schools were primitive structures and over-crowded to nationalize them and turn them into public institutions. By 1905 the Slovaks of Hungary had only 241 schools left under their control.(8) Not only did the Magyars turn Slovak schools into public institutions but they also set out to eradicate the use of all non-Magyar languages in them. In 1877 the Budapest parliament banned all nonMagyar texts and two years later made the teaching of Magyar compulsory in all schools. Furthermore, starting in 1881 it paid teachers a bonus of 100 gold forints (equivalent to a year's wages) if they did a good job in Magyarizing their pupils. Those teachers who refused to cooperate were fired and students who balked at the new rules were expelled. The net result was a decline in Slovak literacy from 88 percent in 1885 to 76 percent in 1911. The Magyar public school system had virtually destroyed education in the Slovak language by the First World War.(9) While the Hungarian government worked at assimilating its subject nationalities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a very large section of the population began to emigrate to �82 SLOVAKIA America. Poor economic conditions in the Old World compelled hundreds of thousands of Slovaks to seek a livelihood in the New. By 1920 more than 600,000 of them lived in America, toiling in the mines, mills and refineries of the industrial Northeast. They were followed by a small group of intellectuals, both lay and religious, who fled national persecution in Hungary and who were determined to preserve Slovak life in the United States. Educational conditions in Hungary had a profound effect upon the thinking of those intellectuals who left for America. They brought with them an understandable contempt for public schools and they expressed these thoughts in their press. In an analysis of the nondenominational Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny, the largest and most influential Slovak newspaper in America before 1914, I found five articles concerned with education between the years 1893 and 1902 and these expressed nine discrete statements about it. Four declared the purpose of education to be the preservation of the children's language and nationality, three stressed the moral value of education and only one affirmed schooling to be a process of self improvement. Only once did the editors suggest that parents send their children to public schools if no parochial ones existed. The main complaint the editors made was that public schools "assimilate our children and turn them against their parents. " (10) In an analysis of the N<irodny Kalend<ir, the almanac of the secular National Slovak Society, I found similar opinions in four articles concerned with education between 1899 and 1917. Three of six ideas expressed in these articles stressed the need to preserve the children's language and heritage through schools, one emphasized the need to preserve the students' morals through schooling while only one each pointed to the value of education for self-improvement and social mobility.(11) Indeed, one contributor denounced public schools because "whether in America or in Hungary, (they) denationalize our children." (12) Thus, secular Slovak leaders in the United States no longer shared the enthusiasm for education that their colleagues back home had expressed in earlier decades. Religious leaders, on the other hand , stressed the moral value of education. In the old World even the Lutheran editors of Dom a Skala (Home and School) labelled public schools as •'bastard children of the church and state." They quite correctly charged the government with using state schools to "wage war upon the nationalities" and they demanded a return to good religious instruction because ••a moral unbringing is the chief aim of school and education is only a means of achieving this end."(13) Roman Catholic editors agreed that the chief aim of schooling was to instill "morality" in children. However, since most of their educational journals in Hungary were sponsored by the government, they extended this aim to include not only piety and good behavior but also loyalty to the Magyar state.(14) �SLOVAKIA 83 Slovak Catholic leaders in America , meanwhile, cared little about loyalty to the Magyar state but they did continue to stress the moral value of education. In an analysis of the leading Catholic Slovak newspaper Jednota over the years 1902-1911 , for instance, I found seventeen articles concerned with education and these contained thirtyone statements about its worth. Eleven times the editors praised parochial schools for cultivating their children's morality , and an equal numbe r of times they stressed the role of such institutions in preserving the next generation's ethnicity. Only three statements admitted the value of education for social mobility and only once did they speak of schooling as a means of self-improvement. And, while on three occasions the editors pointed to the good example set by other nationalities in parochial education, only twice did they suggest sending Slovak children to non-Slovak Catholic schools if they had none of their own.(15) The Jednota Kalend<ir , almanac of the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile was even more emphatic about the moral value of education. This annual published eight articles about schooling between 1898 and 1917 and these contained fifteen statements about its worth. Eight of them stressed the role of Catholic institutions in cultivating a child's morality while four added that they also preserved the children's nationality . Only once did a statement appear which praised education as a vehicle for social mobility. Similarly , only once did an author suggest that children attend public schools or parochial schools of another nationality if they had none of their own. (16) Clearly, then, Catholic leaders valued parochial schools above all else, they worried much more about their children's moral and national upbringing than about social mobility and they had no use for public schools. Indeed, when one looks at the reaction of Slovak Roman Catholic priests towards state schools, one finds only the harshest condemnation of these institutions. The Reverend Andrej Pavco, for instance, blamed the supposed decline of morality in America at the turn of the century on the "anti-religious " nature of public schools which " made loafers of all girls who attended them. " (17) Father Stefan Furdek agreed and further charged that state schools provided "an anti-God education" with the result that America had the highest divorce rate in the world. (18) Father Jan Porubsky added that "life is a preparation for God" and American public schools ignored this, causing the United States to lead the world in immorality and crime. Porubsky especially singled out trade schools because they allegedly produced " illiterate " children and propagated "atheism." He added that " these are the places from which cities get their vagabonds, suburbs their tramps and murderers and the gallows their offerings. " (19) In a more subtle article the Reverend Stefan Furdek analyzed both school systems and, in condemning public institutions, revealed the �84 SLOVAKIA basis of his Catholic philosophy. Public schools , he pointed out, were free . They supplied books and clothes to poor children and had nurses to care for the sick. Classes consisted of only thirty to forty pupils taught by teachers with diplomas and a good command of English. Slovak parochial schools, on the other hand, required the parents to pay tuition, their classes were overcrowded and the teachers often lacked diplomas . In spite of these faults, Furdek found parochial schools superior to public ones because they taught catechism. He declared that ''the saving of souls is more important than a good secular education." In other words, schools did not exist to promote social mobility but to give the child a decent moral upbringing . He closed his argument with the revealing statement that "a Gypsy cannot read music, but he can sure play the violin!" (20) Since both secular and religious leaders of the Slovak community in America had such negative attitudes towards public schools, and since the majority of Slovaks (80 percent) were Roman Catholics, it became almost inevitable that they would build as many parochial schools as possible and that they would send their children to these or to other Catholic institutions. The first Slovak Catholic school was built in Streator, Illinois in 1889. By 1930, more than half of the 241 Slovak parishes in America had their own schools.(21) Furthermore, Josef Barton and I have discovered that wherever the Slovak community had its own school, as at St. Wendelin's parish in Cleveland or at St. Peter's in Fort William (now Thunder Bay, Ontario), the majority (between 60 percent and 80 percent) of eligible Slovak children did attend it. (22) Where they did not have their own school, as at St. Cyril's in Minneapolis before 1938, almost half of the children attended parochial schools of other nationalities. (23) Thus , whenever possible, Slovak parents heeded the advice of their leaders and sent their children to parochial schools. Slovak parents also seemed to agree with their priests' teachings that the chief aim of schooling was not necessarily to promote social mobility here on earth but to prepare for the afterlife . Thus, once one had acquired the "three R's" and knew one's catechism, extended schooling became superfluous . This was clearly evident in the school attendance records of Slovak children in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Thunder Bay. In all three cities more than 60 percent of these children dropped out between the sixth and ninth grades in the period 19101940. This contrasted with an average American drop-out rate of 44 percent over the same period . Only twenty percent graduated from high school.(24) A few lay leaders recognized this phenomenon and complained about it. Jozef Joscak, editor of N<irodne Noviny, accused his American countrymen of "caring less about education than had Slovaks in the Old Country."(25) Pavel Jamarik, a perceptive social critic, charged that American-Slovak parents "only sent their children to high school if they wanted them to become priests." (26) Finally, �SLOVAKIA 85 Michal Bosak , a banker and one of America's first Slovak millionaires, advised parents to at least send their youngsters to commerical schools instead of into the mines and factories, so as to enable them to compete in America' s capitalist society. (27) Such advice often fell on deaf ears, for, as Jozef Joscak had earlier concluded, American Slovaks "had their minds on other things . " (28) The '' other things '' that J oscak referred to were a way of life that rejected the basic tenets of the ''Protestant ethic.' ' The German sociologist Max Weber had observed that Catholic and Protestant peoples at the tum of the century had different attitudes towards life and he developed an elaborate theory to explain these differences. It appeared in his celebrated book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (29) Among other things, Weber theorized that the Protestant Reformation , especially its Calvinist branch , helped bring about the modem Capitalist world because Calvinists regarded work as a glorification of God rather than as a curse that followed the fall of Adam, as Medieval Catholics had believed. Furthermore , Weber continued, since Calvinists believed in predestination, they stressed self-discipline, education and a constant striving to improve one's position in life. If one did, indeed, improve oneself, the Calvinists believed, it was proof that one was saved because God ' s grace descended only upon the 'elect.' Weber's theory has caused quite a debate in academic circles , with some scholars arguing that he was correct and others denouncing his views. One of his most enthusiastic defenders has been Gerhard Lenski. In his Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics and Family Life, (30) Lenski focused on 658 people of various religious persuasions in Detroit and sought to test the Weber thesis. He found that the Protestants in his sample constantly strove harder to succeed and to climb the socio-economic ladder than did Catholics , and they were successful in doing so much more often than Catholics and thus he concluded that Weber was essentially correct. The Catholics , Lenski added, were held back by an attitude that stressed the after-life rather than success in this world. While Lenski defended Weber, many more critics have attacked the latter's theories. Lipset and Bendix, for instance, argued that ethnicity was far more important than religious persuasion in American social mobility . They attributed the low rate of social mobility of Eastern Europeans as compared to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants to the later arrival of the former to this country. It was only a matter of time , they asserted, before third and fourth generation Poles , Italians and Slovaks caught up with British and Scandinavian peoples in the United States.(31) Similarly, Father Andrew Greeley, in Religion and Career: A Study of College Graduates(32) bent over backwards to try to disprove both Weber's and Lenski's theories . By using the resources of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), which had ad- �86 SLOVAKIA ministered questionnaires to 33,000 college graduates in 1961 , Greeley tried to show that Catholics and Protestants had basically the same goals and aspirations in life and that one was as likely to be successful as the other. He did admit, however, that arriving Catholic immigrants may have been influenced by what he called a ''folk element'' which was anti-intellectual, but he saw this rapidly disappearing. (33) I see several flaws in Greeley's research. First of all, the sample he used tested only college graduates ' opinions, not their actual performances . Opinions do not necessarily reflect what people do after they graduate. Nor are the opinions of college graduates a good indicator of what the rest of their ethnic community may be thinking. Furthermore , these students may have answered the questions the way they guessed was expected of them by a society that worships social mobility . Greeley also did not differentiate enough between ethnic groups. I suspect that the vast majority of his Catholic students were German and Irish. These two peoples have been in America much longer than Eastern Europeans , they have had greater contact with White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the past, both in the Old World and in the New, and they may even have begun to accept the "Protestant ethic" as they have gradually assimilated into American society. Finally , Greeley paid absolutely no attention to what the Catholic church has been teaching its people about the goal of life . Let us focus on the last point for the moment. Recall the advice of Father Porubsky that " life is a preparation for God" and Father Furdek 's pronouncement that " the saving of souls is much more important than a good secular education. '' (34) Should we dismiss these as the words of a couple of naive priests or do they represent official church teaching? The Baltimore Catechism which until Vatican II had been more important to most American Catholics than the Bible, since it was used in most Parochial schools, essentially repeats Porubsky's and Furdek's teachings . In the first lesson, dealing with the purpose of life, the question is asked, "Why did God make us?" The answer given is: "God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. " The next question asks, "What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? ' ' and the reply is '' ... we must know, love and serve God in this world."(35) Nowhere does it say that we must strive to better ourselves on this earth, to work hard, to study and make money and to climb the social ladder. Indeed, the only mention of "work" that I could find in the Catechism is a derogatory one. In the lesson on the creation and fall of man, we read that because of Adam's original sin, " we have to die, to suffer, to study, to work .. . ! '' (36) In other words , studying and work are a curse that Adam brought upon us because of his disobedience to God. This teaching is the exact opposite of the ''Protestant ethic' ' and it has reached and influenced millions of Catholics over the last century. �SLOVAKIA 87 Having surveyed Slovak Catholic attitudes towards both education and work, and having discovered their negative attitudes towards both, we are now in a better position to explain their low rate of social mobility. ' 'Success'' in America has traditionally been viewed through White Anglo-Saxon Protestant eyes. Sociologists who measure success reflect such a bias. They always look for people moving up from bluecollar to white-collar and thence to professional occupations. A corollary is that once one ' 'succeeds,'' one moves out of the central city to the more affluent suburbs. This pattern of "up and out" is usually accepted as the only meaningful form of social mobility in America.(37) There is another approach to life, however, one seldom discussed by American scholars, which is typified by the Catholic Slovak experience. Josef Barton discovered it in his study of Rumanians, Italians and Slovaks in Cleveland, although he did not pursue the subject to its final conclusion. Thus, in looking at the ways in which the three immigrant groups reacted to the American situation, Barton found that almost half of the Slovak men in his sample became skilled workers and-or acquired some property in their original neighborhoods of settlement. Furthermore, they had large families which often lived in the extended form and this increased their overall family income. (38) Here , then was a different way of ''making it. '' It was all right to be a blue-collar worker, to drop out of school at an early age and to live in the same neighborhood all of your life. Stability, rather than movement, characterized the people of this community and they seemed to be satisfied with it. Even though Barton recognized that he had discovered a different approach to social mobility, he did not really approve of it. The Rumanian example of " up and out" impressed him as the " classic rise" of an immigrant group and he left us with the impression that somehow the Slovaks had made a mistake.(39) Whether or not they had, indeed, made a mistake depends largely upon their and the observer's perception of life. Is it one's goal to constantly strive to improve oneself through education, work and the accumulation of wealth here on earth? Or is it more important to lead a moral life, to accept one 's status, no matter how low, and strive for the higher goal of everlasting salvation? The answer is usually very personal but much depends on the teachings of one's church and on the religiosity of the individual. The majority of Slovak Catholics, I submit, were very religious and did heed the teachings of their leaders and the church, at least in the first two generations. Thus, they cared more for the moral upbringing of their children than for success here on earth and this was reflected in their condemnation of public schools, in their praise for Catholic education and in their acceptance of blue-collar work and life in ethnic neighborhoods. �88 SLOVAKIA But what of third and fourth generation American Slovaks? Do they perceive life in the same way as their parents and grandparents? Do they have the same attitudes towards work and school, family and neighborhood? We do not know because no one has yet researched this group . If Andrew Greeley' s studies of German and Irish Catholics are correct, then perhaps the " Protestant ethic " will eventually rub off on Slovak Catholics as they become more assimilated into American society. Perhaps the growing nationwide decline in parochial school attendance will aid in this process . Indeed, Catholic values generally may be changing across the land and the third and fourth generations may reflect such changes. These are questions which await further research . Should someone still be skeptical about the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic ," the various components of the Slovak community in America can be studied to provide a clearer answer. While 80 percent of Slovaks are Roman Catholics , about 15 percent are Lutherans and 2 percent are Calvinists. The latter two groups could be studied, and their attitudes towards life, work , education and their social mobility could be compared and contrasted with that of their Catholic counterparts. Such a study would supercede previous efforts because one would not have to control for ethnicity , time of arrival and other variables except religion. Such research could, hopefully , deal with the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic " to everyone 's satisfaction. Finally, the American concept of social mobility needs closer scrutiny. Should the majority of scholars continue to accept without question the ideal that everyone should constantly strive to move ''up and out ' '? What are the social consequences of such a philosophy? Is it good and necessary that everyone seek a higher education, for example? Who will sweep the streets, collect the garbage, fix the roads and man the factories if we continue to revere non-manual work so much? And, what are the consequences of an upwardly-mobile whitecollar worker moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and city to city all the time in order to keep climbing? Is this good for his family? Does it not in fact destroy extended family solidarity and breed an intense nuclear family that has no roots and no sense of community? (40) Indeed, the historian Rowland Berthoff has argued that America has in the past suffered from too much mobility and he predicted that this country 's many social ills would not disappear until a sense of community was restored in this land and this implied that Americans would have to stop moving around so much.(41) In this respect those Eastern Europeans who have stayed put and have tried to preserve their neighborhoods have been in the vanguard of social planning,. Perhaps Michael Novak is right. Perhaps we should stress extended family life, ethnic neighborhoods, stability and quietness again. (42) At least we should let those who prefer this way of life to live in peace , without bureaucratic harrassment. This would mean fighting �SLOVAKIA 89 "block-busting," "red-lining," freeway construction, and any other threats to community life that individuals or the government may pose. In short, it would call for respect for the pluralism of American life. It would mean toleration for the Catholic alternative to the ''Protestant ethic.'' FOOTNOTES (1) Berkeley , 1959. (2) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (3) Ibid ., pp. 99-100 . (4) Slouenskje narodiije nouini (Bratislava), November 18, 1845, p. 125. (5) N<i.rodni hl<i.snik (Martin), August 31, 1868, p . 178; October 31, 1868, p . 225; and May 31, 1871, p . 135 . (6) Obzor (Skalica), January 5, 1872 and January 5, 1881. (7) Julius Mesaros et al. , Dejiny Slouenska II: Od Roku 1848 do 1900 (A History of Slovakia , II: From 1848 to 1900) (Bratislava, 1968) , 264 ; and Dom a Skala (Ruzomberok), ill (1887) , 23-25. (8) Zipser Batte (Levoca), No. 29, 1905; and Jozef Gregor-Tajovsky , "Vychodne Slovensko " (Eastern Slovakia) , N<i.rodny Kalendar, 1913 (Pittsburgh), 243-4 . (9) Minister of Education to the School Inspector of Spis, Slovak State Archives in Levoca , county Spis , Executive Council, 420, KB, 1877 ; the same, 462, 1881; the same, II , 181 , 1898 and the same again, II , 183, 1902. See also William P. Dillingham, Chairman, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Volume 3, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Document No . 756 (Washington, 1911), 84 for literacy rates. (10) Amerik<i.nsko-Slouenske Nouiny (Pittsburgh), February 2, 1893, p . 6; December 8, 1894, p . 8; January 8, 1895 , p . l; July 13 , 1895 , p . 4 ; April 28, 1898, p. 8. The quotation is from the first article . (11) N<i.rodny Kalend<i.r, 1899, 44-5; 1911, 59-64 and 224-8; and 1917, 222-4 . (12) Ibid. , 1917, 222 . (13) Dom a Skala, II (1886), 194; and ill (1887), 73. (14) See for example Nafa Z<i.staua (Presov) September 20, 1908, p . 2 and October 4, 1908, p. 2; Eperjes (Presov), September 1, 1913, p . l; August 15, 1913, p . 2; October 15 , 1914 , p . 3; andEghy<i.z Es Iskola (Presov), February 15, 1918, p . 69 . (15) Jednota (Cleveland), September 17, 1902, p . 3 ; October 1, 1902, p . 4; August 31 , 1904, p . 4; July 12 , 1905 , p . 4; July 26, 1905, p . 4 ; August 9, 1905, p. 4; February 7, 1906, p. 4; July 1, 1908, p . 4; August 19, 1908, p. 4; September 8, 1909, p . 4; February 16, 1910, p . 4 ; March 23, 1910, p . 4; July 27, 1910, p . 4; August 17, 1910, p . 4; September 2, 1910, p . 4 ; April 5, 1911, p . 4; and August 23, 1911 , p . 4. (16) Kalend<i.r Jednota, 1898 (Cleveland), 133-4 ; 1899, 135-6; 1902, 128-36; 1907, 120-3; 1908, 177-8; 1911, 29-31; 1913, 123-8 ; 1917, 83-5. (17) Ibid., 1898, 133. (18) Jednota, July 12, 1905, p . 4. (19) Kalend<i.r J ednota, 1907, 120-3. (20) Jednota, August 19, 1908 , p . 4. (21) N<i.rodnie nouiny, October 5, 1889, p . 3 and October 23, 1890, p . 3; Kalendar Jednota, 1930, 193-201. �90 SLOVAKIA (22) Barton, Peasants and Strangers , 149-50; M. Mark Stolarik, "Immigration and Urbanization: the Slovak Experience, 1870-1918," Ph .D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1974, pp. 165-6. (23) Ibid., Stolarik, 165-6. (24) Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 132 , 137 and Stolarik , "Immigration and Urbanization," 170. (25) N<irodne Nouiny (Pittsburgh) , June 2, 1910, p . 4. (26) Pavel Jarnarik , Vychoua dietok: prakticke n<iuody pre Slouenskych rodic:ou (The Raising of Children : Practical Advice for Slovak Parents) (Author ' s publication, Disputant , Virginia, 1913), 22. (27) Kalend<ir J ednota 1917, 83-5. (28) N<irodne Nouiny , June 2, 1910, p. 4. (29) Translated by Talcott Parsons (London, 1930). (30) New York, 1961. (31) Social Mobility in Industrial Society, 49-52 . (32) New York, 1963. (33) Ibid., p . 134. (34) See above page 6. (35) Rev . Michael A. McGuire, The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass (No. 2, Official Revised Edition, New York, 1941), p. 14. (36) Ibid. , p. 29. (37) All the scholars cited above - Lipset and Bendix , Lenski, Greeley and even Barton - accept this pattern. One who questions its wisdom is Richard Sennett in Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes in Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890 (Cambridge, 1970) . (38) Barton , Peasants and Strangers, 143. (39) Ibid., 172-3. (40) This was part of Richard Sennet's argumentt in Families Against the City, cited above . (41) See his An Unsettled People; Social Order and Disorder in American History (New York , 1971). (42) Novak makes this argument in his Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies (New York, 1972) and again in the two EMPAC! (Ethnic Millions Political Action Committee) statements of 1973 and 1975. � 80 SLOVAKIA Immigration, Education and the Social Mobility of Slovaks, 1870-1930* M. MARK STOLARIK In the last few decades the social mobility of ethnic groups in American society has drawn the attention of numerous scholars from a variety of disciplines. Their research has raised some important questions about the nature and meaning of this phenomenon. Particularly influential has been the work of the sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Reinhard Bendix. In their Social Mobility in Industrial Society, (1) Lipset and Bendix demonstrated that moving up or down the socio-economic ladder was an integral and continuing aspect of the process of industrialization. They did not explain, however, what caused some people to move up, others to remain where they were and others still to move down. Josef Barton, trained in both history and sociology, sought to answer these questions by comparing the relative rates of movement of three ethnic groups in Cleveland in Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 18901950. (2) Barton found that education, family size and the occupation of the father played a pivotal role in the traditional American '' success story." The Rumanians, who came from peasant backgrounds similar to that of the Slovaks and Italians, stressed extended public education for their children, they limited the size of their families and their fathers tended to move from blue-collar to white-collar occupations more often than did Italians or Slovaks. As a result, more than fifty per cent of Rumanian children moved from manual to non-manual employment in the period 1900-1950 while less than twenty per cent of Italians and Slovaks did so. (3) What Barton did not explain was why the Rumanians had such a strong commitment to education, to small families and why the fathers were so mobile in contrast to Italians and Slovaks. Part of the answer lies, I submit, in the Old World background of the various groups and • This paper was presented to the Bicentennial Symposium on "Religious Freedom: Churches and Ethnic Communities in the American City, " at Saint Joseph's College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 21 , 1975. Reprinted from Immigrants and Religion in Urban America, (edited by Randall Miller and Thomas Marzik, copyright 1977) with the kind permission of the original publisher, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pa. �SLOVAKIA 81 in their attitude towards life as molded by their religions. To illustrate this hypothesis the Slovak experience will be examined in detail. Before the mass migration of Slovaks to America began in the 1880's, lay leaders in the Old World had stressed the value of education for social mobility and their people seemed to agree with them. As early as 1845, for example, Jan Cipka, a student at Vienna's polytechnic institute, anticipated the abolition of serfdom and urged his countrymen to prepare themselves for the approaching industrial age by sending their children to technical schools. (4) The editors of N arodni hlasnik agreed and in subsequent decades urged the founding of Slovak trade and high schools.(5) The editors of Obzor added the sobering comment that "knowledge is power." (6) Reacting to the urgings of their leaders, the Slovak people built and supported educational institutions whenever possible. By 1870 they had established three 'gymnasiums' (high schools) and operated 1,822 religious grammar schools, with the result that every second village had its own schoolhouse. So successful was the Slovak educational system that by 1885 it enrolled 88 percent of all children in its districts , the highest percentage in the entire Kingdom of Hungary.(7) The Hungarian government, rather than applauding such efforts, set out to thwart them because they conflicted with its official policy of Magyarization. Shortly after they reached the famous Compromise of 1867 with the Habsburgs, the Magyars of Hungary set out to assimilate their subject nationalities by attacking their school systems. Thus, they closed the three Slovak gymnasiums in 1874 on the pretext that they propagated "Pan-Slavism". Furthermore, the Minister of Education seized upon the fact that many village schools were primitive structures and over-crowded to nationalize them and turn them into public institutions. By 1905 the Slovaks of Hungary had only 241 schools left under their control.(8) Not only did the Magyars turn Slovak schools into public institutions but they also set out to eradicate the use of all non-Magyar languages in them. In 1877 the Budapest parliament banned all nonMagyar texts and two years later made the teaching of Magyar compulsory in all schools. Furthermore, starting in 1881 it paid teachers a bonus of 100 gold forints (equivalent to a year's wages) if they did a good job in Magyarizing their pupils. Those teachers who refused to cooperate were fired and students who balked at the new rules were expelled. The net result was a decline in Slovak literacy from 88 percent in 1885 to 76 percent in 1911. The Magyar public school system had virtually destroyed education in the Slovak language by the First World War.(9) While the Hungarian government worked at assimilating its subject nationalities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a very large section of the population began to emigrate to �82 SLOVAKIA America. Poor economic conditions in the Old World compelled hundreds of thousands of Slovaks to seek a livelihood in the New. By 1920 more than 600,000 of them lived in America, toiling in the mines, mills and refineries of the industrial Northeast. They were followed by a small group of intellectuals, both lay and religious, who fled national persecution in Hungary and who were determined to preserve Slovak life in the United States. Educational conditions in Hungary had a profound effect upon the thinking of those intellectuals who left for America. They brought with them an understandable contempt for public schools and they expressed these thoughts in their press. In an analysis of the nondenominational Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny, the largest and most influential Slovak newspaper in America before 1914, I found five articles concerned with education between the years 1893 and 1902 and these expressed nine discrete statements about it. Four declared the purpose of education to be the preservation of the children's language and nationality, three stressed the moral value of education and only one affirmed schooling to be a process of self improvement. Only once did the editors suggest that parents send their children to public schools if no parochial ones existed. The main complaint the editors made was that public schools "assimilate our children and turn them against their parents. " (10) In an analysis of the N<irodny Kalend<ir, the almanac of the secular National Slovak Society, I found similar opinions in four articles concerned with education between 1899 and 1917. Three of six ideas expressed in these articles stressed the need to preserve the children's language and heritage through schools, one emphasized the need to preserve the students' morals through schooling while only one each pointed to the value of education for self-improvement and social mobility.(11) Indeed, one contributor denounced public schools because "whether in America or in Hungary, (they) denationalize our children." (12) Thus, secular Slovak leaders in the United States no longer shared the enthusiasm for education that their colleagues back home had expressed in earlier decades. Religious leaders, on the other hand , stressed the moral value of education. In the old World even the Lutheran editors of Dom a Skala (Home and School) labelled public schools as •'bastard children of the church and state." They quite correctly charged the government with using state schools to "wage war upon the nationalities" and they demanded a return to good religious instruction because ••a moral unbringing is the chief aim of school and education is only a means of achieving this end."(13) Roman Catholic editors agreed that the chief aim of schooling was to instill "morality" in children. However, since most of their educational journals in Hungary were sponsored by the government, they extended this aim to include not only piety and good behavior but also loyalty to the Magyar state.(14) �SLOVAKIA 83 Slovak Catholic leaders in America , meanwhile, cared little about loyalty to the Magyar state but they did continue to stress the moral value of education. In an analysis of the leading Catholic Slovak newspaper Jednota over the years 1902-1911 , for instance, I found seventeen articles concerned with education and these contained thirtyone statements about its worth. Eleven times the editors praised parochial schools for cultivating their children's morality , and an equal numbe r of times they stressed the role of such institutions in preserving the next generation's ethnicity. Only three statements admitted the value of education for social mobility and only once did they speak of schooling as a means of self-improvement. And, while on three occasions the editors pointed to the good example set by other nationalities in parochial education, only twice did they suggest sending Slovak children to non-Slovak Catholic schools if they had none of their own.(15) The Jednota Kalend<ir , almanac of the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile was even more emphatic about the moral value of education. This annual published eight articles about schooling between 1898 and 1917 and these contained fifteen statements about its worth. Eight of them stressed the role of Catholic institutions in cultivating a child's morality while four added that they also preserved the children's nationality . Only once did a statement appear which praised education as a vehicle for social mobility. Similarly , only once did an author suggest that children attend public schools or parochial schools of another nationality if they had none of their own. (16) Clearly, then, Catholic leaders valued parochial schools above all else, they worried much more about their children's moral and national upbringing than about social mobility and they had no use for public schools. Indeed, when one looks at the reaction of Slovak Roman Catholic priests towards state schools, one finds only the harshest condemnation of these institutions. The Reverend Andrej Pavco, for instance, blamed the supposed decline of morality in America at the turn of the century on the "anti-religious " nature of public schools which " made loafers of all girls who attended them. " (17) Father Stefan Furdek agreed and further charged that state schools provided "an anti-God education" with the result that America had the highest divorce rate in the world. (18) Father Jan Porubsky added that "life is a preparation for God" and American public schools ignored this, causing the United States to lead the world in immorality and crime. Porubsky especially singled out trade schools because they allegedly produced " illiterate " children and propagated "atheism." He added that " these are the places from which cities get their vagabonds, suburbs their tramps and murderers and the gallows their offerings. " (19) In a more subtle article the Reverend Stefan Furdek analyzed both school systems and, in condemning public institutions, revealed the �84 SLOVAKIA basis of his Catholic philosophy. Public schools , he pointed out, were free . They supplied books and clothes to poor children and had nurses to care for the sick. Classes consisted of only thirty to forty pupils taught by teachers with diplomas and a good command of English. Slovak parochial schools, on the other hand, required the parents to pay tuition, their classes were overcrowded and the teachers often lacked diplomas . In spite of these faults, Furdek found parochial schools superior to public ones because they taught catechism. He declared that ''the saving of souls is more important than a good secular education." In other words, schools did not exist to promote social mobility but to give the child a decent moral upbringing . He closed his argument with the revealing statement that "a Gypsy cannot read music, but he can sure play the violin!" (20) Since both secular and religious leaders of the Slovak community in America had such negative attitudes towards public schools, and since the majority of Slovaks (80 percent) were Roman Catholics, it became almost inevitable that they would build as many parochial schools as possible and that they would send their children to these or to other Catholic institutions. The first Slovak Catholic school was built in Streator, Illinois in 1889. By 1930, more than half of the 241 Slovak parishes in America had their own schools.(21) Furthermore, Josef Barton and I have discovered that wherever the Slovak community had its own school, as at St. Wendelin's parish in Cleveland or at St. Peter's in Fort William (now Thunder Bay, Ontario), the majority (between 60 percent and 80 percent) of eligible Slovak children did attend it. (22) Where they did not have their own school, as at St. Cyril's in Minneapolis before 1938, almost half of the children attended parochial schools of other nationalities. (23) Thus , whenever possible, Slovak parents heeded the advice of their leaders and sent their children to parochial schools. Slovak parents also seemed to agree with their priests' teachings that the chief aim of schooling was not necessarily to promote social mobility here on earth but to prepare for the afterlife . Thus, once one had acquired the "three R's" and knew one's catechism, extended schooling became superfluous . This was clearly evident in the school attendance records of Slovak children in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Thunder Bay. In all three cities more than 60 percent of these children dropped out between the sixth and ninth grades in the period 19101940. This contrasted with an average American drop-out rate of 44 percent over the same period . Only twenty percent graduated from high school.(24) A few lay leaders recognized this phenomenon and complained about it. Jozef Joscak, editor of N<irodne Noviny, accused his American countrymen of "caring less about education than had Slovaks in the Old Country."(25) Pavel Jamarik, a perceptive social critic, charged that American-Slovak parents "only sent their children to high school if they wanted them to become priests." (26) Finally, �SLOVAKIA 85 Michal Bosak , a banker and one of America's first Slovak millionaires, advised parents to at least send their youngsters to commerical schools instead of into the mines and factories, so as to enable them to compete in America' s capitalist society. (27) Such advice often fell on deaf ears, for, as Jozef Joscak had earlier concluded, American Slovaks "had their minds on other things . " (28) The '' other things '' that J oscak referred to were a way of life that rejected the basic tenets of the ''Protestant ethic.' ' The German sociologist Max Weber had observed that Catholic and Protestant peoples at the tum of the century had different attitudes towards life and he developed an elaborate theory to explain these differences. It appeared in his celebrated book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (29) Among other things, Weber theorized that the Protestant Reformation , especially its Calvinist branch , helped bring about the modem Capitalist world because Calvinists regarded work as a glorification of God rather than as a curse that followed the fall of Adam, as Medieval Catholics had believed. Furthermore , Weber continued, since Calvinists believed in predestination, they stressed self-discipline, education and a constant striving to improve one's position in life. If one did, indeed, improve oneself, the Calvinists believed, it was proof that one was saved because God ' s grace descended only upon the 'elect.' Weber's theory has caused quite a debate in academic circles , with some scholars arguing that he was correct and others denouncing his views. One of his most enthusiastic defenders has been Gerhard Lenski. In his Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics and Family Life, (30) Lenski focused on 658 people of various religious persuasions in Detroit and sought to test the Weber thesis. He found that the Protestants in his sample constantly strove harder to succeed and to climb the socio-economic ladder than did Catholics , and they were successful in doing so much more often than Catholics and thus he concluded that Weber was essentially correct. The Catholics , Lenski added, were held back by an attitude that stressed the after-life rather than success in this world. While Lenski defended Weber, many more critics have attacked the latter's theories. Lipset and Bendix, for instance, argued that ethnicity was far more important than religious persuasion in American social mobility . They attributed the low rate of social mobility of Eastern Europeans as compared to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants to the later arrival of the former to this country. It was only a matter of time , they asserted, before third and fourth generation Poles , Italians and Slovaks caught up with British and Scandinavian peoples in the United States.(31) Similarly, Father Andrew Greeley, in Religion and Career: A Study of College Graduates(32) bent over backwards to try to disprove both Weber's and Lenski's theories . By using the resources of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), which had ad- �86 SLOVAKIA ministered questionnaires to 33,000 college graduates in 1961 , Greeley tried to show that Catholics and Protestants had basically the same goals and aspirations in life and that one was as likely to be successful as the other. He did admit, however, that arriving Catholic immigrants may have been influenced by what he called a ''folk element'' which was anti-intellectual, but he saw this rapidly disappearing. (33) I see several flaws in Greeley's research. First of all, the sample he used tested only college graduates ' opinions, not their actual performances . Opinions do not necessarily reflect what people do after they graduate. Nor are the opinions of college graduates a good indicator of what the rest of their ethnic community may be thinking. Furthermore , these students may have answered the questions the way they guessed was expected of them by a society that worships social mobility . Greeley also did not differentiate enough between ethnic groups. I suspect that the vast majority of his Catholic students were German and Irish. These two peoples have been in America much longer than Eastern Europeans , they have had greater contact with White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the past, both in the Old World and in the New, and they may even have begun to accept the "Protestant ethic" as they have gradually assimilated into American society. Finally , Greeley paid absolutely no attention to what the Catholic church has been teaching its people about the goal of life . Let us focus on the last point for the moment. Recall the advice of Father Porubsky that " life is a preparation for God" and Father Furdek 's pronouncement that " the saving of souls is much more important than a good secular education. '' (34) Should we dismiss these as the words of a couple of naive priests or do they represent official church teaching? The Baltimore Catechism which until Vatican II had been more important to most American Catholics than the Bible, since it was used in most Parochial schools, essentially repeats Porubsky's and Furdek's teachings . In the first lesson, dealing with the purpose of life, the question is asked, "Why did God make us?" The answer given is: "God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. " The next question asks, "What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? ' ' and the reply is '' ... we must know, love and serve God in this world."(35) Nowhere does it say that we must strive to better ourselves on this earth, to work hard, to study and make money and to climb the social ladder. Indeed, the only mention of "work" that I could find in the Catechism is a derogatory one. In the lesson on the creation and fall of man, we read that because of Adam's original sin, " we have to die, to suffer, to study, to work .. . ! '' (36) In other words , studying and work are a curse that Adam brought upon us because of his disobedience to God. This teaching is the exact opposite of the ''Protestant ethic' ' and it has reached and influenced millions of Catholics over the last century. �SLOVAKIA 87 Having surveyed Slovak Catholic attitudes towards both education and work, and having discovered their negative attitudes towards both, we are now in a better position to explain their low rate of social mobility. ' 'Success'' in America has traditionally been viewed through White Anglo-Saxon Protestant eyes. Sociologists who measure success reflect such a bias. They always look for people moving up from bluecollar to white-collar and thence to professional occupations. A corollary is that once one ' 'succeeds,'' one moves out of the central city to the more affluent suburbs. This pattern of "up and out" is usually accepted as the only meaningful form of social mobility in America.(37) There is another approach to life, however, one seldom discussed by American scholars, which is typified by the Catholic Slovak experience. Josef Barton discovered it in his study of Rumanians, Italians and Slovaks in Cleveland, although he did not pursue the subject to its final conclusion. Thus, in looking at the ways in which the three immigrant groups reacted to the American situation, Barton found that almost half of the Slovak men in his sample became skilled workers and-or acquired some property in their original neighborhoods of settlement. Furthermore, they had large families which often lived in the extended form and this increased their overall family income. (38) Here , then was a different way of ''making it. '' It was all right to be a blue-collar worker, to drop out of school at an early age and to live in the same neighborhood all of your life. Stability, rather than movement, characterized the people of this community and they seemed to be satisfied with it. Even though Barton recognized that he had discovered a different approach to social mobility, he did not really approve of it. The Rumanian example of " up and out" impressed him as the " classic rise" of an immigrant group and he left us with the impression that somehow the Slovaks had made a mistake.(39) Whether or not they had, indeed, made a mistake depends largely upon their and the observer's perception of life. Is it one's goal to constantly strive to improve oneself through education, work and the accumulation of wealth here on earth? Or is it more important to lead a moral life, to accept one 's status, no matter how low, and strive for the higher goal of everlasting salvation? The answer is usually very personal but much depends on the teachings of one's church and on the religiosity of the individual. The majority of Slovak Catholics, I submit, were very religious and did heed the teachings of their leaders and the church, at least in the first two generations. Thus, they cared more for the moral upbringing of their children than for success here on earth and this was reflected in their condemnation of public schools, in their praise for Catholic education and in their acceptance of blue-collar work and life in ethnic neighborhoods. �88 SLOVAKIA But what of third and fourth generation American Slovaks? Do they perceive life in the same way as their parents and grandparents? Do they have the same attitudes towards work and school, family and neighborhood? We do not know because no one has yet researched this group . If Andrew Greeley' s studies of German and Irish Catholics are correct, then perhaps the " Protestant ethic " will eventually rub off on Slovak Catholics as they become more assimilated into American society. Perhaps the growing nationwide decline in parochial school attendance will aid in this process . Indeed, Catholic values generally may be changing across the land and the third and fourth generations may reflect such changes. These are questions which await further research . Should someone still be skeptical about the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic ," the various components of the Slovak community in America can be studied to provide a clearer answer. While 80 percent of Slovaks are Roman Catholics , about 15 percent are Lutherans and 2 percent are Calvinists. The latter two groups could be studied, and their attitudes towards life, work , education and their social mobility could be compared and contrasted with that of their Catholic counterparts. Such a study would supercede previous efforts because one would not have to control for ethnicity , time of arrival and other variables except religion. Such research could, hopefully , deal with the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic " to everyone 's satisfaction. Finally, the American concept of social mobility needs closer scrutiny. Should the majority of scholars continue to accept without question the ideal that everyone should constantly strive to move ''up and out ' '? What are the social consequences of such a philosophy? Is it good and necessary that everyone seek a higher education, for example? Who will sweep the streets, collect the garbage, fix the roads and man the factories if we continue to revere non-manual work so much? And, what are the consequences of an upwardly-mobile whitecollar worker moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and city to city all the time in order to keep climbing? Is this good for his family? Does it not in fact destroy extended family solidarity and breed an intense nuclear family that has no roots and no sense of community? (40) Indeed, the historian Rowland Berthoff has argued that America has in the past suffered from too much mobility and he predicted that this country 's many social ills would not disappear until a sense of community was restored in this land and this implied that Americans would have to stop moving around so much.(41) In this respect those Eastern Europeans who have stayed put and have tried to preserve their neighborhoods have been in the vanguard of social planning,. Perhaps Michael Novak is right. Perhaps we should stress extended family life, ethnic neighborhoods, stability and quietness again. (42) At least we should let those who prefer this way of life to live in peace , without bureaucratic harrassment. This would mean fighting �SLOVAKIA 89 "block-busting," "red-lining," freeway construction, and any other threats to community life that individuals or the government may pose. In short, it would call for respect for the pluralism of American life. It would mean toleration for the Catholic alternative to the ''Protestant ethic.'' FOOTNOTES (1) Berkeley , 1959. (2) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (3) Ibid ., pp. 99-100 . (4) Slouenskje narodiije nouini (Bratislava), November 18, 1845, p. 125. (5) N<i.rodni hl<i.snik (Martin), August 31, 1868, p . 178; October 31, 1868, p . 225; and May 31, 1871, p . 135 . (6) Obzor (Skalica), January 5, 1872 and January 5, 1881. (7) Julius Mesaros et al. , Dejiny Slouenska II: Od Roku 1848 do 1900 (A History of Slovakia , II: From 1848 to 1900) (Bratislava, 1968) , 264 ; and Dom a Skala (Ruzomberok), ill (1887) , 23-25. (8) Zipser Batte (Levoca), No. 29, 1905; and Jozef Gregor-Tajovsky , "Vychodne Slovensko " (Eastern Slovakia) , N<i.rodny Kalendar, 1913 (Pittsburgh), 243-4 . (9) Minister of Education to the School Inspector of Spis, Slovak State Archives in Levoca , county Spis , Executive Council, 420, KB, 1877 ; the same, 462, 1881; the same, II , 181 , 1898 and the same again, II , 183, 1902. See also William P. Dillingham, Chairman, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Volume 3, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Document No . 756 (Washington, 1911), 84 for literacy rates. (10) Amerik<i.nsko-Slouenske Nouiny (Pittsburgh), February 2, 1893, p . 6; December 8, 1894, p . 8; January 8, 1895 , p . l; July 13 , 1895 , p . 4 ; April 28, 1898, p. 8. The quotation is from the first article . (11) N<i.rodny Kalend<i.r, 1899, 44-5; 1911, 59-64 and 224-8; and 1917, 222-4 . (12) Ibid. , 1917, 222 . (13) Dom a Skala, II (1886), 194; and ill (1887), 73. (14) See for example Nafa Z<i.staua (Presov) September 20, 1908, p . 2 and October 4, 1908, p. 2; Eperjes (Presov), September 1, 1913, p . l; August 15, 1913, p . 2; October 15 , 1914 , p . 3; andEghy<i.z Es Iskola (Presov), February 15, 1918, p . 69 . (15) Jednota (Cleveland), September 17, 1902, p . 3 ; October 1, 1902, p . 4; August 31 , 1904, p . 4; July 12 , 1905 , p . 4; July 26, 1905, p . 4 ; August 9, 1905, p. 4; February 7, 1906, p. 4; July 1, 1908, p . 4; August 19, 1908, p. 4; September 8, 1909, p . 4; February 16, 1910, p . 4 ; March 23, 1910, p . 4; July 27, 1910, p . 4; August 17, 1910, p . 4; September 2, 1910, p . 4 ; April 5, 1911, p . 4; and August 23, 1911 , p . 4. (16) Kalend<i.r Jednota, 1898 (Cleveland), 133-4 ; 1899, 135-6; 1902, 128-36; 1907, 120-3; 1908, 177-8; 1911, 29-31; 1913, 123-8 ; 1917, 83-5. (17) Ibid., 1898, 133. (18) Jednota, July 12, 1905, p . 4. (19) Kalend<i.r J ednota, 1907, 120-3. (20) Jednota, August 19, 1908 , p . 4. (21) N<i.rodnie nouiny, October 5, 1889, p . 3 and October 23, 1890, p . 3; Kalendar Jednota, 1930, 193-201. �90 SLOVAKIA (22) Barton, Peasants and Strangers , 149-50; M. Mark Stolarik, "Immigration and Urbanization: the Slovak Experience, 1870-1918," Ph .D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1974, pp. 165-6. (23) Ibid., Stolarik, 165-6. (24) Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 132 , 137 and Stolarik , "Immigration and Urbanization," 170. (25) N<irodne Nouiny (Pittsburgh) , June 2, 1910, p . 4. (26) Pavel Jarnarik , Vychoua dietok: prakticke n<iuody pre Slouenskych rodic:ou (The Raising of Children : Practical Advice for Slovak Parents) (Author ' s publication, Disputant , Virginia, 1913), 22. (27) Kalend<ir J ednota 1917, 83-5. (28) N<irodne Nouiny , June 2, 1910, p. 4. (29) Translated by Talcott Parsons (London, 1930). (30) New York, 1961. (31) Social Mobility in Industrial Society, 49-52 . (32) New York, 1963. (33) Ibid., p . 134. (34) See above page 6. (35) Rev . Michael A. McGuire, The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass (No. 2, Official Revised Edition, New York, 1941), p. 14. (36) Ibid. , p. 29. (37) All the scholars cited above - Lipset and Bendix , Lenski, Greeley and even Barton - accept this pattern. One who questions its wisdom is Richard Sennett in Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes in Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890 (Cambridge, 1970) . (38) Barton , Peasants and Strangers, 143. (39) Ibid., 172-3. (40) This was part of Richard Sennet's argumentt in Families Against the City, cited above . (41) See his An Unsettled People; Social Order and Disorder in American History (New York , 1971). (42) Novak makes this argument in his Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies (New York, 1972) and again in the two EMPAC! (Ethnic Millions Political Action Committee) statements of 1973 and 1975. � 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 1977, Vol. 27 Description An account of the resource Vol. 27 (No. 50), 1977. 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 1977 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 80 SLOVAKIA Immigration, Education and the Social Mobility of Slovaks, 1870-1930* M. MARK STOLARIK In the last few decades the social mobility of ethnic groups in American society has drawn the attention of numerous scholars from a variety of disciplines. Their research has raised some important questions about the nature and meaning of this phenomenon. Particularly influential has been the work of the sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Reinhard Bendix. In their Social Mobility in Industrial Society, (1) Lipset and Bendix demonstrated that moving up or down the socio-economic ladder was an integral and continuing aspect of the process of industrialization. They did not explain, however, what caused some people to move up, others to remain where they were and others still to move down. Josef Barton, trained in both history and sociology, sought to answer these questions by comparing the relative rates of movement of three ethnic groups in Cleveland in Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Rumanians and Slovaks in an American City, 18901950. (2) Barton found that education, family size and the occupation of the father played a pivotal role in the traditional American '' success story." The Rumanians, who came from peasant backgrounds similar to that of the Slovaks and Italians, stressed extended public education for their children, they limited the size of their families and their fathers tended to move from blue-collar to white-collar occupations more often than did Italians or Slovaks. As a result, more than fifty per cent of Rumanian children moved from manual to non-manual employment in the period 1900-1950 while less than twenty per cent of Italians and Slovaks did so. (3) What Barton did not explain was why the Rumanians had such a strong commitment to education, to small families and why the fathers were so mobile in contrast to Italians and Slovaks. Part of the answer lies, I submit, in the Old World background of the various groups and • This paper was presented to the Bicentennial Symposium on "Religious Freedom: Churches and Ethnic Communities in the American City, " at Saint Joseph's College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 21 , 1975. Reprinted from Immigrants and Religion in Urban America, (edited by Randall Miller and Thomas Marzik, copyright 1977) with the kind permission of the original publisher, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pa. SLOVAKIA 81 in their attitude towards life as molded by their religions. To illustrate this hypothesis the Slovak experience will be examined in detail. Before the mass migration of Slovaks to America began in the 1880's, lay leaders in the Old World had stressed the value of education for social mobility and their people seemed to agree with them. As early as 1845, for example, Jan Cipka, a student at Vienna's polytechnic institute, anticipated the abolition of serfdom and urged his countrymen to prepare themselves for the approaching industrial age by sending their children to technical schools. (4) The editors of N arodni hlasnik agreed and in subsequent decades urged the founding of Slovak trade and high schools.(5) The editors of Obzor added the sobering comment that "knowledge is power." (6) Reacting to the urgings of their leaders, the Slovak people built and supported educational institutions whenever possible. By 1870 they had established three 'gymnasiums' (high schools) and operated 1,822 religious grammar schools, with the result that every second village had its own schoolhouse. So successful was the Slovak educational system that by 1885 it enrolled 88 percent of all children in its districts , the highest percentage in the entire Kingdom of Hungary.(7) The Hungarian government, rather than applauding such efforts, set out to thwart them because they conflicted with its official policy of Magyarization. Shortly after they reached the famous Compromise of 1867 with the Habsburgs, the Magyars of Hungary set out to assimilate their subject nationalities by attacking their school systems. Thus, they closed the three Slovak gymnasiums in 1874 on the pretext that they propagated "Pan-Slavism". Furthermore, the Minister of Education seized upon the fact that many village schools were primitive structures and over-crowded to nationalize them and turn them into public institutions. By 1905 the Slovaks of Hungary had only 241 schools left under their control.(8) Not only did the Magyars turn Slovak schools into public institutions but they also set out to eradicate the use of all non-Magyar languages in them. In 1877 the Budapest parliament banned all nonMagyar texts and two years later made the teaching of Magyar compulsory in all schools. Furthermore, starting in 1881 it paid teachers a bonus of 100 gold forints (equivalent to a year's wages) if they did a good job in Magyarizing their pupils. Those teachers who refused to cooperate were fired and students who balked at the new rules were expelled. The net result was a decline in Slovak literacy from 88 percent in 1885 to 76 percent in 1911. The Magyar public school system had virtually destroyed education in the Slovak language by the First World War.(9) While the Hungarian government worked at assimilating its subject nationalities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a very large section of the population began to emigrate to 82 SLOVAKIA America. Poor economic conditions in the Old World compelled hundreds of thousands of Slovaks to seek a livelihood in the New. By 1920 more than 600,000 of them lived in America, toiling in the mines, mills and refineries of the industrial Northeast. They were followed by a small group of intellectuals, both lay and religious, who fled national persecution in Hungary and who were determined to preserve Slovak life in the United States. Educational conditions in Hungary had a profound effect upon the thinking of those intellectuals who left for America. They brought with them an understandable contempt for public schools and they expressed these thoughts in their press. In an analysis of the nondenominational Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny, the largest and most influential Slovak newspaper in America before 1914, I found five articles concerned with education between the years 1893 and 1902 and these expressed nine discrete statements about it. Four declared the purpose of education to be the preservation of the children's language and nationality, three stressed the moral value of education and only one affirmed schooling to be a process of self improvement. Only once did the editors suggest that parents send their children to public schools if no parochial ones existed. The main complaint the editors made was that public schools "assimilate our children and turn them against their parents. " (10) In an analysis of the N<irodny Kalend<ir, the almanac of the secular National Slovak Society, I found similar opinions in four articles concerned with education between 1899 and 1917. Three of six ideas expressed in these articles stressed the need to preserve the children's language and heritage through schools, one emphasized the need to preserve the students' morals through schooling while only one each pointed to the value of education for self-improvement and social mobility.(11) Indeed, one contributor denounced public schools because "whether in America or in Hungary, (they) denationalize our children." (12) Thus, secular Slovak leaders in the United States no longer shared the enthusiasm for education that their colleagues back home had expressed in earlier decades. Religious leaders, on the other hand , stressed the moral value of education. In the old World even the Lutheran editors of Dom a Skala (Home and School) labelled public schools as •'bastard children of the church and state." They quite correctly charged the government with using state schools to "wage war upon the nationalities" and they demanded a return to good religious instruction because ••a moral unbringing is the chief aim of school and education is only a means of achieving this end."(13) Roman Catholic editors agreed that the chief aim of schooling was to instill "morality" in children. However, since most of their educational journals in Hungary were sponsored by the government, they extended this aim to include not only piety and good behavior but also loyalty to the Magyar state.(14) SLOVAKIA 83 Slovak Catholic leaders in America , meanwhile, cared little about loyalty to the Magyar state but they did continue to stress the moral value of education. In an analysis of the leading Catholic Slovak newspaper Jednota over the years 1902-1911 , for instance, I found seventeen articles concerned with education and these contained thirtyone statements about its worth. Eleven times the editors praised parochial schools for cultivating their children's morality , and an equal numbe r of times they stressed the role of such institutions in preserving the next generation's ethnicity. Only three statements admitted the value of education for social mobility and only once did they speak of schooling as a means of self-improvement. And, while on three occasions the editors pointed to the good example set by other nationalities in parochial education, only twice did they suggest sending Slovak children to non-Slovak Catholic schools if they had none of their own.(15) The Jednota Kalend<ir , almanac of the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile was even more emphatic about the moral value of education. This annual published eight articles about schooling between 1898 and 1917 and these contained fifteen statements about its worth. Eight of them stressed the role of Catholic institutions in cultivating a child's morality while four added that they also preserved the children's nationality . Only once did a statement appear which praised education as a vehicle for social mobility. Similarly , only once did an author suggest that children attend public schools or parochial schools of another nationality if they had none of their own. (16) Clearly, then, Catholic leaders valued parochial schools above all else, they worried much more about their children's moral and national upbringing than about social mobility and they had no use for public schools. Indeed, when one looks at the reaction of Slovak Roman Catholic priests towards state schools, one finds only the harshest condemnation of these institutions. The Reverend Andrej Pavco, for instance, blamed the supposed decline of morality in America at the turn of the century on the "anti-religious " nature of public schools which " made loafers of all girls who attended them. " (17) Father Stefan Furdek agreed and further charged that state schools provided "an anti-God education" with the result that America had the highest divorce rate in the world. (18) Father Jan Porubsky added that "life is a preparation for God" and American public schools ignored this, causing the United States to lead the world in immorality and crime. Porubsky especially singled out trade schools because they allegedly produced " illiterate " children and propagated "atheism." He added that " these are the places from which cities get their vagabonds, suburbs their tramps and murderers and the gallows their offerings. " (19) In a more subtle article the Reverend Stefan Furdek analyzed both school systems and, in condemning public institutions, revealed the 84 SLOVAKIA basis of his Catholic philosophy. Public schools , he pointed out, were free . They supplied books and clothes to poor children and had nurses to care for the sick. Classes consisted of only thirty to forty pupils taught by teachers with diplomas and a good command of English. Slovak parochial schools, on the other hand, required the parents to pay tuition, their classes were overcrowded and the teachers often lacked diplomas . In spite of these faults, Furdek found parochial schools superior to public ones because they taught catechism. He declared that ''the saving of souls is more important than a good secular education." In other words, schools did not exist to promote social mobility but to give the child a decent moral upbringing . He closed his argument with the revealing statement that "a Gypsy cannot read music, but he can sure play the violin!" (20) Since both secular and religious leaders of the Slovak community in America had such negative attitudes towards public schools, and since the majority of Slovaks (80 percent) were Roman Catholics, it became almost inevitable that they would build as many parochial schools as possible and that they would send their children to these or to other Catholic institutions. The first Slovak Catholic school was built in Streator, Illinois in 1889. By 1930, more than half of the 241 Slovak parishes in America had their own schools.(21) Furthermore, Josef Barton and I have discovered that wherever the Slovak community had its own school, as at St. Wendelin's parish in Cleveland or at St. Peter's in Fort William (now Thunder Bay, Ontario), the majority (between 60 percent and 80 percent) of eligible Slovak children did attend it. (22) Where they did not have their own school, as at St. Cyril's in Minneapolis before 1938, almost half of the children attended parochial schools of other nationalities. (23) Thus , whenever possible, Slovak parents heeded the advice of their leaders and sent their children to parochial schools. Slovak parents also seemed to agree with their priests' teachings that the chief aim of schooling was not necessarily to promote social mobility here on earth but to prepare for the afterlife . Thus, once one had acquired the "three R's" and knew one's catechism, extended schooling became superfluous . This was clearly evident in the school attendance records of Slovak children in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Thunder Bay. In all three cities more than 60 percent of these children dropped out between the sixth and ninth grades in the period 19101940. This contrasted with an average American drop-out rate of 44 percent over the same period . Only twenty percent graduated from high school.(24) A few lay leaders recognized this phenomenon and complained about it. Jozef Joscak, editor of N<irodne Noviny, accused his American countrymen of "caring less about education than had Slovaks in the Old Country."(25) Pavel Jamarik, a perceptive social critic, charged that American-Slovak parents "only sent their children to high school if they wanted them to become priests." (26) Finally, SLOVAKIA 85 Michal Bosak , a banker and one of America's first Slovak millionaires, advised parents to at least send their youngsters to commerical schools instead of into the mines and factories, so as to enable them to compete in America' s capitalist society. (27) Such advice often fell on deaf ears, for, as Jozef Joscak had earlier concluded, American Slovaks "had their minds on other things . " (28) The '' other things '' that J oscak referred to were a way of life that rejected the basic tenets of the ''Protestant ethic.' ' The German sociologist Max Weber had observed that Catholic and Protestant peoples at the tum of the century had different attitudes towards life and he developed an elaborate theory to explain these differences. It appeared in his celebrated book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (29) Among other things, Weber theorized that the Protestant Reformation , especially its Calvinist branch , helped bring about the modem Capitalist world because Calvinists regarded work as a glorification of God rather than as a curse that followed the fall of Adam, as Medieval Catholics had believed. Furthermore , Weber continued, since Calvinists believed in predestination, they stressed self-discipline, education and a constant striving to improve one's position in life. If one did, indeed, improve oneself, the Calvinists believed, it was proof that one was saved because God ' s grace descended only upon the 'elect.' Weber's theory has caused quite a debate in academic circles , with some scholars arguing that he was correct and others denouncing his views. One of his most enthusiastic defenders has been Gerhard Lenski. In his Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics and Family Life, (30) Lenski focused on 658 people of various religious persuasions in Detroit and sought to test the Weber thesis. He found that the Protestants in his sample constantly strove harder to succeed and to climb the socio-economic ladder than did Catholics , and they were successful in doing so much more often than Catholics and thus he concluded that Weber was essentially correct. The Catholics , Lenski added, were held back by an attitude that stressed the after-life rather than success in this world. While Lenski defended Weber, many more critics have attacked the latter's theories. Lipset and Bendix, for instance, argued that ethnicity was far more important than religious persuasion in American social mobility . They attributed the low rate of social mobility of Eastern Europeans as compared to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants to the later arrival of the former to this country. It was only a matter of time , they asserted, before third and fourth generation Poles , Italians and Slovaks caught up with British and Scandinavian peoples in the United States.(31) Similarly, Father Andrew Greeley, in Religion and Career: A Study of College Graduates(32) bent over backwards to try to disprove both Weber's and Lenski's theories . By using the resources of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), which had ad- 86 SLOVAKIA ministered questionnaires to 33,000 college graduates in 1961 , Greeley tried to show that Catholics and Protestants had basically the same goals and aspirations in life and that one was as likely to be successful as the other. He did admit, however, that arriving Catholic immigrants may have been influenced by what he called a ''folk element'' which was anti-intellectual, but he saw this rapidly disappearing. (33) I see several flaws in Greeley's research. First of all, the sample he used tested only college graduates ' opinions, not their actual performances . Opinions do not necessarily reflect what people do after they graduate. Nor are the opinions of college graduates a good indicator of what the rest of their ethnic community may be thinking. Furthermore , these students may have answered the questions the way they guessed was expected of them by a society that worships social mobility . Greeley also did not differentiate enough between ethnic groups. I suspect that the vast majority of his Catholic students were German and Irish. These two peoples have been in America much longer than Eastern Europeans , they have had greater contact with White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the past, both in the Old World and in the New, and they may even have begun to accept the "Protestant ethic" as they have gradually assimilated into American society. Finally , Greeley paid absolutely no attention to what the Catholic church has been teaching its people about the goal of life . Let us focus on the last point for the moment. Recall the advice of Father Porubsky that " life is a preparation for God" and Father Furdek 's pronouncement that " the saving of souls is much more important than a good secular education. '' (34) Should we dismiss these as the words of a couple of naive priests or do they represent official church teaching? The Baltimore Catechism which until Vatican II had been more important to most American Catholics than the Bible, since it was used in most Parochial schools, essentially repeats Porubsky's and Furdek's teachings . In the first lesson, dealing with the purpose of life, the question is asked, "Why did God make us?" The answer given is: "God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. " The next question asks, "What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? ' ' and the reply is '' ... we must know, love and serve God in this world."(35) Nowhere does it say that we must strive to better ourselves on this earth, to work hard, to study and make money and to climb the social ladder. Indeed, the only mention of "work" that I could find in the Catechism is a derogatory one. In the lesson on the creation and fall of man, we read that because of Adam's original sin, " we have to die, to suffer, to study, to work .. . ! '' (36) In other words , studying and work are a curse that Adam brought upon us because of his disobedience to God. This teaching is the exact opposite of the ''Protestant ethic' ' and it has reached and influenced millions of Catholics over the last century. SLOVAKIA 87 Having surveyed Slovak Catholic attitudes towards both education and work, and having discovered their negative attitudes towards both, we are now in a better position to explain their low rate of social mobility. ' 'Success'' in America has traditionally been viewed through White Anglo-Saxon Protestant eyes. Sociologists who measure success reflect such a bias. They always look for people moving up from bluecollar to white-collar and thence to professional occupations. A corollary is that once one ' 'succeeds,'' one moves out of the central city to the more affluent suburbs. This pattern of "up and out" is usually accepted as the only meaningful form of social mobility in America.(37) There is another approach to life, however, one seldom discussed by American scholars, which is typified by the Catholic Slovak experience. Josef Barton discovered it in his study of Rumanians, Italians and Slovaks in Cleveland, although he did not pursue the subject to its final conclusion. Thus, in looking at the ways in which the three immigrant groups reacted to the American situation, Barton found that almost half of the Slovak men in his sample became skilled workers and-or acquired some property in their original neighborhoods of settlement. Furthermore, they had large families which often lived in the extended form and this increased their overall family income. (38) Here , then was a different way of ''making it. '' It was all right to be a blue-collar worker, to drop out of school at an early age and to live in the same neighborhood all of your life. Stability, rather than movement, characterized the people of this community and they seemed to be satisfied with it. Even though Barton recognized that he had discovered a different approach to social mobility, he did not really approve of it. The Rumanian example of " up and out" impressed him as the " classic rise" of an immigrant group and he left us with the impression that somehow the Slovaks had made a mistake.(39) Whether or not they had, indeed, made a mistake depends largely upon their and the observer's perception of life. Is it one's goal to constantly strive to improve oneself through education, work and the accumulation of wealth here on earth? Or is it more important to lead a moral life, to accept one 's status, no matter how low, and strive for the higher goal of everlasting salvation? The answer is usually very personal but much depends on the teachings of one's church and on the religiosity of the individual. The majority of Slovak Catholics, I submit, were very religious and did heed the teachings of their leaders and the church, at least in the first two generations. Thus, they cared more for the moral upbringing of their children than for success here on earth and this was reflected in their condemnation of public schools, in their praise for Catholic education and in their acceptance of blue-collar work and life in ethnic neighborhoods. 88 SLOVAKIA But what of third and fourth generation American Slovaks? Do they perceive life in the same way as their parents and grandparents? Do they have the same attitudes towards work and school, family and neighborhood? We do not know because no one has yet researched this group . If Andrew Greeley' s studies of German and Irish Catholics are correct, then perhaps the " Protestant ethic " will eventually rub off on Slovak Catholics as they become more assimilated into American society. Perhaps the growing nationwide decline in parochial school attendance will aid in this process . Indeed, Catholic values generally may be changing across the land and the third and fourth generations may reflect such changes. These are questions which await further research . Should someone still be skeptical about the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic ," the various components of the Slovak community in America can be studied to provide a clearer answer. While 80 percent of Slovaks are Roman Catholics , about 15 percent are Lutherans and 2 percent are Calvinists. The latter two groups could be studied, and their attitudes towards life, work , education and their social mobility could be compared and contrasted with that of their Catholic counterparts. Such a study would supercede previous efforts because one would not have to control for ethnicity , time of arrival and other variables except religion. Such research could, hopefully , deal with the whole theory of the " Protestant ethic " to everyone 's satisfaction. Finally, the American concept of social mobility needs closer scrutiny. Should the majority of scholars continue to accept without question the ideal that everyone should constantly strive to move ''up and out ' '? What are the social consequences of such a philosophy? Is it good and necessary that everyone seek a higher education, for example? Who will sweep the streets, collect the garbage, fix the roads and man the factories if we continue to revere non-manual work so much? And, what are the consequences of an upwardly-mobile whitecollar worker moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and city to city all the time in order to keep climbing? Is this good for his family? Does it not in fact destroy extended family solidarity and breed an intense nuclear family that has no roots and no sense of community? (40) Indeed, the historian Rowland Berthoff has argued that America has in the past suffered from too much mobility and he predicted that this country 's many social ills would not disappear until a sense of community was restored in this land and this implied that Americans would have to stop moving around so much.(41) In this respect those Eastern Europeans who have stayed put and have tried to preserve their neighborhoods have been in the vanguard of social planning,. Perhaps Michael Novak is right. Perhaps we should stress extended family life, ethnic neighborhoods, stability and quietness again. (42) At least we should let those who prefer this way of life to live in peace , without bureaucratic harrassment. This would mean fighting SLOVAKIA 89 "block-busting," "red-lining," freeway construction, and any other threats to community life that individuals or the government may pose. In short, it would call for respect for the pluralism of American life. It would mean toleration for the Catholic alternative to the ''Protestant ethic.'' FOOTNOTES (1) Berkeley , 1959. (2) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (3) Ibid ., pp. 99-100 . (4) Slouenskje narodiije nouini (Bratislava), November 18, 1845, p. 125. (5) N<i.rodni hl<i.snik (Martin), August 31, 1868, p . 178; October 31, 1868, p . 225; and May 31, 1871, p . 135 . (6) Obzor (Skalica), January 5, 1872 and January 5, 1881. (7) Julius Mesaros et al. , Dejiny Slouenska II: Od Roku 1848 do 1900 (A History of Slovakia , II: From 1848 to 1900) (Bratislava, 1968) , 264 ; and Dom a Skala (Ruzomberok), ill (1887) , 23-25. (8) Zipser Batte (Levoca), No. 29, 1905; and Jozef Gregor-Tajovsky , "Vychodne Slovensko " (Eastern Slovakia) , N<i.rodny Kalendar, 1913 (Pittsburgh), 243-4 . (9) Minister of Education to the School Inspector of Spis, Slovak State Archives in Levoca , county Spis , Executive Council, 420, KB, 1877 ; the same, 462, 1881; the same, II , 181 , 1898 and the same again, II , 183, 1902. See also William P. Dillingham, Chairman, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Volume 3, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Document No . 756 (Washington, 1911), 84 for literacy rates. (10) Amerik<i.nsko-Slouenske Nouiny (Pittsburgh), February 2, 1893, p . 6; December 8, 1894, p . 8; January 8, 1895 , p . l; July 13 , 1895 , p . 4 ; April 28, 1898, p. 8. The quotation is from the first article . (11) N<i.rodny Kalend<i.r, 1899, 44-5; 1911, 59-64 and 224-8; and 1917, 222-4 . (12) Ibid. , 1917, 222 . (13) Dom a Skala, II (1886), 194; and ill (1887), 73. (14) See for example Nafa Z<i.staua (Presov) September 20, 1908, p . 2 and October 4, 1908, p. 2; Eperjes (Presov), September 1, 1913, p . l; August 15, 1913, p . 2; October 15 , 1914 , p . 3; andEghy<i.z Es Iskola (Presov), February 15, 1918, p . 69 . (15) Jednota (Cleveland), September 17, 1902, p . 3 ; October 1, 1902, p . 4; August 31 , 1904, p . 4; July 12 , 1905 , p . 4; July 26, 1905, p . 4 ; August 9, 1905, p. 4; February 7, 1906, p. 4; July 1, 1908, p . 4; August 19, 1908, p. 4; September 8, 1909, p . 4; February 16, 1910, p . 4 ; March 23, 1910, p . 4; July 27, 1910, p . 4; August 17, 1910, p . 4; September 2, 1910, p . 4 ; April 5, 1911, p . 4; and August 23, 1911 , p . 4. (16) Kalend<i.r Jednota, 1898 (Cleveland), 133-4 ; 1899, 135-6; 1902, 128-36; 1907, 120-3; 1908, 177-8; 1911, 29-31; 1913, 123-8 ; 1917, 83-5. (17) Ibid., 1898, 133. (18) Jednota, July 12, 1905, p . 4. (19) Kalend<i.r J ednota, 1907, 120-3. (20) Jednota, August 19, 1908 , p . 4. (21) N<i.rodnie nouiny, October 5, 1889, p . 3 and October 23, 1890, p . 3; Kalendar Jednota, 1930, 193-201. 90 SLOVAKIA (22) Barton, Peasants and Strangers , 149-50; M. Mark Stolarik, "Immigration and Urbanization: the Slovak Experience, 1870-1918," Ph .D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1974, pp. 165-6. (23) Ibid., Stolarik, 165-6. (24) Barton, Peasants and Strangers, 132 , 137 and Stolarik , "Immigration and Urbanization," 170. (25) N<irodne Nouiny (Pittsburgh) , June 2, 1910, p . 4. (26) Pavel Jarnarik , Vychoua dietok: prakticke n<iuody pre Slouenskych rodic:ou (The Raising of Children : Practical Advice for Slovak Parents) (Author ' s publication, Disputant , Virginia, 1913), 22. (27) Kalend<ir J ednota 1917, 83-5. (28) N<irodne Nouiny , June 2, 1910, p. 4. (29) Translated by Talcott Parsons (London, 1930). (30) New York, 1961. (31) Social Mobility in Industrial Society, 49-52 . (32) New York, 1963. (33) Ibid., p . 134. (34) See above page 6. (35) Rev . Michael A. McGuire, The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass (No. 2, Official Revised Edition, New York, 1941), p. 14. (36) Ibid. , p. 29. (37) All the scholars cited above - Lipset and Bendix , Lenski, Greeley and even Barton - accept this pattern. One who questions its wisdom is Richard Sennett in Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes in Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890 (Cambridge, 1970) . (38) Barton , Peasants and Strangers, 143. (39) Ibid., 172-3. (40) This was part of Richard Sennet's argumentt in Families Against the City, cited above . (41) See his An Unsettled People; Social Order and Disorder in American History (New York , 1971). (42) Novak makes this argument in his Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies (New York, 1972) and again in the two EMPAC! (Ethnic Millions Political Action Committee) statements of 1973 and 1975.  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 Immigration, Education, and the Social Mobility of Slovaks, 1870-1930 Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 27 (No. 50), 1977 pp. 80-90 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1977 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/f8f04562f35d87cec81d0b41a57be2ae.pdf fb7d43c15ae28febe25da74d42ab375f PDF Text Text 66 SLOVAKIA From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States M . MARK STOLARIK Although Slovaks have lived in the United States for over a hundred years, professional American historians have only recently begun to study them. This lack of concern for the second-largest Slavic group in America cannot be attributed to a lack of sources. Pioneers among these immigrants left us not only their published reminiscences but also led the way in reconstructing the histories of their communities. While a few members of the second generation tried to carry on the work of their fathers, their efforts paled in comparison . Historians in Slovakia, meanwhile, began to write about their countrymen in the United States and, whether as political emigres or as devoted Marxists, they initiated the first professional studies of these people. Native Americans, on the other hand, originally discussed Slovaks as either a threat to the American way of life or else as potential converts to the Social Gospel movement. For generations native historians ignored these and other Eastern Europeans in the naive belief that they would disappear in the ''melting pot.'' Only with the ethnic revival of the 1960s did some Ame~ican professionals of varying backgrounds begin to study these people:,. _ The everyday life of Slovaks in the United States has been portrayed at various levels, ranging from simple memoirs to complicated mobility studies. Some of the pioneers contented themselves with describing life in the New World as they remembered it. Others analyzed the growing ethnic neighborhoods , while others still began to collect materials and describe three major institutions of AmericanSlovak communities - the parishes, lodges and newspapers. Such M. Mark Stolarik has been designated as the Director of the Balch Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . This essay is reprinted from the International Migration Review (X , 1, Spring 1976). �SLOVAKIA 67 activities eventually led to full-scale community studies and attempts at an overall history of all Slovak groups in America. Even though the first two generations failed in the latter effort, they did provide the groundwork for later historians. By the 1960s scholars in both Europe and America used new methods such as demographic analysis, studies of marriage , educatiQn anct social mobility, to try to complete the story and put it into a broader context. The earliest description~' bf Slovak life in America came either as observations or else as reminiscences by pioneers . Daniel Sustek, a journeyman carpenter and one of the first Slovaks to arrive in the United States , described his experiences over a ten-year period beginning in 1873 in the self-help monthly Obzor.(1) Besides focusing on his problems of adjusting to the new land, Sustek described the strange way of life he found here and provided his countrymen with extensive advice on how to make the trip, where to find work, what kind of wages to expect and how to behave in the presence of non-Slovaks. Sustek' s reports are reminiscent of Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce especially when, after having initially praised the "equality" of all Americans , Sustek discovers the great gulf between rich and poor and concludes that in this regard the United States is not so different from Europe after all. While Sustek focused largely on his own experiences, Father Stefan Furdek provided us with the first description of Slovak community life in America. Having come to Cleveland in 1882 to serve an already-existing Czech parish, Furdek helped the earliest Slovak arrivals to organize themselves into lodges and parishes and he also established their first Catholic newspaper. By 1893 he felt experienced enough to write an article entitled " Z Ameriky" (From America) for an Old World annual in which he eulogized the political freedom of the New Land but warned intellectuals against immigrating to this country because their chances of finding a livelihood outside of manual labor were slim.(2) Furdek thus perceived the major role his people would play in providing labor for America's industries and the marginal impact they would have upon the intellectual and cultural life of the United States. In a later article , "Vselico z Ameriky" (Tidbits from America), he continued the story by focusing on working conditions in the mines and mills, on life in ethnic neighborhoods and on the need for immigrants to rely upon family or friends in order to survive and be successful in the New World.(3) He wrote dozens of similar articles in his Jednota (Union) newspaper and almanac of the same name between 1890 and 1914 and he remains a major source for the study of early American-Slovak life. �68 SLOVAKIA Father Matus Jankola, Furdek ' s friend and colleague , joined the latter in describing the activities of his countrymen in the United States during the early years of Slovak immigration. In "Crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa. " (Sketches from a Catholic Slovak Parish in Pittston, Pa.), he not only described the daily life of a coal miner but also focused on the relations of Slovaks with other ethnic groups. He complained about his countrymen' s propensity to emulate other Eastern Europeans in seeking financial control over their own parishes, a phenomenon known as "lay trusteeism" and a perpetual headache to both priests and bishops at the tum of the century.(4) In another penetrating article entitled "Nase skoly" (Our Schools), J ankola severely criticized Slovak parochial schools of his day for their inadequate facilities and teaching methods and urged his countrymen to establish a teaching order of nuns to upgrade the whole system .(5) Like Furdek , Jankola wrote dozens of articles in the Jednota newspaper and almanac between 1896 and 1916 and these are excellent sources for the study of American-Slovak history. While Furdek and J ankola described Slovak life in general, another clergyman zeroed in on the business community. Pavel Jamarik, a convert to Congregationalism and an exponent of the 'Protestant ethic,' sought to determine how many of his people were engaged in business and thus ''making it. '' He distributed a questionnaire to Slovak leaders in Cleveland, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut and, much to his dismay, discovered that fewer than one percent in each city owned business enterprises. He soberly concluded in ' ' Zivot americkych Slovakov dakedy a teraz'' (The Life of American Slovaks in the Past and Today)(6) that most of his people rejected the American route to social mobility through business enterprise and implicitly hinted that they would remain in the workingclass for some time to come. Such penetrating analyses, while vety valuable, were also rare. More common were reminiscences by "olq timers ~• of days gone by. Jozef Rusek , editor of the Jednota almanac, interviewed a Slovak who had arrived in Cleveland in 1880 and published his story under the rubric "V Novej Zemi" (In the New Land).(7) In this fascinating article the anonymous informant described the poor economic conditions that had driven him out of his homeland, the miserable ocean-crossing in steerage and all the difficulties he had encountered in making his way to Cleveland and finding suitable employment. A series of similar articles entitled "Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers) appeared in another almanac a short while later.(8) By collecting and publishing these reminiscences ethnic editors showed their appreciation for oral history �SLOVAKIA 69 long before American historians deemed it worthy of notice. In spite of this concel'Il with oral history, only one major leader of the American-Slovak COlllil1\Unity has left us his memoirs. Perhaps the reason for this dearth of autobiographies lies in the fact that Furdek died unexpectedly in 1914 and Jankola in 1916. In any case, P. V. Rovnianek, founder of the National Slovak Society in 1890 and for many years editor of the extremely popular Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News) penned his observations and reminiscences in a book with a very revealing title : Zapisky za iiva pochovaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive). (9) Here Rovnianek revealed how he had to leave the Budapest seminary in 1888 because of his nationalist views and how he came to America and quickly decided to work for national causes. He also detailed many of the arguments that he had had with other leaders, some of which resulted in costly lawsuits. Unfortunately, he covered up the misdeeds that led to the downfall of his financial empire in 1911. This, plus his tremendous conceit, detracted from an otherwise lucid and penetrating commentary. Shortly after their arrival in America, Slovak immigrants congregated in certain neighborhoods of cities where they established organizations that served to promote and solidify a new community existence . Three such institutions ranked highest in importance: the parish, the fraternal and the newspaper. By 1920, when these neighborhoods matured, Slovaks had almost 400 parishes of all denominations, hundreds of local and dozens of national fratemals and scores of daily , weekly and monthly periodical publications . It is no surprise , therefore, that when certain Slovak leaders began to record their earliest history in America, they turned their attention to these institutions. Father Furdek began the history of one group of these institutions with a lenghty article about "Slovenske osady v Amerike" (Slovak Parishes in America.) Having relied upon church records and interviews supplied by fellow-priests and cooperative laymen, Furdek presented us with short, informative histories of every Slovak Catholic parish established in the New World until 1906.(10) No sooner had Furdek published his analysis than a controversy broke out between boosters of Slovak parishes in Streator, Illinois and Hazleton, Pennsylvania . Worshippers in both areas claimed that theirs was the oldest Slovak Catholic parish in the United States. Although the debate remains unresolved to this day , Jozef G. Skurka, in "Prva slovenska rim. katolicka osada v Amerike" (The First Slovak Roman Catholic Parish in America) presented the arguments of both sides and left the final decision to the reader. (11) �70 SLOVAKIA Furdek's article began a trend that led not only to similar efforts by leaders of other denominations but it may also have prompted the later publication of jubilee books and a few full-fledged histories of church groups . Thus, Josef Nadenicek, a Calvinist minister, had his coreligionists aid him in compiling histories of all their parishes in the United States and he published these under the general heading of "Kratke dejiny cirkvi" (Short Histories of Our Parishes) giving the contributors full credit for their efforts .(12) Other religious leaders published even more detailed stories in special anniversary booklets. Examples are Strieborne jubileum osady sv. Vendelina, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928 (Silver Jubilee of St. Wendelin's Parish, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928,(13) and Father George S. Dargay' s Historical Sketch of the Church of St. Cyril of Minneapolis, Minn., 1891-1941. (14) A committee of priests and laymen usually compiled such histories, relying upon parish records, newspaper accounts and the memories of pioneers for sources. Even though other congregations published similar jubilee books, they seldom contained the whole truth because most immigrant parishes at the turn of the century experienced some sort of conflict between laymen and pastor or bishop. The present writer described problems of this sort in "Lay Initiative in American-Slovak Parishes, 1880-1930,"(15) in the hope that even professional church historians would dig deeper into the sources and abandon their preoccupation with consensus history. Meanwhile, one might suppose that with so many parishes having recorded their own history, a larger synthesis would have appeared. Only two historians have made such an attempt in the Slovak community and their efforts leave much to be desired. Pastor George Dolak, a member of the second generation, wrote an official History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, 1920-1927(16) and, as the title suggests, he covered only a short period and ignored the two other Synods to which Slovaks belong. Indeed, one looks in vain in this book fa'( an explanation of this split among Slovak Lutherans in America. Similarly,_ while the emigre historian Frantisek Hrusovsky did a creditable job in recording the story of Slovenske rehole v Amerike (Slovak Religious Orders in America), (17) he too steered clear of all controversy. Inadequate as these works are, they remain the only attempted syntheses of various Slovak religious groups in America. No one has yet written an overall history of Slovak Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist denominations in the United States and their relation to New or Old World counterparts. Scholars have barely scratched the surface of this vast subject. �SLOVAKIA ' 71 Equal in importance to'. parishes in immigrant communities were fraternal benefit societies. In many instances these preceded the founding of churches and became their chief bulwarks. By 1890 several dozen local societies existed and many of these later merged into larger, national organizations such as the First Catholic Slovak Union or the National Slovak Society . By 1920 these and other fraternals enrolled over one-third of the 600,000 plus Slovak immigrants who had come to America. By providing much needed and inexpensive life insurance , plus taking an active role in community and national affairs , they became indispensable to the growth and survival of ethnic communities. Realizing the importance of fratemals, officers of the National Slovak Society determined to record some of their history. In 1909 they commissioned their editor Ignac Gessay to write the history of their organization. He eagerly read old newspapers, minute-books, pamphlets and other materials, some of which have since disappeared. He also interviewed as many "old timers" as he could. By 1911 he published two articles, one entitled " Spolky pred organisaciami" (Societies Before Organizations) in which he presented an excellent survey of the first forty local fraternal-benefit societies established by American Slovaks before national bodies appeared in 1890.(18) Gessay had hoped that he could continue in his work and eventually publish an overall history of his people but his friendship with P. V. Rovnianek prevented it . When the latter's financial institution bankrupted in 1911, thereby ruining a great many Slovaks and weakening the Society, Rovnianek had to flee for his life and Gessay lost his commission. Into the void stepped Jan A. Feriencik, another editor, determined to complete the story . Using Gessay's notes (without giving him credit) and engaging in his own research, he did produce, among other things, " Vyznam Nar. Slovenskeho Spolku" (The Significance of the National Slovak Society) .(19) In this brief article he surveyed the history of the Society from 1890 to 1914, concentrating on the highlights and praising its achievements. Although Feriencik did write articles dealing with other aspects of the Slovak experience in America (discussed below), he too failed to complete a monograph on either the NSS or on the history of American Slovaks . Shortly thereafter a group of Slovak Calvinists also set out to write the history of their organization. The Rev. Frantisek Uherka urged the officers of each branch of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union to compile a short history of their lodge on the basis of minute books, newspaper articles and interviews . They did as requested and Uherka then published these histories under the general heading " Kratke �72 SLOVAKIA dejiny jednotlivych sborov Slov. Kalv. Presb. Jednoty. " (Short Histories of the Lodges of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union) , giving the contributors full credit.(20) He also compiled a general history of the national organization , based on the information provided by lodges as well as his reading of the head-office 's minute-books and on his own memory and entitled it "Kratky prehfad S.K.P . Jednoty, 1901-1926 ," (Short Over-View of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union). (21) The largest of the fraternals , the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile, held back from such undertakings for several generations. Its individual lodges did often publish jubilee histories such as " Memoirs of the Golden Jubilee of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, 1883-1938" and these often provided fascinating insights into their individual achievements .(22) The national organization, however, resolved to sponsor an overall history only when its 75th anniversary approached. It commissioned Jozef Pauco, an emigre journalist, to undertake this task and he completed it by 1965 under the heading 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union).(23) Pauco presented a strictly chronological year-by-year account, devoid of any analysis or criticism. He simply listed the society's growth and achievements. Thus, although a few Slovak societies did promote studies of their own achievements and one even commissioned a book, much of their history remains to be uncovered. Besides the need for full-length monographs of such important organizations as the National Slovak Society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies ' Association, the Slovak Evangelical Union and so on , studies of the impact these and other societies have had on ethnic community life over the last 100 years should be made. How did these societies help the immigrant adjust to the New World? Did they supplant labor unions? Did they foster or hinder assimilation? Why did they splinter along religious and ideological lines? Why did women set up their own fratemals? Did fraternals promote Slovak culture in the .New World? What is their present status? What does the future h&d for them? How do they compare to societies founded by other grouf)s? These are just a few of the questions that need answering before we can understand the role that fraternal-benefit societies played in the life of American Slovaks. The third major component of growing Slovak communities was their newspaper press . Since most Slovaks initially came to America to make their " fortune " and return home , they became very interested in news of the home country published in their own language. The few intellectuals who accompanied these people to the United States �SLOVAKIA 73 quickly discovered this thir~t for news and satiated it with more than 200 periodicals between 1886 and the present. Among them were official organs of fraternal-benefit societies, independent dailies, weeklies and monthlies, labor newspapers, satirical journals, religious periodicals and so on. Having realized the importance of the newspaper press to the Slovak community, two journalists made a serious attempt to depict its history. Jan A. Feriencik, mentioned above, made the first attempt at a comprehensive history in "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Letters in America).(24) Since he tried to describe sixty titles in a few pages, his effort was very unbalanced. Moreover, he relied too much on memory and some of his assertions were false. Nevertheless, he did record some titles that have long since disappeared and th.u s he performed a vital service for later historians. Konstantin Culen, a post-World War II emigre journalist, expressed his appreciation to Feriencik and tried to complete the story in Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America).(25) He gathered together titles of more than 230 Slovak periodicals published in this country and commented on each although he knew more about some papers and less about others, and thus his book is very uneven. In fact, since he died before the manuscript was completed, his colleague Jozef Pauco tried to finish the job. The periodicals are not organized according to subject, they simply appear in alphabetical order. Furthermore, there is no table of contents and no index. Unless one knows in advance the exact name of a publication, this book is extremely difficult to use. Feriencik and Culen did only half the job. They listed the titles and described the editorial policy of the founders . No one has done a comprehensive history of any one of the major dailies or weeklies . It would be instructive to know, from a content-analysis, how various Slovak newspapers in America viewed this country, its much-vaunted equality and democracy and their perception of the role of their readers. Robert E. Park attempted such a study in his Immigrant Press and Its Control(26) but since he covered so many different nationalities, his assessment was necessarily shallow. A good history of the Slovak press, as well as that of other ethnic groups in America, is sorely needed. Shortly after having recorded the history of their lodges, parishes and newspapers, American Slovaks began to think of the larger story. A few of them started to publish histories of communities that covered members of all denominations . These have since been supplemented �74 SLOVAKIA by works of professional scholarship, although their number remains small. The first attempt at writing local history was made by lgnac Gessay. Hoping to eventually publish a general work on American Slovaks, this newspaper editor began to gather materials about their oldest communities. One of these was Streator, Illinois, in the bituminous coal fields and Gessay presented its story from the 1870s to 1910 in "Streatorski Slovaci a ich pokrok" (Streator Slovaks and their Progress).(27) Since this was a first attempt written for a national almanac, it necessarily gave only the highlights of the story. Better and more comprehensive histories appeared a short while later. Imrich Mazar, a local lodge leader, compiled a remarkable work entitled Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat rokov, 1879-1919 (Forty Years of the History of Binghamton Slovaks, 18791919).(28) Mazar interviewed pioneers of the community, consulted church and lodge records and read of his people's exploits in the press. Using such sources he very ably covered the story of all aspects of the community - its general history, the story of its fraternals, churches and clubs and the involvement of the local community in the CzechoSlovak liberation movement of World War I. Jan Pankuch did a similarly excellent job in Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks). (29) A newspaper editor by profession, Pankuch persevered in his efforts even after the Great Depression had erupted and he published the book with his own dwindling resources. The only major criticisms that one can make of these two books is that they are poorly organized and lack perspective. Since neither Mazar nor Pankuch had any historical training, they dared not judge what was important and what was not. They recorded everything they had heard or discovered in an often haphazard manner and this made the reading of their books difficult. On the other hand, by not rejecting anything, they made their works invaluable sources for a later generation of historians . .. Two scholars interested in American-Slovak history appeared in the 1960s to make good use of previous pioneering efforts. Josef Barton studied the social mobility of three ethnic groups in Cleveland and included the Slovaks among them . In his Peasants and Strangers,(30) a spin-off of his dissertation, he relied quite extensively on Pankuch for the background story. The present writer, commissioned to write a joint history with another author about the Cleveland Slovak community, used Pankuch as a source quite liberally.(31) Hopefully these will be followed by studies of Slovaks in other cities, enabling future historians �SLOVAKIA 75 to compare the fortunes of these people in a wide variety of geographical areas, thus gaining a better perspective on the whole story of immigration. Along with recording much local information, American Slovaks naturally desired an overall view of their coming and settlement in various parts of the New World. Once again the pioneers led the way but this undertaking prove~ too much for them. They had to settle for histories written by a later generation of immigrants and these stories are, as yet, incomplete. lgnac Gessay and Jan A. Feriencik first attempted to compile a general history of their people. Gessay, as we have already seen, did not finish the task.(32) Jan Feriencik inherited not only Gessay 's job but also his notes. Supplementing these with his own research, he published " Nacrtok prist'ahovalectva slovenskeho do Ameriky" (A Sketch of Slovak Immigration to America).(33) Relying upon old newspapers , minute-books, Gessay's notes and his own memory, Feriencik produced a useful, if jaundiced (he was very anti-Semitic) survey of the coming of his people to the New World. He had hoped to produce a full-length monograph on this subject but died before he could do so. With Feriencik's death, along with that of most of his firstgeneration colleagues in the 1920s, the task of recording AmericanSlovak history fell to the second generation . Having absolutely no help from Anglo-American historians, who in the first half of the twentieth century seemed completely uninterested in the history of recent immigration, as Arthur M. Schlesinger lamented,(34) the second generation failed to even match the efforts of their fathers. Andrew P . Slabey and Sister M. Martina Tybor are good examples of second-generation American-Slovak scholars . The former was one of the first Slovak university graduates in the United States and he set out to write a " Prehl'ad dejin Slovakov v Amerike " (A Survey of the History of American Slovaks) in 1926 but he did not finish the task until almost fifty years had passed! (35) Not only did he complete his work at a snail's pace but he based much of his first installment on the research of Gessay and Feriencik, whom he neglected to give credit, and his analysis was much inferior to theirs. The second article came largely from memory . In both he seemed more interested in promoting ' 'Czechoslovakism' ' (36) than in a genuine history of his people. Sister M. Martina Tybor, on the other hand, has made use of original sources but she has seldom told the full story . Thus , in " A Composite Picture of a Slovak Immigrant's Early Experiences,"(37) she presented a very good account of how a ' 'typical ' ' immigrant may �76 SLOVAKIA have fared upon arrival in America but she glossed over the many problems he may also have encountered. Similarly, in "Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916: Slovak-American Priest, Leader, Educator, "(38) she presented an interesting biography of this important early leader but again neglected to mention the many problems he had experienced in dealing with other priests and with his lay followers . Neither Slabey nor Tybor produced a full-length monograph. In the absence of any general histories of American Slovaks, two more recent immigrants set out to fill the void. The first was Konstantin Culen, a journalist by profession, who was drawn to the history of American Slovaks by his involvement in politics in the Old Country. Culen determined to examine the nature and extent of the nationalism that had motivated American Slovaks to make an agreement with the Czechs which guaranteed the Slovaks home-rule in the new Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. After having published one book dealing with such nationalism,(39) he decided to broaden his research and, after publishing numerous articles in various almanacs, he completed the very impressive Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America).(40) In this work he detailed both the social and political history of his countrymen to 1914. He read widely in their newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, books , minute-books and so on and tried, as best he could, to follow the rules of the historical profession. Unfortunately, he fell victim to the temptations of "filiopietism" and began the story with tales of Slovaks having come in the 17th .century , of their having participated in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and, therefore, having as good a claim to this country as anyone else. Furthermore, he relied too much on Slovak sources , neglecting many English-language studies of immigration at the turn of the century. After the Second World War, with his dreams of an independent Slovakia shattered, Culen immigrated to the United States and tried to carry on his work but found the climate among his people too hostile . He initially worked on the editorial staffs of several American and Canadian Slovak newspapers and publish~d dozens of articles. These were eventually gathered and published in' three important books: J. Slovensky: iivotopis zakladatel'a prvych slovenskych novin v Amerike (J. Slovensky: Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America);(41) Slovensk e casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America) ;(42) and V zajati falosn ych legiend a nen<ivistneho srdca (Imprisoned by False Legends and a Hateful Heart).(43) In the first of these he recounted how American Slovaks established their oldest newspaper. The second book , which we have already discussed, gave the story of their newspaper press. The third is virtually unknown , for �SLOVAKIA 77 he circulated only a few copies to his most trusted friends, but it is also the most important. In it he detailed the hostility which he and many other members of the post-war generation encountered from their lesseducated American countrymen. This is a fascinating phenomenon of rejection of one group oy another based on education and social standing, and since World\ War II it has been typical of many ethnic groups in the United States. Culen had so many arguments with American-Slovak leaders that he was virtually expelled from the community and died alienated from it in 1964. Shortly thereafter the present writer began to follow in Culen's footsteps. Born in Slovakia but educated in North America, he began a study of the political participation of his people in the World War I liberation movement(44) and then turned to their social history. Having used some of their parish and lodge records, supplemented by newspaper articles, he published ''The Slovak Immigrant is Not Anonymous," (45) in which he called on other scholars of immigration to make use of such sources. A little later he detailed some of the problems his countrymen had encountered with the largely IrishCatholic Church in America(46) and he also wrote a brief history of the Cleveland Slovak community.(47) At present he is preparing his dissertation, "Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918"(48) for publication as a book. Meanwhile, in the decades since the Second World War, a few people have also concerned themselves with biographies of Slovak pioneers to this country. Konstantin Culen wrote a brief treatise on Jan Slovensky, founder of the first Slovak newspaper in America. (49) While he described adequately Slovensky' s early life and his work in the United States, he did not know all the circumstances surrounding his death by suicide and the work thus remains incomplete. Vincent Holecek, a self-styled historian of Slovaks all over the world, produced a short biography of P. V. Rovnianek entitled Slava a poniienie (Glory and Shame)(50) but ended it in 1907, before Rovnianek's tragic bankruptcy and, thus, also failed to tell the whole story. Jozef Pauco glorified the lives of Stefan Furdek and Matus Jankola(51) and later compiled Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Slovak Pioneers in America),(52) which covered the lives of fifty-five important and unimportant countrymen (there seemed to be no rationale for their selection). Finally, Sister M. Martina Tybor eulogized Matus Jankola in two very similar articles published in different joumals.(53) With the exception of Culen, all of the above were more concerned with edifying their subjects than with reaching critical and balanced conclusions. �78 SLOVAKIA Clearly this is another area of American-Slovak history that needs elaboration. The study of Slovak immigration, however, has not been confined to residents of North America. After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 a new school of Marxist historians appeared and some of them took an interest in their brethren overseas. Utilizing new disciplines such as demography and uncovering hitherto unprocessed county documents, they added new dimensions to the study of immigration, especially to its impact on the home country. Jim Sveton, a demographer , led the way. In his "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu" (Slovak Emigration in the Era of Hungarian Capitalism),(54) he studied the impact of mass migration on the remaining population. Using village birth and death records, he calculated the net loss of population due to emigration and discovered that the Slovaks were second only to the Irish in per capita emigration and population decline in the 19th century. These views were further elaborated in Obyvatel'stvo Slovenska za kapitalizmu (The Population of Slovakia Under Capitalism).(55) Jan Hanzlik followed in Sveton' s footsteps and in four articles showed the high level to which the new discipline of demography had risen. His "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo na prahu imperializmu" (Slovak Emigration on the Threshold of Imperialism)(56) dealt with the net loss of population due to emigration based on village censuses for the heaviest years of migration, 1901-1910. In "Vyst'ahovalectvo z vychodneho Slovenska" (Emigration from Eastern Slovakia)(57) he focused on that region of the country which had lost the most people and blamed the Magyars for the exodus because they had refused to industrialize Hungary. He expanded his research in "Vyvoj obyvatel'stva na Slovensku v obdobi 1869-1961 " (The Evolution of the Population of Slovakia in the Years 1861-1961). (58) Besides studying the impact emigration had had on the population for over a hundred years , he also blamed the Czechs for having prompted the industrialization of Bohemia-Moravia at th\ expense of Slovakia after 1918 and thus having contributed to the contiQued emigration of Slovaks from their native land in the twentieth century. Finally, in ' ' Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky" (The Beginnings of Slovak Emigration to America, Its Causes and Consequences to 1918),(59) Hanzlik summarized his research and that of other interested scholars and presented a very creditable interpretation of the impact of Slovak emigration to 1918. �SLOVAKIA 79 Once their demographer-colleagues had opened the field, Marxist historians also began to take notice of emigration. Ladislav Tajtak focused on that part of the country which had lost the most people in ''Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny'' (Eastern Slovak Emigration to the Fill.st World War)(60) and he carefully showed which of the eastern countries had lost the largest numbers and why. In a later work, "K zaciatkom Amerikansko-Slovenskych Novin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny)(6l) he traced, for the first time since Culen's Janka Slovensky, the history of the first Slovak newspaper in America. Frantisek Bielik and Elo Rakos, meanwhile, collected and published the most relevant documents pertaining to emigration in Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Slovak Emigration: Documents I, to 1918)(62) and a little later documents to 1939 in a book with a similar title. (63) They also provided a good introduction to both sets of documents. Finally, Milos Gosiorovsky legitimized all this concern with countrymen in capitalist America by publishing ''Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky a robotnicke hnutie" (Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky and the Workers' Movement)(64) in which he tried to link the workers' (communist) movements of the two worlds. Even though scholars in Slovakia have taken notice of their countrymen abroad, their perspective has been limited by ideological considerations. As I have pointed out in "Agrarian Problems in Slovakia, 1848-1918: An Historiographic Essay,"(65) Marxist scholars in the Old World must tow the party line. Thus, they can cite the works of Konstantin Culen and other ''bourgeois'' writers only at great peril to their own freedom and they have had to embellish their books and articles with liberal references to Marx, Lenin (and Stalin in the 1950s) and other prophets of the new order. Furthermore, these scholars can seldom, if ever, travel to the United States, and thus rich AmericanSlovak archives are beyond their reach. Therefore, they have necessarily concentrated on the impact of emigration on the home country and have only touched on the history of their countrymen abroad. Another approach to the study of immigration has been the novel. While traditional scholarly works have analyzed the nature and experience of the ethnic community in the midst of a new environment, the novel has become an important vehicle for understanding the dynamics of the situation and for expressing the feelings of the people . American Slovaks have been pleased with three outstanding novelists in this regard - Thomas Bell, Michael Novak and Sonya Jason. Bell , in Out of this Furnace ,(66) provided a moving account of �80 SLOVAKIA the sufferings of the first three generations in the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania. His book was so painfully realistic that most of his countrymen avoided reading it. In a different vein Michael Novak described the difficulties that an upwardly-mobile third-generation American Slovak encountered in coping with the largely Anglo-Saxon world in Naked I Leave(67) and in the more analytical Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics .(68) Finally, Sonya Jason, also a product of a Pennsylvania steel town, portrayed the reaction of a third-generation woman to the insatiable demands of American armies for immigrant bodies in Concommitant Soldier: Woman and War.(69) One can only lament the dearth of such novels in the United States. While various aspects of Slovak immigration have been covered by members of this ethnic group, native Americans have seldom noticed these people and when they have, it has been either in the context of nativism or else as a part of the history of immigration in general. Nativism , that ideological disease which breeds hostility towards immigrants, infected the minds of some Americans at the tum of the century, causing them to write books extremely hostile to the ''new'' immigrants from Southeastern Europe, from whence the Slovaks came. Howard B. Grose, for instance, in a book aimed at Protestant Missionaries entitled Aliens or Americans?(70) deemed the newcomers to be a "heathen" threat to America and advocated their forceful conversion to Protestant Christianity in order to "Americanize" them. The theme of the immigrant "menace" also found its way into socalled scholarly works. Annie Marian Maclean, who fancied herself a "Progressive" social scientist, surveyed Southeastern Europeans in Pennsylvania and published " Life in the Pennsylvania Coal Fields with Particular Reference to Women, '' in a muckrating style that very much pleased the readers of the American Journal of Sociology .(71) Helen L. Wilson and Eunice W. Smith engaged in similar exposes for the AJS , devoting entire articles to individual ethnic groups, among them being "Chicago Housing Conditions , VIII: Among the Slovaks in the Twentieth Ward. "(72) Both of these works, in their lurid descriptions of immigrant ghettoes, warned Americans of the possible destruction of their society through unrestricted immigration. Nativist scholarship reached its pinnacle in an official government report which summarized all the prejudices then rampant in the United States towards Southeastern Europeans: \Established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the Dillingham Co~ission, _on Immigration reported in 1911 that the newcomers, among them the Slovaks, were a menace to American society because they allegedly bred slums, engaged in criminal activities and retarded the labor movement.(73) �SLOVAKIA ~ 81 However, as Maldwyn Jones'8.Ild Oscar Handlin have recently shown, the commissioners twisted the statistics to suit their preconceived notions.(74) Ironically enough, if one ignores the conclusions of the commissioners and uses only the raw statistics, one can discover in this Report a great deal of valuable material pertaining to the social history of Slovaks and other Southeastern Europeans in America at the tum of the century. Not all Americans, of course, accepted the findings of the Report or agreed with its conclusions. A small group of scholars, usually members of the "Social Gospel" movement which sought to help the poor and downtrodden, viewed the ''new'' immigrants sympathetically. Their writings served as a healthy counterweight to nativist attacks on these people. One of the first American defenders of Southern and Eastern Europeans was the Rev. Peter Roberts. A member of the Presbyterian Home Mission Society, Roberts set about describing, in great detail, the everyday life of the new immigrants (and these included the Slovaks) in their new social setting. His Anthracite Coal Communities(75) and The New Immigration: A Study of the Industrial and Social Life of Southeastern Europeans in America(76) are classics in sociological analysis. Rather than seeking evidence of these peoples' "inferiority," as various nativists had done, Roberts visited them, observed their habits and concluded that they fit very well into the American capitalist system, even if they did have to start at the bottom. While Roberts dealt with Southeastern Europeans in general, Emily Greene Balch focused on the Slavic nationalities in particular and produced the as yet unsurpassed Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens.(77) By devoting an entire chapter to each Slavic group and then doing a general analysis of them all, she showed the way to later generations of historians. She not only studied American-Slavic communities and talked with their people but also visited their homelands to get a transAtlantic perspective on the whole process of migration. This professor of political economy was so far ahead of her time that to this day no American historian has written a book of comparable depth and scope about the various Slavic ethnic groups in this country. One reason why American historians have not yet superseded Emily Greene Balch is that for generations the former simply ignored the history of Southeastern Europeans. Between the 1920s when the United States passed its restrictive immigration quota laws which presumed that everyone would disappear into the " melting pot " and the 1960s when an ethnic revival swept the country, virtually no books or articles concerned with Slavic immigrants appeared in any major �82 SLOVAKIA historical journals or university presses. A small group of Czech scholars and their sympathizers produced a few interesting studies but these paled in comparison to earlier efforts by immigrants themselves. Indeed, even when a few American historians did begin to notice the Slavs in the 1960s, their studies remained very superficial. The first Czech scholar to write about American Slovaks was Tomas Capek of New York. A lawyer by profession, he accepted a commission from the National Slovak Society and wrote The Slovaks of Hungary: Slavs and Pan-Slavism,(78) which was in effect the first history of these people in the English language. Later he and his son published The Czechoslovaks, the second half of which dealt with the Slovaks under the heading The Slovaks in America . (79) The latter work, consisting chiefly of impressions gathered from various informants, was vastly inferior to the first study which was grounded on a stronger scholarly base. However, since these were virtually the only studies of American Slovaks in the English language, leaders of the community which they described did treasure them. Josef Slabey Roucek followed in the Capeks' footsteps and tried to carry on their work. One of the few sociologists in the United States who could read various Slavic languages in the 1930s and 1940s, Roucek did write several articles about these peoples including ''The Passing of American Czechoslovaks.'' (80) In this and in similar works about other Slavic groups, Roucek bowed to the current ideology and predicted the rapid disappearance of all ethnic Americans into the ''melting pot.'' Since he was virtually alone in his concern for American Slavs, Roucek by default dominated this field for many years. Virtually his only competitor was Andrew A. Marchbin. The latter wrote peripherally about the Slovaks in "Early Emigration from Hungary to Canada," (81) and in " Hungarian Activities in Western Pennsylvania.'' (82) While Roucek tended to mix the Slovaks together with the Czechs, Marchbin mixed them with the Magyars, since he dealt with an earlier period. The latter did, however, mention the problems that divided the Slovaks from the Magyars while Roucek tried to cover up the differences between Czechs and Slovaks. In any case, both sociologists were good representatives of the dearth of American ethnic studies until the 1960s. In the decade of Vietnam and the Black Revolution , certain American scholars finally came to the reaJization that ethnicity was here to stay. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P . Moynihan said as much in their Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroe's, Puerto Ricans, Jews , Italians and Irish of New York City. (83) Influenced by these and other sociological works, a few historians set out to systematically collect �SLOVAKIA 83 materials pertaining to immigrant history and to write books and articles about Southeastern Europeans who had for so long been neglected by American scholars . Timothy L. Smith helped establish the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota in 1963 and he also urged fellow-historians in "New Approaches to the History of Immigration in Tw~ntieth-C~ntury America" (84) to study the longneglected peoples of Souther.n and Eastern Europe . While he seemed to be going against the tide in stressing the assimilation of these people in this and in subsequent articles ,(85) he did study the Slovaks, among others, and he did bring the attention of America's scholars to this neglected area of historical inquiry. His colleague Victor R. Greene, meanwhile , focused on the Poles and Lithuanians and peripherally on the Slovaks in Slavs on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite, (86) the first major work about these peoples since the 1920s! If one were to fault either of these scholars , it would be for their preoccupation with the history of several ethnic groups at once while neglecting to study any one of them in any great detail. Smith always speaks of several ethnic groups in his articles and too often assumes that they are all alike in their reaction to such American institutions as the public schools.(87) Greene, similarly, always speaks of the "Slavs" when, in reality, he is dealing only with the Poles and a few Lithuanians , and the latter are not Slavs. This practice is apparent in most of his articles and it often leads him to make erroneous conclusions about non-Poles.(88) The present writer sees in Smith 's and Greene 's articles a bit of the bias of the American historical profession . It is all right for Kenneth Lockridge or John Demos or Philip Grev en to devote entire monographs to tiny English settlements in New England(89) but somehow it is not all right for Timothy Smith or Victor Greene to study only the Slovaks, or Poles, or Croats, or other Southeastern Europeans. The assumption exists among most members of the profession that White Anglo-Saxon peoples are more important than other ethnic groups and , therefore , deserve more attention while the Slavs or even the Southeastern Europeans must be treated as a whole because individually they are not very important . Trying to overcome such discrimination should be one of the objectives of a future generation of historians. CONCLUSION It should be apparent, the refore, that the historiography of Slovak immigration to America has undergone many changes and that much of the story remains untold . Until very recently the best works on this �84 SLOVAKIA subject were those written by the pioneers themselves . Long before professional historians even bothered to study immigration, various ethnic leaders began to gather and read manuscript and printed materials of the past, they interviewed ''old timers " before oral history became fashionable and they made predictions about their communities that were uncannily accurate. Such ground-breaking efforts disprove Edward N. Saveth ' s charges that histories written by immigrants themselves are of little value because they are filled with filiopietism . (90) While the first generation did a commendable job in recording its people 's past, the second lagged behind and had to be aided by scholars in the Old World and, ultimately, by better-trained members of the third generation. Perhaps reacting to the pressures of ''Americanization,'' few American-born Slovaks bothered to write their own history and those who did so expended less effort at it than had their fathers. Members of the second generation produced no major monographs, only short articles that dealt with some particular aspect of their experience or convictions. Into this vacuum stepped Old World historians like Konstantin Culen who gave American Slovaks their first systematic history and various Marxist scholars who began to treat emigration as a major social problem. Finally , with the ethnic revival of the 1960s there came not only a new interest in immigration by Anglo-American historians like Timothy L. Smith but also a professional treatment of the subject by a new breed of "ethnic" historians such as Josef Barton and Mark Stolarik. The latter two deeply immersed themselves into the sources and began for the first time to reproduce the history of American Slovaks for an English-speaking audience , Barton's and Stolarik 's efforts have un"covered only the tip of the iceberg. In looking at social mobility, for instance, they have studied but the first two generations , and only Roman Catholics at that. The fate of the third and fourth generations remains unknown as does the behavior of the Lutherans, Greek Catholics and Calvinists. Did Slovak Protestants react to America differently from Catholics, as Max Weber would have predicted? If so , then perhaps their history should be studied separately from the majority Catholic group and the differences and similarities should then be compared and contrasted with other American religious and ethnic groups. The role of Slovaks in the American labor movement also remains untold. While the present writer touched upon this story in his dissertation , the total picture is so vast and the evidence is so great that one could devote an entire monograph to it. Attitudes towards manual �SLOVAKIA 85 labor, the factory system, unions, strikes, socialism and so on need to be clarified and compared with other ethnic groups in order to rescue American labor history from its preoccupation with the history of unions as institutions and channel it back to the history of the workers themselves. What of those immig\ants who returned home? Slovaks had a return rate of 20 percent. Why did these people not remain in the " promised land?" How did they fare upon their return to the Old Country? Did they have any economic, social, or cultural impact upon their brethren back home? No one has yet dealt with this aspect of immigration. Slovak involvement in American politics also remains a mystery. Which political party did the earliest immigrants support and which do their descendants? Did they join the ' 'city machines' ' immediately and if so, why? Did they have "ward-heelers" of their own or did some other ethnic group perform this function for them? What influence, if any, has the "Slovak vote" had upon local, state and national politics? All of these questions remain unanswered. The whole subject of assimilation also needs more study. Using Milton Gordon's seven steps towards complete or "structural" assimilation,(91) an " index" of assimilation is needed to determine how far American Slovaks have proceeded along this path and to provide a way of comparing them with other ethnic groups. Those who have resisted assimilation should also be studied. What role did their fraternal-benefit societies play in this opposition? Did their concept of family , neighborhood and life in general also lead to rejection of assimilation? Are their values radically different from Anglo-American ones and, if so, are they healthy or dangerous to the host society? Finally , the present state of the community needs attention. Are American-Slovaks happy? Did this country fulfill their aspirations or leave them disappointed? Is there a "generation-gap" in attitudes towards the American way of life? How do Slovaks react to other ethnic groups, particularly blacks? Have they dispersed from their original communities into all parts of the city or have they congregated in certain suburbs and why? Are immigrants in certain regions or cities better off than in others and why? · These are just a few of the questions that need answering. And they need not apply only to Slovaks. The vast majority of Southern and Eastern European ethnic groups have for too long been ignored by American historians.(92) Until we know their stories as well as we do the Anglo-American one, we will not really understand this country. �86 SLOVAKIA FOOTNOTES (1) Obzor (Skalica, Slovakia), July 5 , 1873 and intermittently through July 5 , 1883 . (2) Tovarysstvo (Rufomberok , Slovakia) I (1893), 233-8. (3) Ibid . , III (1900), 293-300. (4) Ibid ., 301-5. (5) Kalendar J ednota, 1899 (Cleveland) , 135-6. (6) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku (Pittsburgh), I (No. 2-3, 1915), 98-109 . (7) Kalendar Jednota, 1911 , 75-89. (8) Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1927-30. (9) Pittsburgh, 1924. (10) Kalendar Jednota, 1906, 33-114 . (11) Kalendar Jednota, 1911, 90-5. (12) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 97-147 . (13) Cleveland , 1928. (14) Minneapolis, 1941. (15) Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 83 (Sept.-Dec. 1972), 151-8. (16) St . Louis, 1955. (17) Cleveland , 1955 . (18) Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 66-77 . (19) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (No. 2-3, 1915), 90-7. (20) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927, 57-80 . (21) Ibid ., 37-56. (22) Minneapolis, 1938. (23) Cleveland, 1965. (24) Sbornik Narodneho Slovensk eho Spolku, I (No . 2-3, 1915) , 20-39 . (25) Published posthumously in Cleveland, 1970. (26) New York, 1922 . (27) Narodny Kalendar, 1911 , 117-28. (28) Binghamton , New York, 1919. (29) Cleveland, 1930. (30) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (31) The Slovak Community of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1978), co-authored with Sister M. Martina Tybor. (32) See above. ' , (33) Sbornik Narodneho Slove nskeho Spolku, I (No . 2-:t. 1915), 9~19 . (34) " The Significance of Immigration in American History, " Th e American Journal of Sociology, 27 (1921), 71-85. It is revealing that this article appeared in a sociology journal and not in an historical one . (35) Narodny Kale ndar, 1926, 41-59 and 1972 , 60-7. �SLOVAKIA 87 (36) A "Czechoslovak" is a Czech or Slovak who believes that these two peoples are really one nation and he downplays their cultural differences. (37) Jednota Annual Furdek (Cleveland), 8, (1969) , 3-23. (38) Slovakia (Middletown, Pa.), XXIll (1972) , 161-92. (39) Pittsburghsk<i dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement) , Bratislava , 1937. (40) 2 Volumes, Bratislava, 1942. (41) Winnipeg, 1954. (42) Cleveland , 1970. (43) Mimeographed author 's publication , New York, 1961. (44) " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies VIII _(Rome , 1?68). 7-84 . (45) Jednota Annual Furdek, X (~971), 99-105 . (46) See above. (47) See above. (48) Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1974 . (49) See above . (50) New York, 1957. (51) Stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectuo (Stefan Furdek and Slovak Immigration). Cleveland, 1955; and Matus Jankola, knaz a n<irodouec (Matus Jankola, Priest and Patiot), Danville, Pa . , 1959. (52) Cleveland, 1973. (53) See above and "Father Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916," Slovak Studies, IX (1969) . 75-94. (54) Ekonomicky casopis, 4 (1956), 171-91. (55) Bratislava, 1958. (56) Geograficky casopis, XIII (1961), 195-210. (57) In I.:udovit Holotik (Ed.), Prispeuky k dejin<im uychodneho Slouenska (Contributions to the History of Eastern Slovakia). Bratislava, 1964, 220-32 . (58) Geograficky casopis, 19 (1967). 3-28 . (59) In Josef Polisensky (Ed.), Zaciatky ceskej a slouenskej emigr<icie do USA (The Beginnings of Czech and Slovak Immigration to the U.S.A.) (Bratislava, 1970), 49-96 . (60) Noue obzory (Kosice, Slovakia), Ill (1961), 221-47. (61) In Polisensky , op. cit. , 186-96. (62) Bratislava, 1969. (63) Martin, Slovakia, 1975. (64) In Polisensky, op. cit., 197-207. (65) Histoire sociale/Social History, VII (May , 1974) , 111-20. (66) Boston, 1941. (67) New York, 1970. (68) New York , 1971 . (69) Santa Monica, Calif., 1973. �88 SLOVAKIA (70) New York , 1906. (71) 14 (1908-9). 329-51. (72) 20 (1914), 145-69. (73) Reports of the Immigration Commission, 42 Volumes (Washington, 61st Congress, Senate, 1911). (74) See Maldwyn Jones , American Immigration (Chicago, 1960), 177-82 and Oscar Handlin 's Introduction to the R eports of the Immigration Commission, Volume I (Arno Press Reprint, New York , 1970) , 1-XLVI. (75) 2 volumes, New York, 1904. (76) New York, 1912 . (77) New York, 1910. (78) New York, 1906. (79) New York, 1921. (80) American Journal of Sociology, (1933-4), 611-25 . (81) Slavic Review, Xfil (1934), 127-38. (82) The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, 23 (1940) , 163-74. (83) New York , 1963. (84) American Historical Review, 71 (July, 1966), 1265-79. (85) See for example " Immigrant Social Aspirations and American Education, 18801930," American Quarterly, XXI (Fall , 1969). 523-43; and "Lay Initiative in the Religious Life of American Immigrants, " in Tamara Hareven (Ed .), Anonymous Americans: Explorations in Nineteenth-Century Social History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. , 1971) , 214-49. (86) Notre Dame, 1968. (87) "Immigrant Social Aspirations, " op cit. (88) See for example his ''For God and Country: The Origins of Slavic SelfConsciousness in America," Church History, 35 (December, 1966), 1-15 and " Slavic American Nationalism, 1870-1918," in Anna Cienciala (Ed.) , American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists, Warsaw , August 21-7, 1973, Vol. ill: H istory (The Hague , 1973) , 197-215 . (89) Ke nneth Lockridge, A New England To wn: The First Hundred Years (New York, 1970); John Demos , A L(ttle Commonweafth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York , 1970) ; and Philip Greven, Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, 1970). (90) American Historian s and European Immigration, 1875-1925 (New York, 1948) . (91) Assimilation in American Life : The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New York, 1964) . \ (92) For an excellent analysis of the present state of immigration historiography see Rudolph J . Vecoli, " European Americans : From Immigrants to Ethnics, " in William H . Cartwright and Richard L. Watson (Eds.), The R einterpretation of American History and Culture (Washington , 1973) , 81-112 . � 66 SLOVAKIA From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States M . MARK STOLARIK Although Slovaks have lived in the United States for over a hundred years, professional American historians have only recently begun to study them. This lack of concern for the second-largest Slavic group in America cannot be attributed to a lack of sources. Pioneers among these immigrants left us not only their published reminiscences but also led the way in reconstructing the histories of their communities. While a few members of the second generation tried to carry on the work of their fathers, their efforts paled in comparison . Historians in Slovakia, meanwhile, began to write about their countrymen in the United States and, whether as political emigres or as devoted Marxists, they initiated the first professional studies of these people. Native Americans, on the other hand, originally discussed Slovaks as either a threat to the American way of life or else as potential converts to the Social Gospel movement. For generations native historians ignored these and other Eastern Europeans in the naive belief that they would disappear in the ''melting pot.'' Only with the ethnic revival of the 1960s did some Ame~ican professionals of varying backgrounds begin to study these people:,. _ The everyday life of Slovaks in the United States has been portrayed at various levels, ranging from simple memoirs to complicated mobility studies. Some of the pioneers contented themselves with describing life in the New World as they remembered it. Others analyzed the growing ethnic neighborhoods , while others still began to collect materials and describe three major institutions of AmericanSlovak communities - the parishes, lodges and newspapers. Such M. Mark Stolarik has been designated as the Director of the Balch Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . This essay is reprinted from the International Migration Review (X , 1, Spring 1976). �SLOVAKIA 67 activities eventually led to full-scale community studies and attempts at an overall history of all Slovak groups in America. Even though the first two generations failed in the latter effort, they did provide the groundwork for later historians. By the 1960s scholars in both Europe and America used new methods such as demographic analysis, studies of marriage , educatiQn anct social mobility, to try to complete the story and put it into a broader context. The earliest description~' bf Slovak life in America came either as observations or else as reminiscences by pioneers . Daniel Sustek, a journeyman carpenter and one of the first Slovaks to arrive in the United States , described his experiences over a ten-year period beginning in 1873 in the self-help monthly Obzor.(1) Besides focusing on his problems of adjusting to the new land, Sustek described the strange way of life he found here and provided his countrymen with extensive advice on how to make the trip, where to find work, what kind of wages to expect and how to behave in the presence of non-Slovaks. Sustek' s reports are reminiscent of Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce especially when, after having initially praised the "equality" of all Americans , Sustek discovers the great gulf between rich and poor and concludes that in this regard the United States is not so different from Europe after all. While Sustek focused largely on his own experiences, Father Stefan Furdek provided us with the first description of Slovak community life in America. Having come to Cleveland in 1882 to serve an already-existing Czech parish, Furdek helped the earliest Slovak arrivals to organize themselves into lodges and parishes and he also established their first Catholic newspaper. By 1893 he felt experienced enough to write an article entitled " Z Ameriky" (From America) for an Old World annual in which he eulogized the political freedom of the New Land but warned intellectuals against immigrating to this country because their chances of finding a livelihood outside of manual labor were slim.(2) Furdek thus perceived the major role his people would play in providing labor for America's industries and the marginal impact they would have upon the intellectual and cultural life of the United States. In a later article , "Vselico z Ameriky" (Tidbits from America), he continued the story by focusing on working conditions in the mines and mills, on life in ethnic neighborhoods and on the need for immigrants to rely upon family or friends in order to survive and be successful in the New World.(3) He wrote dozens of similar articles in his Jednota (Union) newspaper and almanac of the same name between 1890 and 1914 and he remains a major source for the study of early American-Slovak life. �68 SLOVAKIA Father Matus Jankola, Furdek ' s friend and colleague , joined the latter in describing the activities of his countrymen in the United States during the early years of Slovak immigration. In "Crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa. " (Sketches from a Catholic Slovak Parish in Pittston, Pa.), he not only described the daily life of a coal miner but also focused on the relations of Slovaks with other ethnic groups. He complained about his countrymen' s propensity to emulate other Eastern Europeans in seeking financial control over their own parishes, a phenomenon known as "lay trusteeism" and a perpetual headache to both priests and bishops at the tum of the century.(4) In another penetrating article entitled "Nase skoly" (Our Schools), J ankola severely criticized Slovak parochial schools of his day for their inadequate facilities and teaching methods and urged his countrymen to establish a teaching order of nuns to upgrade the whole system .(5) Like Furdek , Jankola wrote dozens of articles in the Jednota newspaper and almanac between 1896 and 1916 and these are excellent sources for the study of American-Slovak history. While Furdek and J ankola described Slovak life in general, another clergyman zeroed in on the business community. Pavel Jamarik, a convert to Congregationalism and an exponent of the 'Protestant ethic,' sought to determine how many of his people were engaged in business and thus ''making it. '' He distributed a questionnaire to Slovak leaders in Cleveland, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut and, much to his dismay, discovered that fewer than one percent in each city owned business enterprises. He soberly concluded in ' ' Zivot americkych Slovakov dakedy a teraz'' (The Life of American Slovaks in the Past and Today)(6) that most of his people rejected the American route to social mobility through business enterprise and implicitly hinted that they would remain in the workingclass for some time to come. Such penetrating analyses, while vety valuable, were also rare. More common were reminiscences by "olq timers ~• of days gone by. Jozef Rusek , editor of the Jednota almanac, interviewed a Slovak who had arrived in Cleveland in 1880 and published his story under the rubric "V Novej Zemi" (In the New Land).(7) In this fascinating article the anonymous informant described the poor economic conditions that had driven him out of his homeland, the miserable ocean-crossing in steerage and all the difficulties he had encountered in making his way to Cleveland and finding suitable employment. A series of similar articles entitled "Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers) appeared in another almanac a short while later.(8) By collecting and publishing these reminiscences ethnic editors showed their appreciation for oral history �SLOVAKIA 69 long before American historians deemed it worthy of notice. In spite of this concel'Il with oral history, only one major leader of the American-Slovak COlllil1\Unity has left us his memoirs. Perhaps the reason for this dearth of autobiographies lies in the fact that Furdek died unexpectedly in 1914 and Jankola in 1916. In any case, P. V. Rovnianek, founder of the National Slovak Society in 1890 and for many years editor of the extremely popular Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News) penned his observations and reminiscences in a book with a very revealing title : Zapisky za iiva pochovaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive). (9) Here Rovnianek revealed how he had to leave the Budapest seminary in 1888 because of his nationalist views and how he came to America and quickly decided to work for national causes. He also detailed many of the arguments that he had had with other leaders, some of which resulted in costly lawsuits. Unfortunately, he covered up the misdeeds that led to the downfall of his financial empire in 1911. This, plus his tremendous conceit, detracted from an otherwise lucid and penetrating commentary. Shortly after their arrival in America, Slovak immigrants congregated in certain neighborhoods of cities where they established organizations that served to promote and solidify a new community existence . Three such institutions ranked highest in importance: the parish, the fraternal and the newspaper. By 1920, when these neighborhoods matured, Slovaks had almost 400 parishes of all denominations, hundreds of local and dozens of national fratemals and scores of daily , weekly and monthly periodical publications . It is no surprise , therefore, that when certain Slovak leaders began to record their earliest history in America, they turned their attention to these institutions. Father Furdek began the history of one group of these institutions with a lenghty article about "Slovenske osady v Amerike" (Slovak Parishes in America.) Having relied upon church records and interviews supplied by fellow-priests and cooperative laymen, Furdek presented us with short, informative histories of every Slovak Catholic parish established in the New World until 1906.(10) No sooner had Furdek published his analysis than a controversy broke out between boosters of Slovak parishes in Streator, Illinois and Hazleton, Pennsylvania . Worshippers in both areas claimed that theirs was the oldest Slovak Catholic parish in the United States. Although the debate remains unresolved to this day , Jozef G. Skurka, in "Prva slovenska rim. katolicka osada v Amerike" (The First Slovak Roman Catholic Parish in America) presented the arguments of both sides and left the final decision to the reader. (11) �70 SLOVAKIA Furdek's article began a trend that led not only to similar efforts by leaders of other denominations but it may also have prompted the later publication of jubilee books and a few full-fledged histories of church groups . Thus, Josef Nadenicek, a Calvinist minister, had his coreligionists aid him in compiling histories of all their parishes in the United States and he published these under the general heading of "Kratke dejiny cirkvi" (Short Histories of Our Parishes) giving the contributors full credit for their efforts .(12) Other religious leaders published even more detailed stories in special anniversary booklets. Examples are Strieborne jubileum osady sv. Vendelina, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928 (Silver Jubilee of St. Wendelin's Parish, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928,(13) and Father George S. Dargay' s Historical Sketch of the Church of St. Cyril of Minneapolis, Minn., 1891-1941. (14) A committee of priests and laymen usually compiled such histories, relying upon parish records, newspaper accounts and the memories of pioneers for sources. Even though other congregations published similar jubilee books, they seldom contained the whole truth because most immigrant parishes at the turn of the century experienced some sort of conflict between laymen and pastor or bishop. The present writer described problems of this sort in "Lay Initiative in American-Slovak Parishes, 1880-1930,"(15) in the hope that even professional church historians would dig deeper into the sources and abandon their preoccupation with consensus history. Meanwhile, one might suppose that with so many parishes having recorded their own history, a larger synthesis would have appeared. Only two historians have made such an attempt in the Slovak community and their efforts leave much to be desired. Pastor George Dolak, a member of the second generation, wrote an official History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, 1920-1927(16) and, as the title suggests, he covered only a short period and ignored the two other Synods to which Slovaks belong. Indeed, one looks in vain in this book fa'( an explanation of this split among Slovak Lutherans in America. Similarly,_ while the emigre historian Frantisek Hrusovsky did a creditable job in recording the story of Slovenske rehole v Amerike (Slovak Religious Orders in America), (17) he too steered clear of all controversy. Inadequate as these works are, they remain the only attempted syntheses of various Slovak religious groups in America. No one has yet written an overall history of Slovak Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist denominations in the United States and their relation to New or Old World counterparts. Scholars have barely scratched the surface of this vast subject. �SLOVAKIA ' 71 Equal in importance to'. parishes in immigrant communities were fraternal benefit societies. In many instances these preceded the founding of churches and became their chief bulwarks. By 1890 several dozen local societies existed and many of these later merged into larger, national organizations such as the First Catholic Slovak Union or the National Slovak Society . By 1920 these and other fraternals enrolled over one-third of the 600,000 plus Slovak immigrants who had come to America. By providing much needed and inexpensive life insurance , plus taking an active role in community and national affairs , they became indispensable to the growth and survival of ethnic communities. Realizing the importance of fratemals, officers of the National Slovak Society determined to record some of their history. In 1909 they commissioned their editor Ignac Gessay to write the history of their organization. He eagerly read old newspapers, minute-books, pamphlets and other materials, some of which have since disappeared. He also interviewed as many "old timers" as he could. By 1911 he published two articles, one entitled " Spolky pred organisaciami" (Societies Before Organizations) in which he presented an excellent survey of the first forty local fraternal-benefit societies established by American Slovaks before national bodies appeared in 1890.(18) Gessay had hoped that he could continue in his work and eventually publish an overall history of his people but his friendship with P. V. Rovnianek prevented it . When the latter's financial institution bankrupted in 1911, thereby ruining a great many Slovaks and weakening the Society, Rovnianek had to flee for his life and Gessay lost his commission. Into the void stepped Jan A. Feriencik, another editor, determined to complete the story . Using Gessay's notes (without giving him credit) and engaging in his own research, he did produce, among other things, " Vyznam Nar. Slovenskeho Spolku" (The Significance of the National Slovak Society) .(19) In this brief article he surveyed the history of the Society from 1890 to 1914, concentrating on the highlights and praising its achievements. Although Feriencik did write articles dealing with other aspects of the Slovak experience in America (discussed below), he too failed to complete a monograph on either the NSS or on the history of American Slovaks . Shortly thereafter a group of Slovak Calvinists also set out to write the history of their organization. The Rev. Frantisek Uherka urged the officers of each branch of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union to compile a short history of their lodge on the basis of minute books, newspaper articles and interviews . They did as requested and Uherka then published these histories under the general heading " Kratke �72 SLOVAKIA dejiny jednotlivych sborov Slov. Kalv. Presb. Jednoty. " (Short Histories of the Lodges of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union) , giving the contributors full credit.(20) He also compiled a general history of the national organization , based on the information provided by lodges as well as his reading of the head-office 's minute-books and on his own memory and entitled it "Kratky prehfad S.K.P . Jednoty, 1901-1926 ," (Short Over-View of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union). (21) The largest of the fraternals , the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile, held back from such undertakings for several generations. Its individual lodges did often publish jubilee histories such as " Memoirs of the Golden Jubilee of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, 1883-1938" and these often provided fascinating insights into their individual achievements .(22) The national organization, however, resolved to sponsor an overall history only when its 75th anniversary approached. It commissioned Jozef Pauco, an emigre journalist, to undertake this task and he completed it by 1965 under the heading 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union).(23) Pauco presented a strictly chronological year-by-year account, devoid of any analysis or criticism. He simply listed the society's growth and achievements. Thus, although a few Slovak societies did promote studies of their own achievements and one even commissioned a book, much of their history remains to be uncovered. Besides the need for full-length monographs of such important organizations as the National Slovak Society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies ' Association, the Slovak Evangelical Union and so on , studies of the impact these and other societies have had on ethnic community life over the last 100 years should be made. How did these societies help the immigrant adjust to the New World? Did they supplant labor unions? Did they foster or hinder assimilation? Why did they splinter along religious and ideological lines? Why did women set up their own fratemals? Did fraternals promote Slovak culture in the .New World? What is their present status? What does the future h&d for them? How do they compare to societies founded by other grouf)s? These are just a few of the questions that need answering before we can understand the role that fraternal-benefit societies played in the life of American Slovaks. The third major component of growing Slovak communities was their newspaper press . Since most Slovaks initially came to America to make their " fortune " and return home , they became very interested in news of the home country published in their own language. The few intellectuals who accompanied these people to the United States �SLOVAKIA 73 quickly discovered this thir~t for news and satiated it with more than 200 periodicals between 1886 and the present. Among them were official organs of fraternal-benefit societies, independent dailies, weeklies and monthlies, labor newspapers, satirical journals, religious periodicals and so on. Having realized the importance of the newspaper press to the Slovak community, two journalists made a serious attempt to depict its history. Jan A. Feriencik, mentioned above, made the first attempt at a comprehensive history in "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Letters in America).(24) Since he tried to describe sixty titles in a few pages, his effort was very unbalanced. Moreover, he relied too much on memory and some of his assertions were false. Nevertheless, he did record some titles that have long since disappeared and th.u s he performed a vital service for later historians. Konstantin Culen, a post-World War II emigre journalist, expressed his appreciation to Feriencik and tried to complete the story in Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America).(25) He gathered together titles of more than 230 Slovak periodicals published in this country and commented on each although he knew more about some papers and less about others, and thus his book is very uneven. In fact, since he died before the manuscript was completed, his colleague Jozef Pauco tried to finish the job. The periodicals are not organized according to subject, they simply appear in alphabetical order. Furthermore, there is no table of contents and no index. Unless one knows in advance the exact name of a publication, this book is extremely difficult to use. Feriencik and Culen did only half the job. They listed the titles and described the editorial policy of the founders . No one has done a comprehensive history of any one of the major dailies or weeklies . It would be instructive to know, from a content-analysis, how various Slovak newspapers in America viewed this country, its much-vaunted equality and democracy and their perception of the role of their readers. Robert E. Park attempted such a study in his Immigrant Press and Its Control(26) but since he covered so many different nationalities, his assessment was necessarily shallow. A good history of the Slovak press, as well as that of other ethnic groups in America, is sorely needed. Shortly after having recorded the history of their lodges, parishes and newspapers, American Slovaks began to think of the larger story. A few of them started to publish histories of communities that covered members of all denominations . These have since been supplemented �74 SLOVAKIA by works of professional scholarship, although their number remains small. The first attempt at writing local history was made by lgnac Gessay. Hoping to eventually publish a general work on American Slovaks, this newspaper editor began to gather materials about their oldest communities. One of these was Streator, Illinois, in the bituminous coal fields and Gessay presented its story from the 1870s to 1910 in "Streatorski Slovaci a ich pokrok" (Streator Slovaks and their Progress).(27) Since this was a first attempt written for a national almanac, it necessarily gave only the highlights of the story. Better and more comprehensive histories appeared a short while later. Imrich Mazar, a local lodge leader, compiled a remarkable work entitled Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat rokov, 1879-1919 (Forty Years of the History of Binghamton Slovaks, 18791919).(28) Mazar interviewed pioneers of the community, consulted church and lodge records and read of his people's exploits in the press. Using such sources he very ably covered the story of all aspects of the community - its general history, the story of its fraternals, churches and clubs and the involvement of the local community in the CzechoSlovak liberation movement of World War I. Jan Pankuch did a similarly excellent job in Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks). (29) A newspaper editor by profession, Pankuch persevered in his efforts even after the Great Depression had erupted and he published the book with his own dwindling resources. The only major criticisms that one can make of these two books is that they are poorly organized and lack perspective. Since neither Mazar nor Pankuch had any historical training, they dared not judge what was important and what was not. They recorded everything they had heard or discovered in an often haphazard manner and this made the reading of their books difficult. On the other hand, by not rejecting anything, they made their works invaluable sources for a later generation of historians . .. Two scholars interested in American-Slovak history appeared in the 1960s to make good use of previous pioneering efforts. Josef Barton studied the social mobility of three ethnic groups in Cleveland and included the Slovaks among them . In his Peasants and Strangers,(30) a spin-off of his dissertation, he relied quite extensively on Pankuch for the background story. The present writer, commissioned to write a joint history with another author about the Cleveland Slovak community, used Pankuch as a source quite liberally.(31) Hopefully these will be followed by studies of Slovaks in other cities, enabling future historians �SLOVAKIA 75 to compare the fortunes of these people in a wide variety of geographical areas, thus gaining a better perspective on the whole story of immigration. Along with recording much local information, American Slovaks naturally desired an overall view of their coming and settlement in various parts of the New World. Once again the pioneers led the way but this undertaking prove~ too much for them. They had to settle for histories written by a later generation of immigrants and these stories are, as yet, incomplete. lgnac Gessay and Jan A. Feriencik first attempted to compile a general history of their people. Gessay, as we have already seen, did not finish the task.(32) Jan Feriencik inherited not only Gessay 's job but also his notes. Supplementing these with his own research, he published " Nacrtok prist'ahovalectva slovenskeho do Ameriky" (A Sketch of Slovak Immigration to America).(33) Relying upon old newspapers , minute-books, Gessay's notes and his own memory, Feriencik produced a useful, if jaundiced (he was very anti-Semitic) survey of the coming of his people to the New World. He had hoped to produce a full-length monograph on this subject but died before he could do so. With Feriencik's death, along with that of most of his firstgeneration colleagues in the 1920s, the task of recording AmericanSlovak history fell to the second generation . Having absolutely no help from Anglo-American historians, who in the first half of the twentieth century seemed completely uninterested in the history of recent immigration, as Arthur M. Schlesinger lamented,(34) the second generation failed to even match the efforts of their fathers. Andrew P . Slabey and Sister M. Martina Tybor are good examples of second-generation American-Slovak scholars . The former was one of the first Slovak university graduates in the United States and he set out to write a " Prehl'ad dejin Slovakov v Amerike " (A Survey of the History of American Slovaks) in 1926 but he did not finish the task until almost fifty years had passed! (35) Not only did he complete his work at a snail's pace but he based much of his first installment on the research of Gessay and Feriencik, whom he neglected to give credit, and his analysis was much inferior to theirs. The second article came largely from memory . In both he seemed more interested in promoting ' 'Czechoslovakism' ' (36) than in a genuine history of his people. Sister M. Martina Tybor, on the other hand, has made use of original sources but she has seldom told the full story . Thus , in " A Composite Picture of a Slovak Immigrant's Early Experiences,"(37) she presented a very good account of how a ' 'typical ' ' immigrant may �76 SLOVAKIA have fared upon arrival in America but she glossed over the many problems he may also have encountered. Similarly, in "Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916: Slovak-American Priest, Leader, Educator, "(38) she presented an interesting biography of this important early leader but again neglected to mention the many problems he had experienced in dealing with other priests and with his lay followers . Neither Slabey nor Tybor produced a full-length monograph. In the absence of any general histories of American Slovaks, two more recent immigrants set out to fill the void. The first was Konstantin Culen, a journalist by profession, who was drawn to the history of American Slovaks by his involvement in politics in the Old Country. Culen determined to examine the nature and extent of the nationalism that had motivated American Slovaks to make an agreement with the Czechs which guaranteed the Slovaks home-rule in the new Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. After having published one book dealing with such nationalism,(39) he decided to broaden his research and, after publishing numerous articles in various almanacs, he completed the very impressive Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America).(40) In this work he detailed both the social and political history of his countrymen to 1914. He read widely in their newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, books , minute-books and so on and tried, as best he could, to follow the rules of the historical profession. Unfortunately, he fell victim to the temptations of "filiopietism" and began the story with tales of Slovaks having come in the 17th .century , of their having participated in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and, therefore, having as good a claim to this country as anyone else. Furthermore, he relied too much on Slovak sources , neglecting many English-language studies of immigration at the turn of the century. After the Second World War, with his dreams of an independent Slovakia shattered, Culen immigrated to the United States and tried to carry on his work but found the climate among his people too hostile . He initially worked on the editorial staffs of several American and Canadian Slovak newspapers and publish~d dozens of articles. These were eventually gathered and published in' three important books: J. Slovensky: iivotopis zakladatel'a prvych slovenskych novin v Amerike (J. Slovensky: Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America);(41) Slovensk e casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America) ;(42) and V zajati falosn ych legiend a nen<ivistneho srdca (Imprisoned by False Legends and a Hateful Heart).(43) In the first of these he recounted how American Slovaks established their oldest newspaper. The second book , which we have already discussed, gave the story of their newspaper press. The third is virtually unknown , for �SLOVAKIA 77 he circulated only a few copies to his most trusted friends, but it is also the most important. In it he detailed the hostility which he and many other members of the post-war generation encountered from their lesseducated American countrymen. This is a fascinating phenomenon of rejection of one group oy another based on education and social standing, and since World\ War II it has been typical of many ethnic groups in the United States. Culen had so many arguments with American-Slovak leaders that he was virtually expelled from the community and died alienated from it in 1964. Shortly thereafter the present writer began to follow in Culen's footsteps. Born in Slovakia but educated in North America, he began a study of the political participation of his people in the World War I liberation movement(44) and then turned to their social history. Having used some of their parish and lodge records, supplemented by newspaper articles, he published ''The Slovak Immigrant is Not Anonymous," (45) in which he called on other scholars of immigration to make use of such sources. A little later he detailed some of the problems his countrymen had encountered with the largely IrishCatholic Church in America(46) and he also wrote a brief history of the Cleveland Slovak community.(47) At present he is preparing his dissertation, "Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918"(48) for publication as a book. Meanwhile, in the decades since the Second World War, a few people have also concerned themselves with biographies of Slovak pioneers to this country. Konstantin Culen wrote a brief treatise on Jan Slovensky, founder of the first Slovak newspaper in America. (49) While he described adequately Slovensky' s early life and his work in the United States, he did not know all the circumstances surrounding his death by suicide and the work thus remains incomplete. Vincent Holecek, a self-styled historian of Slovaks all over the world, produced a short biography of P. V. Rovnianek entitled Slava a poniienie (Glory and Shame)(50) but ended it in 1907, before Rovnianek's tragic bankruptcy and, thus, also failed to tell the whole story. Jozef Pauco glorified the lives of Stefan Furdek and Matus Jankola(51) and later compiled Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Slovak Pioneers in America),(52) which covered the lives of fifty-five important and unimportant countrymen (there seemed to be no rationale for their selection). Finally, Sister M. Martina Tybor eulogized Matus Jankola in two very similar articles published in different joumals.(53) With the exception of Culen, all of the above were more concerned with edifying their subjects than with reaching critical and balanced conclusions. �78 SLOVAKIA Clearly this is another area of American-Slovak history that needs elaboration. The study of Slovak immigration, however, has not been confined to residents of North America. After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 a new school of Marxist historians appeared and some of them took an interest in their brethren overseas. Utilizing new disciplines such as demography and uncovering hitherto unprocessed county documents, they added new dimensions to the study of immigration, especially to its impact on the home country. Jim Sveton, a demographer , led the way. In his "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu" (Slovak Emigration in the Era of Hungarian Capitalism),(54) he studied the impact of mass migration on the remaining population. Using village birth and death records, he calculated the net loss of population due to emigration and discovered that the Slovaks were second only to the Irish in per capita emigration and population decline in the 19th century. These views were further elaborated in Obyvatel'stvo Slovenska za kapitalizmu (The Population of Slovakia Under Capitalism).(55) Jan Hanzlik followed in Sveton' s footsteps and in four articles showed the high level to which the new discipline of demography had risen. His "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo na prahu imperializmu" (Slovak Emigration on the Threshold of Imperialism)(56) dealt with the net loss of population due to emigration based on village censuses for the heaviest years of migration, 1901-1910. In "Vyst'ahovalectvo z vychodneho Slovenska" (Emigration from Eastern Slovakia)(57) he focused on that region of the country which had lost the most people and blamed the Magyars for the exodus because they had refused to industrialize Hungary. He expanded his research in "Vyvoj obyvatel'stva na Slovensku v obdobi 1869-1961 " (The Evolution of the Population of Slovakia in the Years 1861-1961). (58) Besides studying the impact emigration had had on the population for over a hundred years , he also blamed the Czechs for having prompted the industrialization of Bohemia-Moravia at th\ expense of Slovakia after 1918 and thus having contributed to the contiQued emigration of Slovaks from their native land in the twentieth century. Finally, in ' ' Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky" (The Beginnings of Slovak Emigration to America, Its Causes and Consequences to 1918),(59) Hanzlik summarized his research and that of other interested scholars and presented a very creditable interpretation of the impact of Slovak emigration to 1918. �SLOVAKIA 79 Once their demographer-colleagues had opened the field, Marxist historians also began to take notice of emigration. Ladislav Tajtak focused on that part of the country which had lost the most people in ''Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny'' (Eastern Slovak Emigration to the Fill.st World War)(60) and he carefully showed which of the eastern countries had lost the largest numbers and why. In a later work, "K zaciatkom Amerikansko-Slovenskych Novin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny)(6l) he traced, for the first time since Culen's Janka Slovensky, the history of the first Slovak newspaper in America. Frantisek Bielik and Elo Rakos, meanwhile, collected and published the most relevant documents pertaining to emigration in Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Slovak Emigration: Documents I, to 1918)(62) and a little later documents to 1939 in a book with a similar title. (63) They also provided a good introduction to both sets of documents. Finally, Milos Gosiorovsky legitimized all this concern with countrymen in capitalist America by publishing ''Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky a robotnicke hnutie" (Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky and the Workers' Movement)(64) in which he tried to link the workers' (communist) movements of the two worlds. Even though scholars in Slovakia have taken notice of their countrymen abroad, their perspective has been limited by ideological considerations. As I have pointed out in "Agrarian Problems in Slovakia, 1848-1918: An Historiographic Essay,"(65) Marxist scholars in the Old World must tow the party line. Thus, they can cite the works of Konstantin Culen and other ''bourgeois'' writers only at great peril to their own freedom and they have had to embellish their books and articles with liberal references to Marx, Lenin (and Stalin in the 1950s) and other prophets of the new order. Furthermore, these scholars can seldom, if ever, travel to the United States, and thus rich AmericanSlovak archives are beyond their reach. Therefore, they have necessarily concentrated on the impact of emigration on the home country and have only touched on the history of their countrymen abroad. Another approach to the study of immigration has been the novel. While traditional scholarly works have analyzed the nature and experience of the ethnic community in the midst of a new environment, the novel has become an important vehicle for understanding the dynamics of the situation and for expressing the feelings of the people . American Slovaks have been pleased with three outstanding novelists in this regard - Thomas Bell, Michael Novak and Sonya Jason. Bell , in Out of this Furnace ,(66) provided a moving account of �80 SLOVAKIA the sufferings of the first three generations in the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania. His book was so painfully realistic that most of his countrymen avoided reading it. In a different vein Michael Novak described the difficulties that an upwardly-mobile third-generation American Slovak encountered in coping with the largely Anglo-Saxon world in Naked I Leave(67) and in the more analytical Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics .(68) Finally, Sonya Jason, also a product of a Pennsylvania steel town, portrayed the reaction of a third-generation woman to the insatiable demands of American armies for immigrant bodies in Concommitant Soldier: Woman and War.(69) One can only lament the dearth of such novels in the United States. While various aspects of Slovak immigration have been covered by members of this ethnic group, native Americans have seldom noticed these people and when they have, it has been either in the context of nativism or else as a part of the history of immigration in general. Nativism , that ideological disease which breeds hostility towards immigrants, infected the minds of some Americans at the tum of the century, causing them to write books extremely hostile to the ''new'' immigrants from Southeastern Europe, from whence the Slovaks came. Howard B. Grose, for instance, in a book aimed at Protestant Missionaries entitled Aliens or Americans?(70) deemed the newcomers to be a "heathen" threat to America and advocated their forceful conversion to Protestant Christianity in order to "Americanize" them. The theme of the immigrant "menace" also found its way into socalled scholarly works. Annie Marian Maclean, who fancied herself a "Progressive" social scientist, surveyed Southeastern Europeans in Pennsylvania and published " Life in the Pennsylvania Coal Fields with Particular Reference to Women, '' in a muckrating style that very much pleased the readers of the American Journal of Sociology .(71) Helen L. Wilson and Eunice W. Smith engaged in similar exposes for the AJS , devoting entire articles to individual ethnic groups, among them being "Chicago Housing Conditions , VIII: Among the Slovaks in the Twentieth Ward. "(72) Both of these works, in their lurid descriptions of immigrant ghettoes, warned Americans of the possible destruction of their society through unrestricted immigration. Nativist scholarship reached its pinnacle in an official government report which summarized all the prejudices then rampant in the United States towards Southeastern Europeans: \Established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the Dillingham Co~ission, _on Immigration reported in 1911 that the newcomers, among them the Slovaks, were a menace to American society because they allegedly bred slums, engaged in criminal activities and retarded the labor movement.(73) �SLOVAKIA ~ 81 However, as Maldwyn Jones'8.Ild Oscar Handlin have recently shown, the commissioners twisted the statistics to suit their preconceived notions.(74) Ironically enough, if one ignores the conclusions of the commissioners and uses only the raw statistics, one can discover in this Report a great deal of valuable material pertaining to the social history of Slovaks and other Southeastern Europeans in America at the tum of the century. Not all Americans, of course, accepted the findings of the Report or agreed with its conclusions. A small group of scholars, usually members of the "Social Gospel" movement which sought to help the poor and downtrodden, viewed the ''new'' immigrants sympathetically. Their writings served as a healthy counterweight to nativist attacks on these people. One of the first American defenders of Southern and Eastern Europeans was the Rev. Peter Roberts. A member of the Presbyterian Home Mission Society, Roberts set about describing, in great detail, the everyday life of the new immigrants (and these included the Slovaks) in their new social setting. His Anthracite Coal Communities(75) and The New Immigration: A Study of the Industrial and Social Life of Southeastern Europeans in America(76) are classics in sociological analysis. Rather than seeking evidence of these peoples' "inferiority," as various nativists had done, Roberts visited them, observed their habits and concluded that they fit very well into the American capitalist system, even if they did have to start at the bottom. While Roberts dealt with Southeastern Europeans in general, Emily Greene Balch focused on the Slavic nationalities in particular and produced the as yet unsurpassed Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens.(77) By devoting an entire chapter to each Slavic group and then doing a general analysis of them all, she showed the way to later generations of historians. She not only studied American-Slavic communities and talked with their people but also visited their homelands to get a transAtlantic perspective on the whole process of migration. This professor of political economy was so far ahead of her time that to this day no American historian has written a book of comparable depth and scope about the various Slavic ethnic groups in this country. One reason why American historians have not yet superseded Emily Greene Balch is that for generations the former simply ignored the history of Southeastern Europeans. Between the 1920s when the United States passed its restrictive immigration quota laws which presumed that everyone would disappear into the " melting pot " and the 1960s when an ethnic revival swept the country, virtually no books or articles concerned with Slavic immigrants appeared in any major �82 SLOVAKIA historical journals or university presses. A small group of Czech scholars and their sympathizers produced a few interesting studies but these paled in comparison to earlier efforts by immigrants themselves. Indeed, even when a few American historians did begin to notice the Slavs in the 1960s, their studies remained very superficial. The first Czech scholar to write about American Slovaks was Tomas Capek of New York. A lawyer by profession, he accepted a commission from the National Slovak Society and wrote The Slovaks of Hungary: Slavs and Pan-Slavism,(78) which was in effect the first history of these people in the English language. Later he and his son published The Czechoslovaks, the second half of which dealt with the Slovaks under the heading The Slovaks in America . (79) The latter work, consisting chiefly of impressions gathered from various informants, was vastly inferior to the first study which was grounded on a stronger scholarly base. However, since these were virtually the only studies of American Slovaks in the English language, leaders of the community which they described did treasure them. Josef Slabey Roucek followed in the Capeks' footsteps and tried to carry on their work. One of the few sociologists in the United States who could read various Slavic languages in the 1930s and 1940s, Roucek did write several articles about these peoples including ''The Passing of American Czechoslovaks.'' (80) In this and in similar works about other Slavic groups, Roucek bowed to the current ideology and predicted the rapid disappearance of all ethnic Americans into the ''melting pot.'' Since he was virtually alone in his concern for American Slavs, Roucek by default dominated this field for many years. Virtually his only competitor was Andrew A. Marchbin. The latter wrote peripherally about the Slovaks in "Early Emigration from Hungary to Canada," (81) and in " Hungarian Activities in Western Pennsylvania.'' (82) While Roucek tended to mix the Slovaks together with the Czechs, Marchbin mixed them with the Magyars, since he dealt with an earlier period. The latter did, however, mention the problems that divided the Slovaks from the Magyars while Roucek tried to cover up the differences between Czechs and Slovaks. In any case, both sociologists were good representatives of the dearth of American ethnic studies until the 1960s. In the decade of Vietnam and the Black Revolution , certain American scholars finally came to the reaJization that ethnicity was here to stay. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P . Moynihan said as much in their Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroe's, Puerto Ricans, Jews , Italians and Irish of New York City. (83) Influenced by these and other sociological works, a few historians set out to systematically collect �SLOVAKIA 83 materials pertaining to immigrant history and to write books and articles about Southeastern Europeans who had for so long been neglected by American scholars . Timothy L. Smith helped establish the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota in 1963 and he also urged fellow-historians in "New Approaches to the History of Immigration in Tw~ntieth-C~ntury America" (84) to study the longneglected peoples of Souther.n and Eastern Europe . While he seemed to be going against the tide in stressing the assimilation of these people in this and in subsequent articles ,(85) he did study the Slovaks, among others, and he did bring the attention of America's scholars to this neglected area of historical inquiry. His colleague Victor R. Greene, meanwhile , focused on the Poles and Lithuanians and peripherally on the Slovaks in Slavs on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite, (86) the first major work about these peoples since the 1920s! If one were to fault either of these scholars , it would be for their preoccupation with the history of several ethnic groups at once while neglecting to study any one of them in any great detail. Smith always speaks of several ethnic groups in his articles and too often assumes that they are all alike in their reaction to such American institutions as the public schools.(87) Greene, similarly, always speaks of the "Slavs" when, in reality, he is dealing only with the Poles and a few Lithuanians , and the latter are not Slavs. This practice is apparent in most of his articles and it often leads him to make erroneous conclusions about non-Poles.(88) The present writer sees in Smith 's and Greene 's articles a bit of the bias of the American historical profession . It is all right for Kenneth Lockridge or John Demos or Philip Grev en to devote entire monographs to tiny English settlements in New England(89) but somehow it is not all right for Timothy Smith or Victor Greene to study only the Slovaks, or Poles, or Croats, or other Southeastern Europeans. The assumption exists among most members of the profession that White Anglo-Saxon peoples are more important than other ethnic groups and , therefore , deserve more attention while the Slavs or even the Southeastern Europeans must be treated as a whole because individually they are not very important . Trying to overcome such discrimination should be one of the objectives of a future generation of historians. CONCLUSION It should be apparent, the refore, that the historiography of Slovak immigration to America has undergone many changes and that much of the story remains untold . Until very recently the best works on this �84 SLOVAKIA subject were those written by the pioneers themselves . Long before professional historians even bothered to study immigration, various ethnic leaders began to gather and read manuscript and printed materials of the past, they interviewed ''old timers " before oral history became fashionable and they made predictions about their communities that were uncannily accurate. Such ground-breaking efforts disprove Edward N. Saveth ' s charges that histories written by immigrants themselves are of little value because they are filled with filiopietism . (90) While the first generation did a commendable job in recording its people 's past, the second lagged behind and had to be aided by scholars in the Old World and, ultimately, by better-trained members of the third generation. Perhaps reacting to the pressures of ''Americanization,'' few American-born Slovaks bothered to write their own history and those who did so expended less effort at it than had their fathers. Members of the second generation produced no major monographs, only short articles that dealt with some particular aspect of their experience or convictions. Into this vacuum stepped Old World historians like Konstantin Culen who gave American Slovaks their first systematic history and various Marxist scholars who began to treat emigration as a major social problem. Finally , with the ethnic revival of the 1960s there came not only a new interest in immigration by Anglo-American historians like Timothy L. Smith but also a professional treatment of the subject by a new breed of "ethnic" historians such as Josef Barton and Mark Stolarik. The latter two deeply immersed themselves into the sources and began for the first time to reproduce the history of American Slovaks for an English-speaking audience , Barton's and Stolarik 's efforts have un"covered only the tip of the iceberg. In looking at social mobility, for instance, they have studied but the first two generations , and only Roman Catholics at that. The fate of the third and fourth generations remains unknown as does the behavior of the Lutherans, Greek Catholics and Calvinists. Did Slovak Protestants react to America differently from Catholics, as Max Weber would have predicted? If so , then perhaps their history should be studied separately from the majority Catholic group and the differences and similarities should then be compared and contrasted with other American religious and ethnic groups. The role of Slovaks in the American labor movement also remains untold. While the present writer touched upon this story in his dissertation , the total picture is so vast and the evidence is so great that one could devote an entire monograph to it. Attitudes towards manual �SLOVAKIA 85 labor, the factory system, unions, strikes, socialism and so on need to be clarified and compared with other ethnic groups in order to rescue American labor history from its preoccupation with the history of unions as institutions and channel it back to the history of the workers themselves. What of those immig\ants who returned home? Slovaks had a return rate of 20 percent. Why did these people not remain in the " promised land?" How did they fare upon their return to the Old Country? Did they have any economic, social, or cultural impact upon their brethren back home? No one has yet dealt with this aspect of immigration. Slovak involvement in American politics also remains a mystery. Which political party did the earliest immigrants support and which do their descendants? Did they join the ' 'city machines' ' immediately and if so, why? Did they have "ward-heelers" of their own or did some other ethnic group perform this function for them? What influence, if any, has the "Slovak vote" had upon local, state and national politics? All of these questions remain unanswered. The whole subject of assimilation also needs more study. Using Milton Gordon's seven steps towards complete or "structural" assimilation,(91) an " index" of assimilation is needed to determine how far American Slovaks have proceeded along this path and to provide a way of comparing them with other ethnic groups. Those who have resisted assimilation should also be studied. What role did their fraternal-benefit societies play in this opposition? Did their concept of family , neighborhood and life in general also lead to rejection of assimilation? Are their values radically different from Anglo-American ones and, if so, are they healthy or dangerous to the host society? Finally , the present state of the community needs attention. Are American-Slovaks happy? Did this country fulfill their aspirations or leave them disappointed? Is there a "generation-gap" in attitudes towards the American way of life? How do Slovaks react to other ethnic groups, particularly blacks? Have they dispersed from their original communities into all parts of the city or have they congregated in certain suburbs and why? Are immigrants in certain regions or cities better off than in others and why? · These are just a few of the questions that need answering. And they need not apply only to Slovaks. The vast majority of Southern and Eastern European ethnic groups have for too long been ignored by American historians.(92) Until we know their stories as well as we do the Anglo-American one, we will not really understand this country. �86 SLOVAKIA FOOTNOTES (1) Obzor (Skalica, Slovakia), July 5 , 1873 and intermittently through July 5 , 1883 . (2) Tovarysstvo (Rufomberok , Slovakia) I (1893), 233-8. (3) Ibid . , III (1900), 293-300. (4) Ibid ., 301-5. (5) Kalendar J ednota, 1899 (Cleveland) , 135-6. (6) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku (Pittsburgh), I (No. 2-3, 1915), 98-109 . (7) Kalendar Jednota, 1911 , 75-89. (8) Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1927-30. (9) Pittsburgh, 1924. (10) Kalendar Jednota, 1906, 33-114 . (11) Kalendar Jednota, 1911, 90-5. (12) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 97-147 . (13) Cleveland , 1928. (14) Minneapolis, 1941. (15) Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 83 (Sept.-Dec. 1972), 151-8. (16) St . Louis, 1955. (17) Cleveland , 1955 . (18) Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 66-77 . (19) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (No. 2-3, 1915), 90-7. (20) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927, 57-80 . (21) Ibid ., 37-56. (22) Minneapolis, 1938. (23) Cleveland, 1965. (24) Sbornik Narodneho Slovensk eho Spolku, I (No . 2-3, 1915) , 20-39 . (25) Published posthumously in Cleveland, 1970. (26) New York, 1922 . (27) Narodny Kalendar, 1911 , 117-28. (28) Binghamton , New York, 1919. (29) Cleveland, 1930. (30) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (31) The Slovak Community of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1978), co-authored with Sister M. Martina Tybor. (32) See above. ' , (33) Sbornik Narodneho Slove nskeho Spolku, I (No . 2-:t. 1915), 9~19 . (34) " The Significance of Immigration in American History, " Th e American Journal of Sociology, 27 (1921), 71-85. It is revealing that this article appeared in a sociology journal and not in an historical one . (35) Narodny Kale ndar, 1926, 41-59 and 1972 , 60-7. �SLOVAKIA 87 (36) A "Czechoslovak" is a Czech or Slovak who believes that these two peoples are really one nation and he downplays their cultural differences. (37) Jednota Annual Furdek (Cleveland), 8, (1969) , 3-23. (38) Slovakia (Middletown, Pa.), XXIll (1972) , 161-92. (39) Pittsburghsk<i dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement) , Bratislava , 1937. (40) 2 Volumes, Bratislava, 1942. (41) Winnipeg, 1954. (42) Cleveland , 1970. (43) Mimeographed author 's publication , New York, 1961. (44) " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies VIII _(Rome , 1?68). 7-84 . (45) Jednota Annual Furdek, X (~971), 99-105 . (46) See above. (47) See above. (48) Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1974 . (49) See above . (50) New York, 1957. (51) Stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectuo (Stefan Furdek and Slovak Immigration). Cleveland, 1955; and Matus Jankola, knaz a n<irodouec (Matus Jankola, Priest and Patiot), Danville, Pa . , 1959. (52) Cleveland, 1973. (53) See above and "Father Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916," Slovak Studies, IX (1969) . 75-94. (54) Ekonomicky casopis, 4 (1956), 171-91. (55) Bratislava, 1958. (56) Geograficky casopis, XIII (1961), 195-210. (57) In I.:udovit Holotik (Ed.), Prispeuky k dejin<im uychodneho Slouenska (Contributions to the History of Eastern Slovakia). Bratislava, 1964, 220-32 . (58) Geograficky casopis, 19 (1967). 3-28 . (59) In Josef Polisensky (Ed.), Zaciatky ceskej a slouenskej emigr<icie do USA (The Beginnings of Czech and Slovak Immigration to the U.S.A.) (Bratislava, 1970), 49-96 . (60) Noue obzory (Kosice, Slovakia), Ill (1961), 221-47. (61) In Polisensky , op. cit. , 186-96. (62) Bratislava, 1969. (63) Martin, Slovakia, 1975. (64) In Polisensky, op. cit., 197-207. (65) Histoire sociale/Social History, VII (May , 1974) , 111-20. (66) Boston, 1941. (67) New York, 1970. (68) New York , 1971 . (69) Santa Monica, Calif., 1973. �88 SLOVAKIA (70) New York , 1906. (71) 14 (1908-9). 329-51. (72) 20 (1914), 145-69. (73) Reports of the Immigration Commission, 42 Volumes (Washington, 61st Congress, Senate, 1911). (74) See Maldwyn Jones , American Immigration (Chicago, 1960), 177-82 and Oscar Handlin 's Introduction to the R eports of the Immigration Commission, Volume I (Arno Press Reprint, New York , 1970) , 1-XLVI. (75) 2 volumes, New York, 1904. (76) New York, 1912 . (77) New York, 1910. (78) New York, 1906. (79) New York, 1921. (80) American Journal of Sociology, (1933-4), 611-25 . (81) Slavic Review, Xfil (1934), 127-38. (82) The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, 23 (1940) , 163-74. (83) New York , 1963. (84) American Historical Review, 71 (July, 1966), 1265-79. (85) See for example " Immigrant Social Aspirations and American Education, 18801930," American Quarterly, XXI (Fall , 1969). 523-43; and "Lay Initiative in the Religious Life of American Immigrants, " in Tamara Hareven (Ed .), Anonymous Americans: Explorations in Nineteenth-Century Social History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. , 1971) , 214-49. (86) Notre Dame, 1968. (87) "Immigrant Social Aspirations, " op cit. (88) See for example his ''For God and Country: The Origins of Slavic SelfConsciousness in America," Church History, 35 (December, 1966), 1-15 and " Slavic American Nationalism, 1870-1918," in Anna Cienciala (Ed.) , American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists, Warsaw , August 21-7, 1973, Vol. ill: H istory (The Hague , 1973) , 197-215 . (89) Ke nneth Lockridge, A New England To wn: The First Hundred Years (New York, 1970); John Demos , A L(ttle Commonweafth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York , 1970) ; and Philip Greven, Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, 1970). (90) American Historian s and European Immigration, 1875-1925 (New York, 1948) . (91) Assimilation in American Life : The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New York, 1964) . \ (92) For an excellent analysis of the present state of immigration historiography see Rudolph J . Vecoli, " European Americans : From Immigrants to Ethnics, " in William H . Cartwright and Richard L. Watson (Eds.), The R einterpretation of American History and Culture (Washington , 1973) , 81-112 . � 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 1978-79, Vol. 28 Description An account of the resource Vol. 28 (No. 51-52), 1978-79. 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 1978-79 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 66 SLOVAKIA From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States M . MARK STOLARIK Although Slovaks have lived in the United States for over a hundred years, professional American historians have only recently begun to study them. This lack of concern for the second-largest Slavic group in America cannot be attributed to a lack of sources. Pioneers among these immigrants left us not only their published reminiscences but also led the way in reconstructing the histories of their communities. While a few members of the second generation tried to carry on the work of their fathers, their efforts paled in comparison . Historians in Slovakia, meanwhile, began to write about their countrymen in the United States and, whether as political emigres or as devoted Marxists, they initiated the first professional studies of these people. Native Americans, on the other hand, originally discussed Slovaks as either a threat to the American way of life or else as potential converts to the Social Gospel movement. For generations native historians ignored these and other Eastern Europeans in the naive belief that they would disappear in the ''melting pot.'' Only with the ethnic revival of the 1960s did some Ame~ican professionals of varying backgrounds begin to study these people:,. _ The everyday life of Slovaks in the United States has been portrayed at various levels, ranging from simple memoirs to complicated mobility studies. Some of the pioneers contented themselves with describing life in the New World as they remembered it. Others analyzed the growing ethnic neighborhoods , while others still began to collect materials and describe three major institutions of AmericanSlovak communities - the parishes, lodges and newspapers. Such M. Mark Stolarik has been designated as the Director of the Balch Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . This essay is reprinted from the International Migration Review (X , 1, Spring 1976). SLOVAKIA 67 activities eventually led to full-scale community studies and attempts at an overall history of all Slovak groups in America. Even though the first two generations failed in the latter effort, they did provide the groundwork for later historians. By the 1960s scholars in both Europe and America used new methods such as demographic analysis, studies of marriage , educatiQn anct social mobility, to try to complete the story and put it into a broader context. The earliest description~' bf Slovak life in America came either as observations or else as reminiscences by pioneers . Daniel Sustek, a journeyman carpenter and one of the first Slovaks to arrive in the United States , described his experiences over a ten-year period beginning in 1873 in the self-help monthly Obzor.(1) Besides focusing on his problems of adjusting to the new land, Sustek described the strange way of life he found here and provided his countrymen with extensive advice on how to make the trip, where to find work, what kind of wages to expect and how to behave in the presence of non-Slovaks. Sustek' s reports are reminiscent of Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce especially when, after having initially praised the "equality" of all Americans , Sustek discovers the great gulf between rich and poor and concludes that in this regard the United States is not so different from Europe after all. While Sustek focused largely on his own experiences, Father Stefan Furdek provided us with the first description of Slovak community life in America. Having come to Cleveland in 1882 to serve an already-existing Czech parish, Furdek helped the earliest Slovak arrivals to organize themselves into lodges and parishes and he also established their first Catholic newspaper. By 1893 he felt experienced enough to write an article entitled " Z Ameriky" (From America) for an Old World annual in which he eulogized the political freedom of the New Land but warned intellectuals against immigrating to this country because their chances of finding a livelihood outside of manual labor were slim.(2) Furdek thus perceived the major role his people would play in providing labor for America's industries and the marginal impact they would have upon the intellectual and cultural life of the United States. In a later article , "Vselico z Ameriky" (Tidbits from America), he continued the story by focusing on working conditions in the mines and mills, on life in ethnic neighborhoods and on the need for immigrants to rely upon family or friends in order to survive and be successful in the New World.(3) He wrote dozens of similar articles in his Jednota (Union) newspaper and almanac of the same name between 1890 and 1914 and he remains a major source for the study of early American-Slovak life. 68 SLOVAKIA Father Matus Jankola, Furdek ' s friend and colleague , joined the latter in describing the activities of his countrymen in the United States during the early years of Slovak immigration. In "Crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa. " (Sketches from a Catholic Slovak Parish in Pittston, Pa.), he not only described the daily life of a coal miner but also focused on the relations of Slovaks with other ethnic groups. He complained about his countrymen' s propensity to emulate other Eastern Europeans in seeking financial control over their own parishes, a phenomenon known as "lay trusteeism" and a perpetual headache to both priests and bishops at the tum of the century.(4) In another penetrating article entitled "Nase skoly" (Our Schools), J ankola severely criticized Slovak parochial schools of his day for their inadequate facilities and teaching methods and urged his countrymen to establish a teaching order of nuns to upgrade the whole system .(5) Like Furdek , Jankola wrote dozens of articles in the Jednota newspaper and almanac between 1896 and 1916 and these are excellent sources for the study of American-Slovak history. While Furdek and J ankola described Slovak life in general, another clergyman zeroed in on the business community. Pavel Jamarik, a convert to Congregationalism and an exponent of the 'Protestant ethic,' sought to determine how many of his people were engaged in business and thus ''making it. '' He distributed a questionnaire to Slovak leaders in Cleveland, New York and Bridgeport, Connecticut and, much to his dismay, discovered that fewer than one percent in each city owned business enterprises. He soberly concluded in ' ' Zivot americkych Slovakov dakedy a teraz'' (The Life of American Slovaks in the Past and Today)(6) that most of his people rejected the American route to social mobility through business enterprise and implicitly hinted that they would remain in the workingclass for some time to come. Such penetrating analyses, while vety valuable, were also rare. More common were reminiscences by "olq timers ~• of days gone by. Jozef Rusek , editor of the Jednota almanac, interviewed a Slovak who had arrived in Cleveland in 1880 and published his story under the rubric "V Novej Zemi" (In the New Land).(7) In this fascinating article the anonymous informant described the poor economic conditions that had driven him out of his homeland, the miserable ocean-crossing in steerage and all the difficulties he had encountered in making his way to Cleveland and finding suitable employment. A series of similar articles entitled "Nasi pionieri" (Our Pioneers) appeared in another almanac a short while later.(8) By collecting and publishing these reminiscences ethnic editors showed their appreciation for oral history SLOVAKIA 69 long before American historians deemed it worthy of notice. In spite of this concel'Il with oral history, only one major leader of the American-Slovak COlllil1\Unity has left us his memoirs. Perhaps the reason for this dearth of autobiographies lies in the fact that Furdek died unexpectedly in 1914 and Jankola in 1916. In any case, P. V. Rovnianek, founder of the National Slovak Society in 1890 and for many years editor of the extremely popular Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (American Slovak News) penned his observations and reminiscences in a book with a very revealing title : Zapisky za iiva pochovaneho (Notes of One Buried Alive). (9) Here Rovnianek revealed how he had to leave the Budapest seminary in 1888 because of his nationalist views and how he came to America and quickly decided to work for national causes. He also detailed many of the arguments that he had had with other leaders, some of which resulted in costly lawsuits. Unfortunately, he covered up the misdeeds that led to the downfall of his financial empire in 1911. This, plus his tremendous conceit, detracted from an otherwise lucid and penetrating commentary. Shortly after their arrival in America, Slovak immigrants congregated in certain neighborhoods of cities where they established organizations that served to promote and solidify a new community existence . Three such institutions ranked highest in importance: the parish, the fraternal and the newspaper. By 1920, when these neighborhoods matured, Slovaks had almost 400 parishes of all denominations, hundreds of local and dozens of national fratemals and scores of daily , weekly and monthly periodical publications . It is no surprise , therefore, that when certain Slovak leaders began to record their earliest history in America, they turned their attention to these institutions. Father Furdek began the history of one group of these institutions with a lenghty article about "Slovenske osady v Amerike" (Slovak Parishes in America.) Having relied upon church records and interviews supplied by fellow-priests and cooperative laymen, Furdek presented us with short, informative histories of every Slovak Catholic parish established in the New World until 1906.(10) No sooner had Furdek published his analysis than a controversy broke out between boosters of Slovak parishes in Streator, Illinois and Hazleton, Pennsylvania . Worshippers in both areas claimed that theirs was the oldest Slovak Catholic parish in the United States. Although the debate remains unresolved to this day , Jozef G. Skurka, in "Prva slovenska rim. katolicka osada v Amerike" (The First Slovak Roman Catholic Parish in America) presented the arguments of both sides and left the final decision to the reader. (11) 70 SLOVAKIA Furdek's article began a trend that led not only to similar efforts by leaders of other denominations but it may also have prompted the later publication of jubilee books and a few full-fledged histories of church groups . Thus, Josef Nadenicek, a Calvinist minister, had his coreligionists aid him in compiling histories of all their parishes in the United States and he published these under the general heading of "Kratke dejiny cirkvi" (Short Histories of Our Parishes) giving the contributors full credit for their efforts .(12) Other religious leaders published even more detailed stories in special anniversary booklets. Examples are Strieborne jubileum osady sv. Vendelina, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928 (Silver Jubilee of St. Wendelin's Parish, Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1928,(13) and Father George S. Dargay' s Historical Sketch of the Church of St. Cyril of Minneapolis, Minn., 1891-1941. (14) A committee of priests and laymen usually compiled such histories, relying upon parish records, newspaper accounts and the memories of pioneers for sources. Even though other congregations published similar jubilee books, they seldom contained the whole truth because most immigrant parishes at the turn of the century experienced some sort of conflict between laymen and pastor or bishop. The present writer described problems of this sort in "Lay Initiative in American-Slovak Parishes, 1880-1930,"(15) in the hope that even professional church historians would dig deeper into the sources and abandon their preoccupation with consensus history. Meanwhile, one might suppose that with so many parishes having recorded their own history, a larger synthesis would have appeared. Only two historians have made such an attempt in the Slovak community and their efforts leave much to be desired. Pastor George Dolak, a member of the second generation, wrote an official History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, 1920-1927(16) and, as the title suggests, he covered only a short period and ignored the two other Synods to which Slovaks belong. Indeed, one looks in vain in this book fa'( an explanation of this split among Slovak Lutherans in America. Similarly,_ while the emigre historian Frantisek Hrusovsky did a creditable job in recording the story of Slovenske rehole v Amerike (Slovak Religious Orders in America), (17) he too steered clear of all controversy. Inadequate as these works are, they remain the only attempted syntheses of various Slovak religious groups in America. No one has yet written an overall history of Slovak Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist denominations in the United States and their relation to New or Old World counterparts. Scholars have barely scratched the surface of this vast subject. SLOVAKIA ' 71 Equal in importance to'. parishes in immigrant communities were fraternal benefit societies. In many instances these preceded the founding of churches and became their chief bulwarks. By 1890 several dozen local societies existed and many of these later merged into larger, national organizations such as the First Catholic Slovak Union or the National Slovak Society . By 1920 these and other fraternals enrolled over one-third of the 600,000 plus Slovak immigrants who had come to America. By providing much needed and inexpensive life insurance , plus taking an active role in community and national affairs , they became indispensable to the growth and survival of ethnic communities. Realizing the importance of fratemals, officers of the National Slovak Society determined to record some of their history. In 1909 they commissioned their editor Ignac Gessay to write the history of their organization. He eagerly read old newspapers, minute-books, pamphlets and other materials, some of which have since disappeared. He also interviewed as many "old timers" as he could. By 1911 he published two articles, one entitled " Spolky pred organisaciami" (Societies Before Organizations) in which he presented an excellent survey of the first forty local fraternal-benefit societies established by American Slovaks before national bodies appeared in 1890.(18) Gessay had hoped that he could continue in his work and eventually publish an overall history of his people but his friendship with P. V. Rovnianek prevented it . When the latter's financial institution bankrupted in 1911, thereby ruining a great many Slovaks and weakening the Society, Rovnianek had to flee for his life and Gessay lost his commission. Into the void stepped Jan A. Feriencik, another editor, determined to complete the story . Using Gessay's notes (without giving him credit) and engaging in his own research, he did produce, among other things, " Vyznam Nar. Slovenskeho Spolku" (The Significance of the National Slovak Society) .(19) In this brief article he surveyed the history of the Society from 1890 to 1914, concentrating on the highlights and praising its achievements. Although Feriencik did write articles dealing with other aspects of the Slovak experience in America (discussed below), he too failed to complete a monograph on either the NSS or on the history of American Slovaks . Shortly thereafter a group of Slovak Calvinists also set out to write the history of their organization. The Rev. Frantisek Uherka urged the officers of each branch of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union to compile a short history of their lodge on the basis of minute books, newspaper articles and interviews . They did as requested and Uherka then published these histories under the general heading " Kratke 72 SLOVAKIA dejiny jednotlivych sborov Slov. Kalv. Presb. Jednoty. " (Short Histories of the Lodges of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union) , giving the contributors full credit.(20) He also compiled a general history of the national organization , based on the information provided by lodges as well as his reading of the head-office 's minute-books and on his own memory and entitled it "Kratky prehfad S.K.P . Jednoty, 1901-1926 ," (Short Over-View of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union). (21) The largest of the fraternals , the First Catholic Slovak Union, meanwhile, held back from such undertakings for several generations. Its individual lodges did often publish jubilee histories such as " Memoirs of the Golden Jubilee of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, 1883-1938" and these often provided fascinating insights into their individual achievements .(22) The national organization, however, resolved to sponsor an overall history only when its 75th anniversary approached. It commissioned Jozef Pauco, an emigre journalist, to undertake this task and he completed it by 1965 under the heading 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union).(23) Pauco presented a strictly chronological year-by-year account, devoid of any analysis or criticism. He simply listed the society's growth and achievements. Thus, although a few Slovak societies did promote studies of their own achievements and one even commissioned a book, much of their history remains to be uncovered. Besides the need for full-length monographs of such important organizations as the National Slovak Society, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies ' Association, the Slovak Evangelical Union and so on , studies of the impact these and other societies have had on ethnic community life over the last 100 years should be made. How did these societies help the immigrant adjust to the New World? Did they supplant labor unions? Did they foster or hinder assimilation? Why did they splinter along religious and ideological lines? Why did women set up their own fratemals? Did fraternals promote Slovak culture in the .New World? What is their present status? What does the future h&d for them? How do they compare to societies founded by other grouf)s? These are just a few of the questions that need answering before we can understand the role that fraternal-benefit societies played in the life of American Slovaks. The third major component of growing Slovak communities was their newspaper press . Since most Slovaks initially came to America to make their " fortune " and return home , they became very interested in news of the home country published in their own language. The few intellectuals who accompanied these people to the United States SLOVAKIA 73 quickly discovered this thir~t for news and satiated it with more than 200 periodicals between 1886 and the present. Among them were official organs of fraternal-benefit societies, independent dailies, weeklies and monthlies, labor newspapers, satirical journals, religious periodicals and so on. Having realized the importance of the newspaper press to the Slovak community, two journalists made a serious attempt to depict its history. Jan A. Feriencik, mentioned above, made the first attempt at a comprehensive history in "Slovenske prist'ahovalectvo a slovenska spisba v Amerike" (Slovak Immigration and Slovak Letters in America).(24) Since he tried to describe sixty titles in a few pages, his effort was very unbalanced. Moreover, he relied too much on memory and some of his assertions were false. Nevertheless, he did record some titles that have long since disappeared and th.u s he performed a vital service for later historians. Konstantin Culen, a post-World War II emigre journalist, expressed his appreciation to Feriencik and tried to complete the story in Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America).(25) He gathered together titles of more than 230 Slovak periodicals published in this country and commented on each although he knew more about some papers and less about others, and thus his book is very uneven. In fact, since he died before the manuscript was completed, his colleague Jozef Pauco tried to finish the job. The periodicals are not organized according to subject, they simply appear in alphabetical order. Furthermore, there is no table of contents and no index. Unless one knows in advance the exact name of a publication, this book is extremely difficult to use. Feriencik and Culen did only half the job. They listed the titles and described the editorial policy of the founders . No one has done a comprehensive history of any one of the major dailies or weeklies . It would be instructive to know, from a content-analysis, how various Slovak newspapers in America viewed this country, its much-vaunted equality and democracy and their perception of the role of their readers. Robert E. Park attempted such a study in his Immigrant Press and Its Control(26) but since he covered so many different nationalities, his assessment was necessarily shallow. A good history of the Slovak press, as well as that of other ethnic groups in America, is sorely needed. Shortly after having recorded the history of their lodges, parishes and newspapers, American Slovaks began to think of the larger story. A few of them started to publish histories of communities that covered members of all denominations . These have since been supplemented 74 SLOVAKIA by works of professional scholarship, although their number remains small. The first attempt at writing local history was made by lgnac Gessay. Hoping to eventually publish a general work on American Slovaks, this newspaper editor began to gather materials about their oldest communities. One of these was Streator, Illinois, in the bituminous coal fields and Gessay presented its story from the 1870s to 1910 in "Streatorski Slovaci a ich pokrok" (Streator Slovaks and their Progress).(27) Since this was a first attempt written for a national almanac, it necessarily gave only the highlights of the story. Better and more comprehensive histories appeared a short while later. Imrich Mazar, a local lodge leader, compiled a remarkable work entitled Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat rokov, 1879-1919 (Forty Years of the History of Binghamton Slovaks, 18791919).(28) Mazar interviewed pioneers of the community, consulted church and lodge records and read of his people's exploits in the press. Using such sources he very ably covered the story of all aspects of the community - its general history, the story of its fraternals, churches and clubs and the involvement of the local community in the CzechoSlovak liberation movement of World War I. Jan Pankuch did a similarly excellent job in Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks). (29) A newspaper editor by profession, Pankuch persevered in his efforts even after the Great Depression had erupted and he published the book with his own dwindling resources. The only major criticisms that one can make of these two books is that they are poorly organized and lack perspective. Since neither Mazar nor Pankuch had any historical training, they dared not judge what was important and what was not. They recorded everything they had heard or discovered in an often haphazard manner and this made the reading of their books difficult. On the other hand, by not rejecting anything, they made their works invaluable sources for a later generation of historians . .. Two scholars interested in American-Slovak history appeared in the 1960s to make good use of previous pioneering efforts. Josef Barton studied the social mobility of three ethnic groups in Cleveland and included the Slovaks among them . In his Peasants and Strangers,(30) a spin-off of his dissertation, he relied quite extensively on Pankuch for the background story. The present writer, commissioned to write a joint history with another author about the Cleveland Slovak community, used Pankuch as a source quite liberally.(31) Hopefully these will be followed by studies of Slovaks in other cities, enabling future historians SLOVAKIA 75 to compare the fortunes of these people in a wide variety of geographical areas, thus gaining a better perspective on the whole story of immigration. Along with recording much local information, American Slovaks naturally desired an overall view of their coming and settlement in various parts of the New World. Once again the pioneers led the way but this undertaking prove~ too much for them. They had to settle for histories written by a later generation of immigrants and these stories are, as yet, incomplete. lgnac Gessay and Jan A. Feriencik first attempted to compile a general history of their people. Gessay, as we have already seen, did not finish the task.(32) Jan Feriencik inherited not only Gessay 's job but also his notes. Supplementing these with his own research, he published " Nacrtok prist'ahovalectva slovenskeho do Ameriky" (A Sketch of Slovak Immigration to America).(33) Relying upon old newspapers , minute-books, Gessay's notes and his own memory, Feriencik produced a useful, if jaundiced (he was very anti-Semitic) survey of the coming of his people to the New World. He had hoped to produce a full-length monograph on this subject but died before he could do so. With Feriencik's death, along with that of most of his firstgeneration colleagues in the 1920s, the task of recording AmericanSlovak history fell to the second generation . Having absolutely no help from Anglo-American historians, who in the first half of the twentieth century seemed completely uninterested in the history of recent immigration, as Arthur M. Schlesinger lamented,(34) the second generation failed to even match the efforts of their fathers. Andrew P . Slabey and Sister M. Martina Tybor are good examples of second-generation American-Slovak scholars . The former was one of the first Slovak university graduates in the United States and he set out to write a " Prehl'ad dejin Slovakov v Amerike " (A Survey of the History of American Slovaks) in 1926 but he did not finish the task until almost fifty years had passed! (35) Not only did he complete his work at a snail's pace but he based much of his first installment on the research of Gessay and Feriencik, whom he neglected to give credit, and his analysis was much inferior to theirs. The second article came largely from memory . In both he seemed more interested in promoting ' 'Czechoslovakism' ' (36) than in a genuine history of his people. Sister M. Martina Tybor, on the other hand, has made use of original sources but she has seldom told the full story . Thus , in " A Composite Picture of a Slovak Immigrant's Early Experiences,"(37) she presented a very good account of how a ' 'typical ' ' immigrant may 76 SLOVAKIA have fared upon arrival in America but she glossed over the many problems he may also have encountered. Similarly, in "Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916: Slovak-American Priest, Leader, Educator, "(38) she presented an interesting biography of this important early leader but again neglected to mention the many problems he had experienced in dealing with other priests and with his lay followers . Neither Slabey nor Tybor produced a full-length monograph. In the absence of any general histories of American Slovaks, two more recent immigrants set out to fill the void. The first was Konstantin Culen, a journalist by profession, who was drawn to the history of American Slovaks by his involvement in politics in the Old Country. Culen determined to examine the nature and extent of the nationalism that had motivated American Slovaks to make an agreement with the Czechs which guaranteed the Slovaks home-rule in the new Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. After having published one book dealing with such nationalism,(39) he decided to broaden his research and, after publishing numerous articles in various almanacs, he completed the very impressive Dejiny Slov<ikov v Amerike (A History of Slovaks in America).(40) In this work he detailed both the social and political history of his countrymen to 1914. He read widely in their newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, books , minute-books and so on and tried, as best he could, to follow the rules of the historical profession. Unfortunately, he fell victim to the temptations of "filiopietism" and began the story with tales of Slovaks having come in the 17th .century , of their having participated in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and, therefore, having as good a claim to this country as anyone else. Furthermore, he relied too much on Slovak sources , neglecting many English-language studies of immigration at the turn of the century. After the Second World War, with his dreams of an independent Slovakia shattered, Culen immigrated to the United States and tried to carry on his work but found the climate among his people too hostile . He initially worked on the editorial staffs of several American and Canadian Slovak newspapers and publish~d dozens of articles. These were eventually gathered and published in' three important books: J. Slovensky: iivotopis zakladatel'a prvych slovenskych novin v Amerike (J. Slovensky: Biography of the Founder of the First Slovak Newspaper in America);(41) Slovensk e casopisy v Amerike (Slovak Newspapers in America) ;(42) and V zajati falosn ych legiend a nen<ivistneho srdca (Imprisoned by False Legends and a Hateful Heart).(43) In the first of these he recounted how American Slovaks established their oldest newspaper. The second book , which we have already discussed, gave the story of their newspaper press. The third is virtually unknown , for SLOVAKIA 77 he circulated only a few copies to his most trusted friends, but it is also the most important. In it he detailed the hostility which he and many other members of the post-war generation encountered from their lesseducated American countrymen. This is a fascinating phenomenon of rejection of one group oy another based on education and social standing, and since World\ War II it has been typical of many ethnic groups in the United States. Culen had so many arguments with American-Slovak leaders that he was virtually expelled from the community and died alienated from it in 1964. Shortly thereafter the present writer began to follow in Culen's footsteps. Born in Slovakia but educated in North America, he began a study of the political participation of his people in the World War I liberation movement(44) and then turned to their social history. Having used some of their parish and lodge records, supplemented by newspaper articles, he published ''The Slovak Immigrant is Not Anonymous," (45) in which he called on other scholars of immigration to make use of such sources. A little later he detailed some of the problems his countrymen had encountered with the largely IrishCatholic Church in America(46) and he also wrote a brief history of the Cleveland Slovak community.(47) At present he is preparing his dissertation, "Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-1918"(48) for publication as a book. Meanwhile, in the decades since the Second World War, a few people have also concerned themselves with biographies of Slovak pioneers to this country. Konstantin Culen wrote a brief treatise on Jan Slovensky, founder of the first Slovak newspaper in America. (49) While he described adequately Slovensky' s early life and his work in the United States, he did not know all the circumstances surrounding his death by suicide and the work thus remains incomplete. Vincent Holecek, a self-styled historian of Slovaks all over the world, produced a short biography of P. V. Rovnianek entitled Slava a poniienie (Glory and Shame)(50) but ended it in 1907, before Rovnianek's tragic bankruptcy and, thus, also failed to tell the whole story. Jozef Pauco glorified the lives of Stefan Furdek and Matus Jankola(51) and later compiled Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike (Slovak Pioneers in America),(52) which covered the lives of fifty-five important and unimportant countrymen (there seemed to be no rationale for their selection). Finally, Sister M. Martina Tybor eulogized Matus Jankola in two very similar articles published in different joumals.(53) With the exception of Culen, all of the above were more concerned with edifying their subjects than with reaching critical and balanced conclusions. 78 SLOVAKIA Clearly this is another area of American-Slovak history that needs elaboration. The study of Slovak immigration, however, has not been confined to residents of North America. After the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 a new school of Marxist historians appeared and some of them took an interest in their brethren overseas. Utilizing new disciplines such as demography and uncovering hitherto unprocessed county documents, they added new dimensions to the study of immigration, especially to its impact on the home country. Jim Sveton, a demographer , led the way. In his "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu" (Slovak Emigration in the Era of Hungarian Capitalism),(54) he studied the impact of mass migration on the remaining population. Using village birth and death records, he calculated the net loss of population due to emigration and discovered that the Slovaks were second only to the Irish in per capita emigration and population decline in the 19th century. These views were further elaborated in Obyvatel'stvo Slovenska za kapitalizmu (The Population of Slovakia Under Capitalism).(55) Jan Hanzlik followed in Sveton' s footsteps and in four articles showed the high level to which the new discipline of demography had risen. His "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo na prahu imperializmu" (Slovak Emigration on the Threshold of Imperialism)(56) dealt with the net loss of population due to emigration based on village censuses for the heaviest years of migration, 1901-1910. In "Vyst'ahovalectvo z vychodneho Slovenska" (Emigration from Eastern Slovakia)(57) he focused on that region of the country which had lost the most people and blamed the Magyars for the exodus because they had refused to industrialize Hungary. He expanded his research in "Vyvoj obyvatel'stva na Slovensku v obdobi 1869-1961 " (The Evolution of the Population of Slovakia in the Years 1861-1961). (58) Besides studying the impact emigration had had on the population for over a hundred years , he also blamed the Czechs for having prompted the industrialization of Bohemia-Moravia at th\ expense of Slovakia after 1918 and thus having contributed to the contiQued emigration of Slovaks from their native land in the twentieth century. Finally, in ' ' Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky" (The Beginnings of Slovak Emigration to America, Its Causes and Consequences to 1918),(59) Hanzlik summarized his research and that of other interested scholars and presented a very creditable interpretation of the impact of Slovak emigration to 1918. SLOVAKIA 79 Once their demographer-colleagues had opened the field, Marxist historians also began to take notice of emigration. Ladislav Tajtak focused on that part of the country which had lost the most people in ''Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny'' (Eastern Slovak Emigration to the Fill.st World War)(60) and he carefully showed which of the eastern countries had lost the largest numbers and why. In a later work, "K zaciatkom Amerikansko-Slovenskych Novin" (Concerning the Beginnings of Amerik<insko-Slovenske Noviny)(6l) he traced, for the first time since Culen's Janka Slovensky, the history of the first Slovak newspaper in America. Frantisek Bielik and Elo Rakos, meanwhile, collected and published the most relevant documents pertaining to emigration in Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Slovak Emigration: Documents I, to 1918)(62) and a little later documents to 1939 in a book with a similar title. (63) They also provided a good introduction to both sets of documents. Finally, Milos Gosiorovsky legitimized all this concern with countrymen in capitalist America by publishing ''Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky a robotnicke hnutie" (Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky and the Workers' Movement)(64) in which he tried to link the workers' (communist) movements of the two worlds. Even though scholars in Slovakia have taken notice of their countrymen abroad, their perspective has been limited by ideological considerations. As I have pointed out in "Agrarian Problems in Slovakia, 1848-1918: An Historiographic Essay,"(65) Marxist scholars in the Old World must tow the party line. Thus, they can cite the works of Konstantin Culen and other ''bourgeois'' writers only at great peril to their own freedom and they have had to embellish their books and articles with liberal references to Marx, Lenin (and Stalin in the 1950s) and other prophets of the new order. Furthermore, these scholars can seldom, if ever, travel to the United States, and thus rich AmericanSlovak archives are beyond their reach. Therefore, they have necessarily concentrated on the impact of emigration on the home country and have only touched on the history of their countrymen abroad. Another approach to the study of immigration has been the novel. While traditional scholarly works have analyzed the nature and experience of the ethnic community in the midst of a new environment, the novel has become an important vehicle for understanding the dynamics of the situation and for expressing the feelings of the people . American Slovaks have been pleased with three outstanding novelists in this regard - Thomas Bell, Michael Novak and Sonya Jason. Bell , in Out of this Furnace ,(66) provided a moving account of 80 SLOVAKIA the sufferings of the first three generations in the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania. His book was so painfully realistic that most of his countrymen avoided reading it. In a different vein Michael Novak described the difficulties that an upwardly-mobile third-generation American Slovak encountered in coping with the largely Anglo-Saxon world in Naked I Leave(67) and in the more analytical Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics .(68) Finally, Sonya Jason, also a product of a Pennsylvania steel town, portrayed the reaction of a third-generation woman to the insatiable demands of American armies for immigrant bodies in Concommitant Soldier: Woman and War.(69) One can only lament the dearth of such novels in the United States. While various aspects of Slovak immigration have been covered by members of this ethnic group, native Americans have seldom noticed these people and when they have, it has been either in the context of nativism or else as a part of the history of immigration in general. Nativism , that ideological disease which breeds hostility towards immigrants, infected the minds of some Americans at the tum of the century, causing them to write books extremely hostile to the ''new'' immigrants from Southeastern Europe, from whence the Slovaks came. Howard B. Grose, for instance, in a book aimed at Protestant Missionaries entitled Aliens or Americans?(70) deemed the newcomers to be a "heathen" threat to America and advocated their forceful conversion to Protestant Christianity in order to "Americanize" them. The theme of the immigrant "menace" also found its way into socalled scholarly works. Annie Marian Maclean, who fancied herself a "Progressive" social scientist, surveyed Southeastern Europeans in Pennsylvania and published " Life in the Pennsylvania Coal Fields with Particular Reference to Women, '' in a muckrating style that very much pleased the readers of the American Journal of Sociology .(71) Helen L. Wilson and Eunice W. Smith engaged in similar exposes for the AJS , devoting entire articles to individual ethnic groups, among them being "Chicago Housing Conditions , VIII: Among the Slovaks in the Twentieth Ward. "(72) Both of these works, in their lurid descriptions of immigrant ghettoes, warned Americans of the possible destruction of their society through unrestricted immigration. Nativist scholarship reached its pinnacle in an official government report which summarized all the prejudices then rampant in the United States towards Southeastern Europeans: \Established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the Dillingham Co~ission, _on Immigration reported in 1911 that the newcomers, among them the Slovaks, were a menace to American society because they allegedly bred slums, engaged in criminal activities and retarded the labor movement.(73) SLOVAKIA ~ 81 However, as Maldwyn Jones'8.Ild Oscar Handlin have recently shown, the commissioners twisted the statistics to suit their preconceived notions.(74) Ironically enough, if one ignores the conclusions of the commissioners and uses only the raw statistics, one can discover in this Report a great deal of valuable material pertaining to the social history of Slovaks and other Southeastern Europeans in America at the tum of the century. Not all Americans, of course, accepted the findings of the Report or agreed with its conclusions. A small group of scholars, usually members of the "Social Gospel" movement which sought to help the poor and downtrodden, viewed the ''new'' immigrants sympathetically. Their writings served as a healthy counterweight to nativist attacks on these people. One of the first American defenders of Southern and Eastern Europeans was the Rev. Peter Roberts. A member of the Presbyterian Home Mission Society, Roberts set about describing, in great detail, the everyday life of the new immigrants (and these included the Slovaks) in their new social setting. His Anthracite Coal Communities(75) and The New Immigration: A Study of the Industrial and Social Life of Southeastern Europeans in America(76) are classics in sociological analysis. Rather than seeking evidence of these peoples' "inferiority," as various nativists had done, Roberts visited them, observed their habits and concluded that they fit very well into the American capitalist system, even if they did have to start at the bottom. While Roberts dealt with Southeastern Europeans in general, Emily Greene Balch focused on the Slavic nationalities in particular and produced the as yet unsurpassed Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens.(77) By devoting an entire chapter to each Slavic group and then doing a general analysis of them all, she showed the way to later generations of historians. She not only studied American-Slavic communities and talked with their people but also visited their homelands to get a transAtlantic perspective on the whole process of migration. This professor of political economy was so far ahead of her time that to this day no American historian has written a book of comparable depth and scope about the various Slavic ethnic groups in this country. One reason why American historians have not yet superseded Emily Greene Balch is that for generations the former simply ignored the history of Southeastern Europeans. Between the 1920s when the United States passed its restrictive immigration quota laws which presumed that everyone would disappear into the " melting pot " and the 1960s when an ethnic revival swept the country, virtually no books or articles concerned with Slavic immigrants appeared in any major 82 SLOVAKIA historical journals or university presses. A small group of Czech scholars and their sympathizers produced a few interesting studies but these paled in comparison to earlier efforts by immigrants themselves. Indeed, even when a few American historians did begin to notice the Slavs in the 1960s, their studies remained very superficial. The first Czech scholar to write about American Slovaks was Tomas Capek of New York. A lawyer by profession, he accepted a commission from the National Slovak Society and wrote The Slovaks of Hungary: Slavs and Pan-Slavism,(78) which was in effect the first history of these people in the English language. Later he and his son published The Czechoslovaks, the second half of which dealt with the Slovaks under the heading The Slovaks in America . (79) The latter work, consisting chiefly of impressions gathered from various informants, was vastly inferior to the first study which was grounded on a stronger scholarly base. However, since these were virtually the only studies of American Slovaks in the English language, leaders of the community which they described did treasure them. Josef Slabey Roucek followed in the Capeks' footsteps and tried to carry on their work. One of the few sociologists in the United States who could read various Slavic languages in the 1930s and 1940s, Roucek did write several articles about these peoples including ''The Passing of American Czechoslovaks.'' (80) In this and in similar works about other Slavic groups, Roucek bowed to the current ideology and predicted the rapid disappearance of all ethnic Americans into the ''melting pot.'' Since he was virtually alone in his concern for American Slavs, Roucek by default dominated this field for many years. Virtually his only competitor was Andrew A. Marchbin. The latter wrote peripherally about the Slovaks in "Early Emigration from Hungary to Canada," (81) and in " Hungarian Activities in Western Pennsylvania.'' (82) While Roucek tended to mix the Slovaks together with the Czechs, Marchbin mixed them with the Magyars, since he dealt with an earlier period. The latter did, however, mention the problems that divided the Slovaks from the Magyars while Roucek tried to cover up the differences between Czechs and Slovaks. In any case, both sociologists were good representatives of the dearth of American ethnic studies until the 1960s. In the decade of Vietnam and the Black Revolution , certain American scholars finally came to the reaJization that ethnicity was here to stay. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P . Moynihan said as much in their Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroe's, Puerto Ricans, Jews , Italians and Irish of New York City. (83) Influenced by these and other sociological works, a few historians set out to systematically collect SLOVAKIA 83 materials pertaining to immigrant history and to write books and articles about Southeastern Europeans who had for so long been neglected by American scholars . Timothy L. Smith helped establish the Immigrant Archives of the University of Minnesota in 1963 and he also urged fellow-historians in "New Approaches to the History of Immigration in Tw~ntieth-C~ntury America" (84) to study the longneglected peoples of Souther.n and Eastern Europe . While he seemed to be going against the tide in stressing the assimilation of these people in this and in subsequent articles ,(85) he did study the Slovaks, among others, and he did bring the attention of America's scholars to this neglected area of historical inquiry. His colleague Victor R. Greene, meanwhile , focused on the Poles and Lithuanians and peripherally on the Slovaks in Slavs on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite, (86) the first major work about these peoples since the 1920s! If one were to fault either of these scholars , it would be for their preoccupation with the history of several ethnic groups at once while neglecting to study any one of them in any great detail. Smith always speaks of several ethnic groups in his articles and too often assumes that they are all alike in their reaction to such American institutions as the public schools.(87) Greene, similarly, always speaks of the "Slavs" when, in reality, he is dealing only with the Poles and a few Lithuanians , and the latter are not Slavs. This practice is apparent in most of his articles and it often leads him to make erroneous conclusions about non-Poles.(88) The present writer sees in Smith 's and Greene 's articles a bit of the bias of the American historical profession . It is all right for Kenneth Lockridge or John Demos or Philip Grev en to devote entire monographs to tiny English settlements in New England(89) but somehow it is not all right for Timothy Smith or Victor Greene to study only the Slovaks, or Poles, or Croats, or other Southeastern Europeans. The assumption exists among most members of the profession that White Anglo-Saxon peoples are more important than other ethnic groups and , therefore , deserve more attention while the Slavs or even the Southeastern Europeans must be treated as a whole because individually they are not very important . Trying to overcome such discrimination should be one of the objectives of a future generation of historians. CONCLUSION It should be apparent, the refore, that the historiography of Slovak immigration to America has undergone many changes and that much of the story remains untold . Until very recently the best works on this 84 SLOVAKIA subject were those written by the pioneers themselves . Long before professional historians even bothered to study immigration, various ethnic leaders began to gather and read manuscript and printed materials of the past, they interviewed ''old timers " before oral history became fashionable and they made predictions about their communities that were uncannily accurate. Such ground-breaking efforts disprove Edward N. Saveth ' s charges that histories written by immigrants themselves are of little value because they are filled with filiopietism . (90) While the first generation did a commendable job in recording its people 's past, the second lagged behind and had to be aided by scholars in the Old World and, ultimately, by better-trained members of the third generation. Perhaps reacting to the pressures of ''Americanization,'' few American-born Slovaks bothered to write their own history and those who did so expended less effort at it than had their fathers. Members of the second generation produced no major monographs, only short articles that dealt with some particular aspect of their experience or convictions. Into this vacuum stepped Old World historians like Konstantin Culen who gave American Slovaks their first systematic history and various Marxist scholars who began to treat emigration as a major social problem. Finally , with the ethnic revival of the 1960s there came not only a new interest in immigration by Anglo-American historians like Timothy L. Smith but also a professional treatment of the subject by a new breed of "ethnic" historians such as Josef Barton and Mark Stolarik. The latter two deeply immersed themselves into the sources and began for the first time to reproduce the history of American Slovaks for an English-speaking audience , Barton's and Stolarik 's efforts have un"covered only the tip of the iceberg. In looking at social mobility, for instance, they have studied but the first two generations , and only Roman Catholics at that. The fate of the third and fourth generations remains unknown as does the behavior of the Lutherans, Greek Catholics and Calvinists. Did Slovak Protestants react to America differently from Catholics, as Max Weber would have predicted? If so , then perhaps their history should be studied separately from the majority Catholic group and the differences and similarities should then be compared and contrasted with other American religious and ethnic groups. The role of Slovaks in the American labor movement also remains untold. While the present writer touched upon this story in his dissertation , the total picture is so vast and the evidence is so great that one could devote an entire monograph to it. Attitudes towards manual SLOVAKIA 85 labor, the factory system, unions, strikes, socialism and so on need to be clarified and compared with other ethnic groups in order to rescue American labor history from its preoccupation with the history of unions as institutions and channel it back to the history of the workers themselves. What of those immig\ants who returned home? Slovaks had a return rate of 20 percent. Why did these people not remain in the " promised land?" How did they fare upon their return to the Old Country? Did they have any economic, social, or cultural impact upon their brethren back home? No one has yet dealt with this aspect of immigration. Slovak involvement in American politics also remains a mystery. Which political party did the earliest immigrants support and which do their descendants? Did they join the ' 'city machines' ' immediately and if so, why? Did they have "ward-heelers" of their own or did some other ethnic group perform this function for them? What influence, if any, has the "Slovak vote" had upon local, state and national politics? All of these questions remain unanswered. The whole subject of assimilation also needs more study. Using Milton Gordon's seven steps towards complete or "structural" assimilation,(91) an " index" of assimilation is needed to determine how far American Slovaks have proceeded along this path and to provide a way of comparing them with other ethnic groups. Those who have resisted assimilation should also be studied. What role did their fraternal-benefit societies play in this opposition? Did their concept of family , neighborhood and life in general also lead to rejection of assimilation? Are their values radically different from Anglo-American ones and, if so, are they healthy or dangerous to the host society? Finally , the present state of the community needs attention. Are American-Slovaks happy? Did this country fulfill their aspirations or leave them disappointed? Is there a "generation-gap" in attitudes towards the American way of life? How do Slovaks react to other ethnic groups, particularly blacks? Have they dispersed from their original communities into all parts of the city or have they congregated in certain suburbs and why? Are immigrants in certain regions or cities better off than in others and why? · These are just a few of the questions that need answering. And they need not apply only to Slovaks. The vast majority of Southern and Eastern European ethnic groups have for too long been ignored by American historians.(92) Until we know their stories as well as we do the Anglo-American one, we will not really understand this country. 86 SLOVAKIA FOOTNOTES (1) Obzor (Skalica, Slovakia), July 5 , 1873 and intermittently through July 5 , 1883 . (2) Tovarysstvo (Rufomberok , Slovakia) I (1893), 233-8. (3) Ibid . , III (1900), 293-300. (4) Ibid ., 301-5. (5) Kalendar J ednota, 1899 (Cleveland) , 135-6. (6) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku (Pittsburgh), I (No. 2-3, 1915), 98-109 . (7) Kalendar Jednota, 1911 , 75-89. (8) Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1927-30. (9) Pittsburgh, 1924. (10) Kalendar Jednota, 1906, 33-114 . (11) Kalendar Jednota, 1911, 90-5. (12) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 97-147 . (13) Cleveland , 1928. (14) Minneapolis, 1941. (15) Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 83 (Sept.-Dec. 1972), 151-8. (16) St . Louis, 1955. (17) Cleveland , 1955 . (18) Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 66-77 . (19) Sbornik Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, I (No. 2-3, 1915), 90-7. (20) Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvinov, 1927, 57-80 . (21) Ibid ., 37-56. (22) Minneapolis, 1938. (23) Cleveland, 1965. (24) Sbornik Narodneho Slovensk eho Spolku, I (No . 2-3, 1915) , 20-39 . (25) Published posthumously in Cleveland, 1970. (26) New York, 1922 . (27) Narodny Kalendar, 1911 , 117-28. (28) Binghamton , New York, 1919. (29) Cleveland, 1930. (30) Cambridge, Mass., 1975 . (31) The Slovak Community of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1978), co-authored with Sister M. Martina Tybor. (32) See above. ' , (33) Sbornik Narodneho Slove nskeho Spolku, I (No . 2-:t. 1915), 9~19 . (34) " The Significance of Immigration in American History, " Th e American Journal of Sociology, 27 (1921), 71-85. It is revealing that this article appeared in a sociology journal and not in an historical one . (35) Narodny Kale ndar, 1926, 41-59 and 1972 , 60-7. SLOVAKIA 87 (36) A "Czechoslovak" is a Czech or Slovak who believes that these two peoples are really one nation and he downplays their cultural differences. (37) Jednota Annual Furdek (Cleveland), 8, (1969) , 3-23. (38) Slovakia (Middletown, Pa.), XXIll (1972) , 161-92. (39) Pittsburghsk<i dohoda (The Pittsburgh Agreement) , Bratislava , 1937. (40) 2 Volumes, Bratislava, 1942. (41) Winnipeg, 1954. (42) Cleveland , 1970. (43) Mimeographed author 's publication , New York, 1961. (44) " The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies VIII _(Rome , 1?68). 7-84 . (45) Jednota Annual Furdek, X (~971), 99-105 . (46) See above. (47) See above. (48) Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1974 . (49) See above . (50) New York, 1957. (51) Stefan Furdek a slovenske prist'ahovalectuo (Stefan Furdek and Slovak Immigration). Cleveland, 1955; and Matus Jankola, knaz a n<irodouec (Matus Jankola, Priest and Patiot), Danville, Pa . , 1959. (52) Cleveland, 1973. (53) See above and "Father Matthew Jankola, 1872-1916," Slovak Studies, IX (1969) . 75-94. (54) Ekonomicky casopis, 4 (1956), 171-91. (55) Bratislava, 1958. (56) Geograficky casopis, XIII (1961), 195-210. (57) In I.:udovit Holotik (Ed.), Prispeuky k dejin<im uychodneho Slouenska (Contributions to the History of Eastern Slovakia). Bratislava, 1964, 220-32 . (58) Geograficky casopis, 19 (1967). 3-28 . (59) In Josef Polisensky (Ed.), Zaciatky ceskej a slouenskej emigr<icie do USA (The Beginnings of Czech and Slovak Immigration to the U.S.A.) (Bratislava, 1970), 49-96 . (60) Noue obzory (Kosice, Slovakia), Ill (1961), 221-47. (61) In Polisensky , op. cit. , 186-96. (62) Bratislava, 1969. (63) Martin, Slovakia, 1975. (64) In Polisensky, op. cit., 197-207. (65) Histoire sociale/Social History, VII (May , 1974) , 111-20. (66) Boston, 1941. (67) New York, 1970. (68) New York , 1971 . (69) Santa Monica, Calif., 1973. 88 SLOVAKIA (70) New York , 1906. (71) 14 (1908-9). 329-51. (72) 20 (1914), 145-69. (73) Reports of the Immigration Commission, 42 Volumes (Washington, 61st Congress, Senate, 1911). (74) See Maldwyn Jones , American Immigration (Chicago, 1960), 177-82 and Oscar Handlin 's Introduction to the R eports of the Immigration Commission, Volume I (Arno Press Reprint, New York , 1970) , 1-XLVI. (75) 2 volumes, New York, 1904. (76) New York, 1912 . (77) New York, 1910. (78) New York, 1906. (79) New York, 1921. (80) American Journal of Sociology, (1933-4), 611-25 . (81) Slavic Review, Xfil (1934), 127-38. (82) The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, 23 (1940) , 163-74. (83) New York , 1963. (84) American Historical Review, 71 (July, 1966), 1265-79. (85) See for example " Immigrant Social Aspirations and American Education, 18801930," American Quarterly, XXI (Fall , 1969). 523-43; and "Lay Initiative in the Religious Life of American Immigrants, " in Tamara Hareven (Ed .), Anonymous Americans: Explorations in Nineteenth-Century Social History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. , 1971) , 214-49. (86) Notre Dame, 1968. (87) "Immigrant Social Aspirations, " op cit. (88) See for example his ''For God and Country: The Origins of Slavic SelfConsciousness in America," Church History, 35 (December, 1966), 1-15 and " Slavic American Nationalism, 1870-1918," in Anna Cienciala (Ed.) , American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists, Warsaw , August 21-7, 1973, Vol. ill: H istory (The Hague , 1973) , 197-215 . (89) Ke nneth Lockridge, A New England To wn: The First Hundred Years (New York, 1970); John Demos , A L(ttle Commonweafth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York , 1970) ; and Philip Greven, Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, 1970). (90) American Historian s and European Immigration, 1875-1925 (New York, 1948) . (91) Assimilation in American Life : The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New York, 1964) . \ (92) For an excellent analysis of the present state of immigration historiography see Rudolph J . Vecoli, " European Americans : From Immigrants to Ethnics, " in William H . Cartwright and Richard L. Watson (Eds.), The R einterpretation of American History and Culture (Washington , 1973) , 81-112 .  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 From Field to Factory: The Historiography of Slovak Immigration to the United States Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 28 (No. 51-52), 1978-79 pp. 66-88 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978-79 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/162cb2b35c1f7f1f59fdec97e143349b.pdf a4e333c84d5e20423e0ad2235c253997 PDF Text Text 34 SLOVAKIA Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M. MARK STOLARIK In 1983, as the centennial of the Slovak-American press approached , I decided to re-work Konstantin Culen's annotated bibliography Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1970) and tell the story as he would have had he not died prematurely in 1964 . Therefore , I literally took his book apart and put it back together again with the aid of a computer. This resulted in two analytical essays and the listing I am about to publish. The essays were: " The Slovak-American Press," [1885-1984] in Sally M. Miller ed., The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analy sis and Handbook (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1987), and "At Home Abroad: The SlovakAmerican Press, 1885-1918 , " which is slated to appear in Owen V. Johnson 's edited volume entitled Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe. The list of Slovak-American newspapers published between 1885 and 1975 which follows is based upon Culen's book , cited above , and the late Michal Lacko's Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1945-1965, and 1966-1975 published in Slovak Studies VII and XVII, Bibliografica 1 and 2 (Rome: Slovak Institute, 1967 and 1977) . Culen listed 246 titles in his book, but, upon close inspection, I discovered 39 titles that he could not verify or which should not have been listed because they were not Slovak newspapers. I subtracted these from the list. Furthermore, Lacko discovered 13 titles that Culen had missed and I added these, coming up with a grand total of 220 for the period 1885-1975 . There have probably �SLOVAKIA 35 been more than 220 Slovak-American newspapers in the period 1885-1975, but they remain to be discovered and verified. Also, Jozef Rydlo, who has taken over the duties of editor of Slovak Studies, is presently working on a Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1976-1985 and his work will allow me, or someone else, to update the list to 1985. Meanwhile, here is how I prepared the list. I carefully read Culen's annotated bibliography and kept his definition of a newspaper as one that appeared at least quarterly. I then listed the title, the date and city it first appeared in, and also major subsequent cities if it moved, and the date it folded. This list (plus my analytical articles, cited abov~) supplements the work of Michal Potemra who published a Bibliografia slovenskych novin a casopisov do roku 1918 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1958) and Maria Kipsova et. al . Bibliografia slovenskych a inorecovy ch novin a casopisov z rokov 1919-1938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1968) . I hope that students of SlovakAmerican history will find it useful. Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975 1885 Bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1885-1886) 1886 Bulletin Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh, 1886-1922) 1887 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1888 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Nova vlast' (Streator , Ill ., 1888) Slovak v Amerike (Plymouth & New York , 1889) Zastava (Plymouth , Pa ., 1889) 1890 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1891 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota (Cleveland , 1891) Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1889 1892 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny (Hazleton , Pa ., 1889-1891) Robotnik (Connellsville , Pa ., 1889) Americky Slovak (Cleveland, 1892-1894) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota �36 SLOVAKIA Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Jersey City, N .J., 1892) 1893 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Slovak v Amerike Slovenska svornost' (Connellsville , Pa., 1893-1897) 1894 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cirkevne listy (Cleveland, 1894-1899) Fakla (New York City, 1894) Jednota Majak (Pittsburgh, 1894) Pravda (Connellsville , Pa., 1894-1896) Slovak v Arilerike Slovenska pravda (Freeland, Pa., 1984-1904) Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas (Pittsburgh, 1894-1898) 1895 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas (Nanticoke, Pa., 1895-1899) Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik (Freeland , Pa., 1895-1898) Pravda Rodina (Cleveland, 1895) Slovak (New York City , 1895) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1896 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Pravda Rarasek (Pittsburgh, 1896-1912) Sasok (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1896-1898) Slovak v Amerike Slovaktownske hlasy (Pittsburgh, 1896) Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1897 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik (Cleveland, 1897-1898) Cas Cirkevne listy The Emmigrant (Pittsburgh , 1897) Jednota Katolik Mydlo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa., 1897-1898) Rarasek Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovenske noviny (Hazleton , Pa., 1897-1911) Slovensky hlas 1898 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Mydlo Rarasek �SLOVAKIA Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlas 1899 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1899-1941 ; 1945) Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Novy Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1899) Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny 1900 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Cas Jednota Lutheran (Cleveland , 1900-1902) Rarasek Slaboda (Chicago, 1900-1901) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik (Pittsburgh, 1900-1962) Slovensky Lutheran (Philadelphia, 1900) 1901 37 Slebodny Orel (New York, N.Y., 1901-1904) Slaboda Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik (Pittsburgh, 1901-1915) Slovensky hlasnik Viera (Cleveland , 1901-1902) 1902 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American (Pittsburgh, 1902-1903) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky obcan (Bridgeport, Conn., 1902) Viera 1903 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Naso novini (New York , N.Y., 1901) 1904 Rarasek Sip (Cleveland, 1901) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny �38 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Robotnik (New York, N.Y., 1904) Slebodny V Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik Svedok (Pittsburgh , 1906Zornicka (Wilkes-Barre, Pa. , 1906-1907) 1907 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas (Cleveland, 1907-1947) 1905 Jednota Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Nasa zastava Rarasek Jednota Rovnost' l'udu Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensko-Americky zabavnik (Chicago , 1905-1912) Slovensky dennik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin (Pittsburgh, Slovensky sokol (Perth Amboy , N .J., 1907-1962) 1905-1966) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky tyzdenmk (New York, Slovensky sokol N.Y ., 1905-1906) Svedok Sokol a narod (1905) Zensky svet (New York, N.Y., 1907-1908) Zornicka 1906 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1908 Bratstvo Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Bratstvo Katolicke Slovenske noviny Hlas (Chicago, 1906-1926) Nasa zastava (Bridgeport , Conn. , Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny 1906-1907) Krajan (Hazleton , Pa. , 1908) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu (Chicago, 1906-1935) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Skola reci anglickej (Pittsburgh, Slovenske noviny 1908-1909) Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky pokrok (New York , N.Y ., Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik 1906-1911) �SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Cudahy , Wisc., 1908) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Svetlak Zensky svet Zivena (Pittsburgh, 19081909 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Skala reci anglickej Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Clarksburg , W.Va ., 1909-1910) Svetlak Zivena 1910 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Kometa (Passaic, N.J. , 1910) Mladez (Pittsburgh , 1910-1911) Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh, 1910) Niva (Homestead, Pa., 1910-1911) Rarasek 39 Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Chicago, 1910) Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Youngstow nske Slovenske noviny (Youngstown, Ohio, 1910-1938) Zivena 1911 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor (Cleveland, 1911-1912) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol (Passaic , N.J., 1911) I.'.udovy dennik (Chicago , 1911-1917) Mladez Narodne noviny Niva Nova vlast' (Scranton, Pa ., 1911) Priatel' dietok (Passaic, N.J. , 1911) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak a Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obzor (Passaic, N.J., 1911) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky soko l �40 SLOVAKIA Svedok Svornost' (Pittsburgh, 1911-1970} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1912 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor Hlas Jednota Juhozapadne noviny (Deslego , Mo. , 1912} Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an (Uniontown , Pa., 1912-1932} I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Chicago, 1912} Priatel' dietok Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan (Hazleton , Pa ., 1912-1947} Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdenmk (Cleveland, 1912} Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1913 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan (New York, N.Y ., 1913-1921} Krest'an I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik (New York, N .Y., 1913-1975) Osveta (Cleveland, 1913) Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo (Chicago , 1913-1914) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Viestnik (Chicago, 1913) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1914 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Hlas svobody (New York, N.Y., 1914-1917) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika (Cleveland, 1914-1915) I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1914-1916) Narodny Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1914-1916) New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok �SLOVAKIA Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Oplna zdrzanlivost' (Hazleton , Pa ., 1914) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota (Cleveland, 1914-1975) Zivena 1915 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1915) Amerikansko-Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh , 1915-1916) Besedy l'udu (New York, 1915-1917) Bratstvo Denny hlas (Cleveland, 1915-1925) Farnik (Monessen, Pa. , 1915-1916) Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika Kruh mladeze (Pittsburgh , 1915-1934) l.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny Slovensky dennik New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1916 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky svet Besedy l'udu Bratstvo Certik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1917) Denny hlas Farnik Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze l.:udovy dennik Narod (Pittsburgh, 1916) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1924) Narodny slovensky dennik Nedel'a (Hazelton , Pa ., 1916) New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana (Scranton, Pa ., 1916-1972) Slovensky hlasnik 41 �42 SLOVAKIA Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1916) Svetlak Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1917 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria (Cleveland, 1917Besedy l'udu (New York, N.Y., 1915-1917) Bratstvo Certik Chicagsky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Denny hlas Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota . Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska mladez (Pittsburgh , 1917-1918) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor (Chicago , 1917-1922) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran (Chicago, 1917-1937) Udalosti sveta (Hazleton, Pa., 1917-1919) Uradny organ (Braddock, Pa., 1917-1918) Vatra (Pittsburgh, 1917) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1918 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa (Bridgeport , Conn., 1918-1952) Bratstvo Denny hlas Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran (Streator, Ill., 1918-1941) Mudron district (Chicago , 1918) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko (Pittsburgh, 1918-1922) Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku (Chicago, 1918-1920) Osadnik (Cleveland , 1918) Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike �SLOVAKIA Slovenska mladez Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Oradny organ Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zurnal spojenych majnerov (Indianapolis , Ind., 1918) 1919 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Denny hlas . Dobry pastier (Munhall, Pa. , 1919) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike 43 Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1920 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1920-1927) Ceskoslovensky legionar (Pittsburgh , 1920-1926) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota (Cleveland , 1920-1945) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Hlas Sv. Emanuela (Minneapolis , 1920) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky Slovak (Chicago, 1920-1921) Katolicky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik (New York, 1920-1921) Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne bratstvo (Cleveland , 1920) Narodne noviny �44 SLOVAKIA Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Proletar (Cleveland, 1920-1921) Rovnost' l'udu Sion (Pittsburgh, 1920Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 192 1 Amerikansk6-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' (Chicago , 1921-1922) Jednota Jara (Middletown, Pa ., 1921-1964) Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Katolfcky Slovak Katolfcky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Proletar Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf (Bridgeport, Conn., 1921-1923) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1922 Americky Slovak (Pittsburgh , 1922) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago , 1922) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' �SLOVAKIA Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Studentska horlivost' (Lisle, Ill. , 1922-1923) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nova vlast' (Pittsburgh, 1923) Nave easy Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Studentska horlivost' Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1923 1924 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky (Danville, Pa., 1923-1970) Furdek (Middletown, Pa., Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Caskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica (Pittsburgh , 1924-1962) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek 1923-1941) 45 �46 SLOVAKIA Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska (Pittsburgh, 1924) Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny tyzdennik (Pittsburgh , 1924) Nasa mladez (Chicago , 1924) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota (McKees Rocks, Pa ., 1924-1935) Priatet' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska oqrana Slovensky bulletin (Bethlehem , Pa ., 1924-1929) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1925 Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske slovo (Cleveland , 1925) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Schenectady, N.Y ., 1925) Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo 1926 �SLOVAKIA Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legiona.r Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh, Cernoknaznik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pok.rokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sdruzeniar (Youngstown, Ohio, 1927) Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena (Cleveland, 1927-1931) 1927 Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Ave Maria 1926-1940) Slovo (Pittsburgh, 1926-19 37) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1928 47 �48 SLOVAKIA Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Li sty Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky K,alvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1929 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' (McKeesport, Pa ., 1929-1939) Sion Slovak Manor obzor (Long Island, N.Y ., 1929) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny (New York , N.Y. , 1929-1943) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo �SLOVAKIA 1930 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet (Cleveland, 1930-1962) Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Orol (New York, N.Y., 1930) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz (Pittsburgh, 1930-1931) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zapadne hlasy (Milwaukee , 1930) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1931 Ave Maria The Benedictine (Cleveland, 1931-1976) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator (Milwaukee , 1931-1932) Nas svet (Chicago, 1931-1940) Nasa straz (Pittsburgh, 1931) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin 49 �SLOVAKIA 50 Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1932 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske Srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik (Riverside , Ill. , 1932- ) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jed no ta Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Lampas (Cleveland, 1932) Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jed nota Zivena Zrkadlo 1933 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennlk Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota �SLOVAKIA Pravda (Chicago , 193 3-1945} Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Democrat (New York , N.Y., 1933} Slovak V Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky soko l Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wiconsinsky Slovak (Milwaukee, 1933-1936} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1934 Americky Slovak (Cleveland , 1934-35} Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Detroitsky Slovak (Detroit, 1934} Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostalnost' Sion Slovak (New York , N.Y ., 1934) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska revizia (Detriot , 1934} Slovenske novin y Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1935 Americky Slovak Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937} Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota 51 �52 SLOVAKIA Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik (Chicago, 1935-1945) Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Rozsieva/'.: (Gaines , Mich., 1935-1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1936 Ave Maria The Benedictine Besiedky , Listy Americkych Slovakov (New York , N.Y., 1936) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier (Granite City, Ill ., 1936-1937) Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda a slavna nadej (Chicago, 1936) Pravda Priatel' dietok Rozsieva/'.: Rozsievac pravdy (Akron, Ohio , 1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an �SLOVAKIA Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1937 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Hlasnik (Akron , Ohio , 1937) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1938 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok 53 �54 SLOVAKIA Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Straz (Palmyra , Pa. , 1938) Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1939 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1940 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky soko l Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak (Chicago, 1940-1942) �SLOVAKIA Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenka (Chicago , 1940) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obi':an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1941 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovanske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka (Pittsburgh , 1941Zrkadlo 1942 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jez isa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze (New York , N.Y., 1942-1968) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Ludovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota (Wilkes-Barre, 1942-1944) Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduvern y Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny 55 �56 SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1943 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy denn'ik Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Record (Pittsburgh, 1943) Slaboda (New York , N.Y., 1943) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1944 Ave Maria The Benedictine Boske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon (Pittsburgh, 1944-1970) Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota �SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo Zornicka Zrkadlo 1945 1946 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa. , 1954) Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Cudove noviny (Chicago , 1945-1984) Cudovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Za tu nasu slovencinu (Scranton , Pa., 1945) Zenska jednota Zivena Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Hlas slovenskej slobody (WilkesBarre , Pa ., 1946) Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska Cudove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Digest (Pittsburgh , 1946) Slovak Review (Middletown , Pa., 1946-1947) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 57 �58 1947 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas ml adeze Jednota Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Arnerike Slovak Review Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1948 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica SLOVAKIA Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradny Slovensky tyzdennik (Chicago , 1948) New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak Bulletin (Pittsburgh, 1948) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska liga (Passaic , 1948) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1949 Ave Maria The Benedictin e Bozske srdce Jez isa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Denni ca Dobry past ier Fialky Hla s ml adeze Jed nota Jara Kad et Katolicky sokol �SLOVAKIA Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Newsletter (Middletown , Pa .. 1949-1958) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny (Cleveland, 1949-1959) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii':ka Zrkadlo 1950 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas (Washington , D.C., 1950-1959) Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky' dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1951 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne novin y New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagl e (Bridgeport, Conn .. 1951) Slovak Newsletter 59 �60 Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii'.:ka Zrkadlo 1952 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky so!<ol Listy Sv. Frantiska 1'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky soko l Svetlak SLOVAKIA Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1953 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad (Middletown, Pa., 1953-1958) Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak (Maitland, Fla., 1953) Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota �SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1954 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most (Cleveland, 1954Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jed nota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1955 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter . Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1956 Ave Maria The Benedictine 61 �62 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady (New York , N .Y., 1956-1959) Sion Slovak V Am'e rike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1957 1958 Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur (Cleveland , 1957-1958) Ave Maria Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur Ave Maria The Benedictine �SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1959 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'lady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1960 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze 63 �64 Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Fran ti ska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1961 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most SLOVAKIA Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1962 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin (Pittsburgh , 1962Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle �SLOVAKIA Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran (Pittsburgh, 1962- ) Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1963 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Luthera n Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1964 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Nardone noviny New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1965 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 65 �66 Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy (Chicago, 1965Nase snahy (Chicago, 1965New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenske obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1966 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine··Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Ciekevmk Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny SLOVAKIA ) ) Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1967 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Sokol Times (Perth Amboy, N.J ., 1967) �SLOVAKIA Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1968 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska LUdove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest (New York , N.Y., 1968-1975) Sl~venska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1969 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Frantiska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1970 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 67 �68 Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota .Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1971 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik SLOVAKIA Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet (Chicago, 1971-72) Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1972 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna (New York, N. Y. , 1972) Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak �SLOVAKIA United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1973 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1974 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna Tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1975 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik 69 �70 Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Heritage (Detroit , 1975Slovak Press Digest SLOVAKIA Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo �SLOVAKIA LITERATURE 71 �� 34 SLOVAKIA Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M. MARK STOLARIK In 1983, as the centennial of the Slovak-American press approached , I decided to re-work Konstantin Culen's annotated bibliography Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1970) and tell the story as he would have had he not died prematurely in 1964 . Therefore , I literally took his book apart and put it back together again with the aid of a computer. This resulted in two analytical essays and the listing I am about to publish. The essays were: " The Slovak-American Press," [1885-1984] in Sally M. Miller ed., The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analy sis and Handbook (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1987), and "At Home Abroad: The SlovakAmerican Press, 1885-1918 , " which is slated to appear in Owen V. Johnson 's edited volume entitled Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe. The list of Slovak-American newspapers published between 1885 and 1975 which follows is based upon Culen's book , cited above , and the late Michal Lacko's Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1945-1965, and 1966-1975 published in Slovak Studies VII and XVII, Bibliografica 1 and 2 (Rome: Slovak Institute, 1967 and 1977) . Culen listed 246 titles in his book, but, upon close inspection, I discovered 39 titles that he could not verify or which should not have been listed because they were not Slovak newspapers. I subtracted these from the list. Furthermore, Lacko discovered 13 titles that Culen had missed and I added these, coming up with a grand total of 220 for the period 1885-1975 . There have probably �SLOVAKIA 35 been more than 220 Slovak-American newspapers in the period 1885-1975, but they remain to be discovered and verified. Also, Jozef Rydlo, who has taken over the duties of editor of Slovak Studies, is presently working on a Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1976-1985 and his work will allow me, or someone else, to update the list to 1985. Meanwhile, here is how I prepared the list. I carefully read Culen's annotated bibliography and kept his definition of a newspaper as one that appeared at least quarterly. I then listed the title, the date and city it first appeared in, and also major subsequent cities if it moved, and the date it folded. This list (plus my analytical articles, cited abov~) supplements the work of Michal Potemra who published a Bibliografia slovenskych novin a casopisov do roku 1918 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1958) and Maria Kipsova et. al . Bibliografia slovenskych a inorecovy ch novin a casopisov z rokov 1919-1938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1968) . I hope that students of SlovakAmerican history will find it useful. Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975 1885 Bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1885-1886) 1886 Bulletin Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh, 1886-1922) 1887 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1888 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Nova vlast' (Streator , Ill ., 1888) Slovak v Amerike (Plymouth & New York , 1889) Zastava (Plymouth , Pa ., 1889) 1890 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1891 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota (Cleveland , 1891) Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1889 1892 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny (Hazleton , Pa ., 1889-1891) Robotnik (Connellsville , Pa ., 1889) Americky Slovak (Cleveland, 1892-1894) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota �36 SLOVAKIA Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Jersey City, N .J., 1892) 1893 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Slovak v Amerike Slovenska svornost' (Connellsville , Pa., 1893-1897) 1894 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cirkevne listy (Cleveland, 1894-1899) Fakla (New York City, 1894) Jednota Majak (Pittsburgh, 1894) Pravda (Connellsville , Pa., 1894-1896) Slovak v Arilerike Slovenska pravda (Freeland, Pa., 1984-1904) Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas (Pittsburgh, 1894-1898) 1895 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas (Nanticoke, Pa., 1895-1899) Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik (Freeland , Pa., 1895-1898) Pravda Rodina (Cleveland, 1895) Slovak (New York City , 1895) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1896 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Pravda Rarasek (Pittsburgh, 1896-1912) Sasok (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1896-1898) Slovak v Amerike Slovaktownske hlasy (Pittsburgh, 1896) Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1897 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik (Cleveland, 1897-1898) Cas Cirkevne listy The Emmigrant (Pittsburgh , 1897) Jednota Katolik Mydlo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa., 1897-1898) Rarasek Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovenske noviny (Hazleton , Pa., 1897-1911) Slovensky hlas 1898 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Mydlo Rarasek �SLOVAKIA Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlas 1899 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1899-1941 ; 1945) Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Novy Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1899) Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny 1900 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Cas Jednota Lutheran (Cleveland , 1900-1902) Rarasek Slaboda (Chicago, 1900-1901) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik (Pittsburgh, 1900-1962) Slovensky Lutheran (Philadelphia, 1900) 1901 37 Slebodny Orel (New York, N.Y., 1901-1904) Slaboda Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik (Pittsburgh, 1901-1915) Slovensky hlasnik Viera (Cleveland , 1901-1902) 1902 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American (Pittsburgh, 1902-1903) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky obcan (Bridgeport, Conn., 1902) Viera 1903 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Naso novini (New York , N.Y., 1901) 1904 Rarasek Sip (Cleveland, 1901) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny �38 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Robotnik (New York, N.Y., 1904) Slebodny V Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik Svedok (Pittsburgh , 1906Zornicka (Wilkes-Barre, Pa. , 1906-1907) 1907 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas (Cleveland, 1907-1947) 1905 Jednota Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Nasa zastava Rarasek Jednota Rovnost' l'udu Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensko-Americky zabavnik (Chicago , 1905-1912) Slovensky dennik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin (Pittsburgh, Slovensky sokol (Perth Amboy , N .J., 1907-1962) 1905-1966) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky tyzdenmk (New York, Slovensky sokol N.Y ., 1905-1906) Svedok Sokol a narod (1905) Zensky svet (New York, N.Y., 1907-1908) Zornicka 1906 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1908 Bratstvo Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Bratstvo Katolicke Slovenske noviny Hlas (Chicago, 1906-1926) Nasa zastava (Bridgeport , Conn. , Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny 1906-1907) Krajan (Hazleton , Pa. , 1908) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu (Chicago, 1906-1935) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Skola reci anglickej (Pittsburgh, Slovenske noviny 1908-1909) Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky pokrok (New York , N.Y ., Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik 1906-1911) �SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Cudahy , Wisc., 1908) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Svetlak Zensky svet Zivena (Pittsburgh, 19081909 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Skala reci anglickej Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Clarksburg , W.Va ., 1909-1910) Svetlak Zivena 1910 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Kometa (Passaic, N.J. , 1910) Mladez (Pittsburgh , 1910-1911) Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh, 1910) Niva (Homestead, Pa., 1910-1911) Rarasek 39 Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Chicago, 1910) Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Youngstow nske Slovenske noviny (Youngstown, Ohio, 1910-1938) Zivena 1911 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor (Cleveland, 1911-1912) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol (Passaic , N.J., 1911) I.'.udovy dennik (Chicago , 1911-1917) Mladez Narodne noviny Niva Nova vlast' (Scranton, Pa ., 1911) Priatel' dietok (Passaic, N.J. , 1911) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak a Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obzor (Passaic, N.J., 1911) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky soko l �40 SLOVAKIA Svedok Svornost' (Pittsburgh, 1911-1970} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1912 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor Hlas Jednota Juhozapadne noviny (Deslego , Mo. , 1912} Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an (Uniontown , Pa., 1912-1932} I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Chicago, 1912} Priatel' dietok Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan (Hazleton , Pa ., 1912-1947} Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdenmk (Cleveland, 1912} Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1913 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan (New York, N.Y ., 1913-1921} Krest'an I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik (New York, N .Y., 1913-1975) Osveta (Cleveland, 1913) Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo (Chicago , 1913-1914) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Viestnik (Chicago, 1913) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1914 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Hlas svobody (New York, N.Y., 1914-1917) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika (Cleveland, 1914-1915) I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1914-1916) Narodny Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1914-1916) New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok �SLOVAKIA Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Oplna zdrzanlivost' (Hazleton , Pa ., 1914) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota (Cleveland, 1914-1975) Zivena 1915 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1915) Amerikansko-Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh , 1915-1916) Besedy l'udu (New York, 1915-1917) Bratstvo Denny hlas (Cleveland, 1915-1925) Farnik (Monessen, Pa. , 1915-1916) Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika Kruh mladeze (Pittsburgh , 1915-1934) l.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny Slovensky dennik New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1916 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky svet Besedy l'udu Bratstvo Certik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1917) Denny hlas Farnik Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze l.:udovy dennik Narod (Pittsburgh, 1916) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1924) Narodny slovensky dennik Nedel'a (Hazelton , Pa ., 1916) New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana (Scranton, Pa ., 1916-1972) Slovensky hlasnik 41 �42 SLOVAKIA Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1916) Svetlak Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1917 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria (Cleveland, 1917Besedy l'udu (New York, N.Y., 1915-1917) Bratstvo Certik Chicagsky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Denny hlas Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota . Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska mladez (Pittsburgh , 1917-1918) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor (Chicago , 1917-1922) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran (Chicago, 1917-1937) Udalosti sveta (Hazleton, Pa., 1917-1919) Uradny organ (Braddock, Pa., 1917-1918) Vatra (Pittsburgh, 1917) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1918 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa (Bridgeport , Conn., 1918-1952) Bratstvo Denny hlas Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran (Streator, Ill., 1918-1941) Mudron district (Chicago , 1918) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko (Pittsburgh, 1918-1922) Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku (Chicago, 1918-1920) Osadnik (Cleveland , 1918) Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike �SLOVAKIA Slovenska mladez Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Oradny organ Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zurnal spojenych majnerov (Indianapolis , Ind., 1918) 1919 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Denny hlas . Dobry pastier (Munhall, Pa. , 1919) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike 43 Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1920 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1920-1927) Ceskoslovensky legionar (Pittsburgh , 1920-1926) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota (Cleveland , 1920-1945) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Hlas Sv. Emanuela (Minneapolis , 1920) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky Slovak (Chicago, 1920-1921) Katolicky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik (New York, 1920-1921) Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne bratstvo (Cleveland , 1920) Narodne noviny �44 SLOVAKIA Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Proletar (Cleveland, 1920-1921) Rovnost' l'udu Sion (Pittsburgh, 1920Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 192 1 Amerikansk6-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' (Chicago , 1921-1922) Jednota Jara (Middletown, Pa ., 1921-1964) Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Katolfcky Slovak Katolfcky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Proletar Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf (Bridgeport, Conn., 1921-1923) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1922 Americky Slovak (Pittsburgh , 1922) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago , 1922) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' �SLOVAKIA Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Studentska horlivost' (Lisle, Ill. , 1922-1923) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nova vlast' (Pittsburgh, 1923) Nave easy Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Studentska horlivost' Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1923 1924 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky (Danville, Pa., 1923-1970) Furdek (Middletown, Pa., Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Caskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica (Pittsburgh , 1924-1962) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek 1923-1941) 45 �46 SLOVAKIA Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska (Pittsburgh, 1924) Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny tyzdennik (Pittsburgh , 1924) Nasa mladez (Chicago , 1924) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota (McKees Rocks, Pa ., 1924-1935) Priatet' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska oqrana Slovensky bulletin (Bethlehem , Pa ., 1924-1929) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1925 Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske slovo (Cleveland , 1925) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Schenectady, N.Y ., 1925) Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo 1926 �SLOVAKIA Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legiona.r Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh, Cernoknaznik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pok.rokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sdruzeniar (Youngstown, Ohio, 1927) Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena (Cleveland, 1927-1931) 1927 Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Ave Maria 1926-1940) Slovo (Pittsburgh, 1926-19 37) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1928 47 �48 SLOVAKIA Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Li sty Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky K,alvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1929 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' (McKeesport, Pa ., 1929-1939) Sion Slovak Manor obzor (Long Island, N.Y ., 1929) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny (New York , N.Y. , 1929-1943) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo �SLOVAKIA 1930 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet (Cleveland, 1930-1962) Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Orol (New York, N.Y., 1930) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz (Pittsburgh, 1930-1931) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zapadne hlasy (Milwaukee , 1930) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1931 Ave Maria The Benedictine (Cleveland, 1931-1976) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator (Milwaukee , 1931-1932) Nas svet (Chicago, 1931-1940) Nasa straz (Pittsburgh, 1931) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin 49 �SLOVAKIA 50 Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1932 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske Srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik (Riverside , Ill. , 1932- ) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jed no ta Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Lampas (Cleveland, 1932) Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jed nota Zivena Zrkadlo 1933 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennlk Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota �SLOVAKIA Pravda (Chicago , 193 3-1945} Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Democrat (New York , N.Y., 1933} Slovak V Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky soko l Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wiconsinsky Slovak (Milwaukee, 1933-1936} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1934 Americky Slovak (Cleveland , 1934-35} Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Detroitsky Slovak (Detroit, 1934} Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostalnost' Sion Slovak (New York , N.Y ., 1934) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska revizia (Detriot , 1934} Slovenske novin y Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1935 Americky Slovak Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937} Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota 51 �52 SLOVAKIA Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik (Chicago, 1935-1945) Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Rozsieva/'.: (Gaines , Mich., 1935-1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1936 Ave Maria The Benedictine Besiedky , Listy Americkych Slovakov (New York , N.Y., 1936) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier (Granite City, Ill ., 1936-1937) Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda a slavna nadej (Chicago, 1936) Pravda Priatel' dietok Rozsieva/'.: Rozsievac pravdy (Akron, Ohio , 1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an �SLOVAKIA Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1937 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Hlasnik (Akron , Ohio , 1937) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1938 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok 53 �54 SLOVAKIA Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Straz (Palmyra , Pa. , 1938) Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1939 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1940 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky soko l Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak (Chicago, 1940-1942) �SLOVAKIA Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenka (Chicago , 1940) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obi':an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1941 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovanske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka (Pittsburgh , 1941Zrkadlo 1942 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jez isa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze (New York , N.Y., 1942-1968) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Ludovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota (Wilkes-Barre, 1942-1944) Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduvern y Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny 55 �56 SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1943 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy denn'ik Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Record (Pittsburgh, 1943) Slaboda (New York , N.Y., 1943) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1944 Ave Maria The Benedictine Boske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon (Pittsburgh, 1944-1970) Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota �SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo Zornicka Zrkadlo 1945 1946 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa. , 1954) Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Cudove noviny (Chicago , 1945-1984) Cudovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Za tu nasu slovencinu (Scranton , Pa., 1945) Zenska jednota Zivena Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Hlas slovenskej slobody (WilkesBarre , Pa ., 1946) Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska Cudove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Digest (Pittsburgh , 1946) Slovak Review (Middletown , Pa., 1946-1947) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 57 �58 1947 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas ml adeze Jednota Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Arnerike Slovak Review Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1948 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica SLOVAKIA Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradny Slovensky tyzdennik (Chicago , 1948) New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak Bulletin (Pittsburgh, 1948) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska liga (Passaic , 1948) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1949 Ave Maria The Benedictin e Bozske srdce Jez isa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Denni ca Dobry past ier Fialky Hla s ml adeze Jed nota Jara Kad et Katolicky sokol �SLOVAKIA Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Newsletter (Middletown , Pa .. 1949-1958) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny (Cleveland, 1949-1959) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii':ka Zrkadlo 1950 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas (Washington , D.C., 1950-1959) Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky' dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1951 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne novin y New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagl e (Bridgeport, Conn .. 1951) Slovak Newsletter 59 �60 Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii'.:ka Zrkadlo 1952 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky so!<ol Listy Sv. Frantiska 1'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky soko l Svetlak SLOVAKIA Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1953 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad (Middletown, Pa., 1953-1958) Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak (Maitland, Fla., 1953) Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota �SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1954 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most (Cleveland, 1954Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jed nota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1955 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter . Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1956 Ave Maria The Benedictine 61 �62 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady (New York , N .Y., 1956-1959) Sion Slovak V Am'e rike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1957 1958 Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur (Cleveland , 1957-1958) Ave Maria Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur Ave Maria The Benedictine �SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1959 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'lady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1960 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze 63 �64 Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Fran ti ska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1961 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most SLOVAKIA Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1962 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin (Pittsburgh , 1962Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle �SLOVAKIA Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran (Pittsburgh, 1962- ) Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1963 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Luthera n Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1964 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Nardone noviny New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1965 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 65 �66 Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy (Chicago, 1965Nase snahy (Chicago, 1965New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenske obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1966 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine··Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Ciekevmk Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny SLOVAKIA ) ) Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1967 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Sokol Times (Perth Amboy, N.J ., 1967) �SLOVAKIA Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1968 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska LUdove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest (New York , N.Y., 1968-1975) Sl~venska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1969 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Frantiska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1970 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 67 �68 Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota .Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1971 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik SLOVAKIA Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet (Chicago, 1971-72) Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1972 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna (New York, N. Y. , 1972) Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak �SLOVAKIA United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1973 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1974 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna Tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1975 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik 69 �70 Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Heritage (Detroit , 1975Slovak Press Digest SLOVAKIA Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo �SLOVAKIA LITERATURE 71 �� 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 1985-86, Vol. 32 Description An account of the resource Vol. 32 (No. 58-59), 1985-86. 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 1985-86 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 34 SLOVAKIA Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M. MARK STOLARIK In 1983, as the centennial of the Slovak-American press approached , I decided to re-work Konstantin Culen's annotated bibliography Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1970) and tell the story as he would have had he not died prematurely in 1964 . Therefore , I literally took his book apart and put it back together again with the aid of a computer. This resulted in two analytical essays and the listing I am about to publish. The essays were: " The Slovak-American Press," [1885-1984] in Sally M. Miller ed., The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analy sis and Handbook (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1987), and "At Home Abroad: The SlovakAmerican Press, 1885-1918 , " which is slated to appear in Owen V. Johnson 's edited volume entitled Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe. The list of Slovak-American newspapers published between 1885 and 1975 which follows is based upon Culen's book , cited above , and the late Michal Lacko's Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1945-1965, and 1966-1975 published in Slovak Studies VII and XVII, Bibliografica 1 and 2 (Rome: Slovak Institute, 1967 and 1977) . Culen listed 246 titles in his book, but, upon close inspection, I discovered 39 titles that he could not verify or which should not have been listed because they were not Slovak newspapers. I subtracted these from the list. Furthermore, Lacko discovered 13 titles that Culen had missed and I added these, coming up with a grand total of 220 for the period 1885-1975 . There have probably SLOVAKIA 35 been more than 220 Slovak-American newspapers in the period 1885-1975, but they remain to be discovered and verified. Also, Jozef Rydlo, who has taken over the duties of editor of Slovak Studies, is presently working on a Slovak Bibliography Abroad, 1976-1985 and his work will allow me, or someone else, to update the list to 1985. Meanwhile, here is how I prepared the list. I carefully read Culen's annotated bibliography and kept his definition of a newspaper as one that appeared at least quarterly. I then listed the title, the date and city it first appeared in, and also major subsequent cities if it moved, and the date it folded. This list (plus my analytical articles, cited abov~) supplements the work of Michal Potemra who published a Bibliografia slovenskych novin a casopisov do roku 1918 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1958) and Maria Kipsova et. al . Bibliografia slovenskych a inorecovy ch novin a casopisov z rokov 1919-1938 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1968) . I hope that students of SlovakAmerican history will find it useful. Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975 1885 Bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1885-1886) 1886 Bulletin Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh, 1886-1922) 1887 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1888 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Nova vlast' (Streator , Ill ., 1888) Slovak v Amerike (Plymouth & New York , 1889) Zastava (Plymouth , Pa ., 1889) 1890 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1891 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota (Cleveland , 1891) Katolicke noviny Slovak v Amerike 1889 1892 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke noviny (Hazleton , Pa ., 1889-1891) Robotnik (Connellsville , Pa ., 1889) Americky Slovak (Cleveland, 1892-1894) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota 36 SLOVAKIA Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Jersey City, N .J., 1892) 1893 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Slovak v Amerike Slovenska svornost' (Connellsville , Pa., 1893-1897) 1894 Americky Slovak Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cirkevne listy (Cleveland, 1894-1899) Fakla (New York City, 1894) Jednota Majak (Pittsburgh, 1894) Pravda (Connellsville , Pa., 1894-1896) Slovak v Arilerike Slovenska pravda (Freeland, Pa., 1984-1904) Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas (Pittsburgh, 1894-1898) 1895 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas (Nanticoke, Pa., 1895-1899) Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik (Freeland , Pa., 1895-1898) Pravda Rodina (Cleveland, 1895) Slovak (New York City , 1895) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1896 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Pravda Rarasek (Pittsburgh, 1896-1912) Sasok (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1896-1898) Slovak v Amerike Slovaktownske hlasy (Pittsburgh, 1896) Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovensky hlas 1897 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik (Cleveland, 1897-1898) Cas Cirkevne listy The Emmigrant (Pittsburgh , 1897) Jednota Katolik Mydlo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa., 1897-1898) Rarasek Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenska svornost' Slovenske noviny (Hazleton , Pa., 1897-1911) Slovensky hlas 1898 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Carodejnik Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Katolik Mydlo Rarasek SLOVAKIA Sasok Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlas 1899 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre, Pa ., 1899-1941 ; 1945) Cas Cirkevne listy Jednota Novy Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1899) Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny 1900 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Cas Jednota Lutheran (Cleveland , 1900-1902) Rarasek Slaboda (Chicago, 1900-1901) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik (Pittsburgh, 1900-1962) Slovensky Lutheran (Philadelphia, 1900) 1901 37 Slebodny Orel (New York, N.Y., 1901-1904) Slaboda Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik (Pittsburgh, 1901-1915) Slovensky hlasnik Viera (Cleveland , 1901-1902) 1902 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American (Pittsburgh, 1902-1903) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky obcan (Bridgeport, Conn., 1902) Viera 1903 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Slebodny ore! Slovak v Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky American Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Jednota Lutheran Naso novini (New York , N.Y., 1901) 1904 Rarasek Sip (Cleveland, 1901) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 38 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Jednota Rarasek Robotnik (New York, N.Y., 1904) Slebodny V Amerike Slovenska pravda Slovenske noviny Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik Svedok (Pittsburgh , 1906Zornicka (Wilkes-Barre, Pa. , 1906-1907) 1907 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas (Cleveland, 1907-1947) 1905 Jednota Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Katolicke Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Nasa zastava Rarasek Jednota Rovnost' l'udu Rarasek Slovak v Amerike Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensko-Americky zabavnik (Chicago , 1905-1912) Slovensky dennik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin (Pittsburgh, Slovensky sokol (Perth Amboy , N .J., 1907-1962) 1905-1966) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky tyzdenmk (New York, Slovensky sokol N.Y ., 1905-1906) Svedok Sokol a narod (1905) Zensky svet (New York, N.Y., 1907-1908) Zornicka 1906 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny 1908 Bratstvo Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Jednota Bratstvo Katolicke Slovenske noviny Hlas (Chicago, 1906-1926) Nasa zastava (Bridgeport , Conn. , Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny 1906-1907) Krajan (Hazleton , Pa. , 1908) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu (Chicago, 1906-1935) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Skola reci anglickej (Pittsburgh, Slovenske noviny 1908-1909) Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky pokrok (New York , N.Y ., Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik 1906-1911) SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Cudahy , Wisc., 1908) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Svetlak Zensky svet Zivena (Pittsburgh, 19081909 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Skala reci anglickej Slovak v Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Clarksburg , W.Va ., 1909-1910) Svetlak Zivena 1910 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Kometa (Passaic, N.J. , 1910) Mladez (Pittsburgh , 1910-1911) Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh, 1910) Niva (Homestead, Pa., 1910-1911) Rarasek 39 Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske listy (Chicago, 1910) Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky pokrok Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Youngstow nske Slovenske noviny (Youngstown, Ohio, 1910-1938) Zivena 1911 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor (Cleveland, 1911-1912) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol (Passaic , N.J., 1911) I.'.udovy dennik (Chicago , 1911-1917) Mladez Narodne noviny Niva Nova vlast' (Scranton, Pa ., 1911) Priatel' dietok (Passaic, N.J. , 1911) Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak a Amerike Slovenske noviny Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obzor (Passaic, N.J., 1911) Slovensky pokrok Slovensky soko l 40 SLOVAKIA Svedok Svornost' (Pittsburgh, 1911-1970} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1912 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Evanjelicky obzor Hlas Jednota Juhozapadne noviny (Deslego , Mo. , 1912} Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an (Uniontown , Pa., 1912-1932} I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Chicago, 1912} Priatel' dietok Rarasek Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensko-Americky zabavnik Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan (Hazleton , Pa ., 1912-1947} Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdenmk (Cleveland, 1912} Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1913 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan (New York, N.Y ., 1913-1921} Krest'an I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik (New York, N .Y., 1913-1975) Osveta (Cleveland, 1913) Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo (Chicago , 1913-1914) Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Viestnik (Chicago, 1913) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zivena 1914 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Bratstvo Hlas Hlas svobody (New York, N.Y., 1914-1917) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika (Cleveland, 1914-1915) I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1914-1916) Narodny Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1914-1916) New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok SLOVAKIA Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenske slovo Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Oplna zdrzanlivost' (Hazleton , Pa ., 1914) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota (Cleveland, 1914-1975) Zivena 1915 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky bulletin (Pittsburgh , 1915) Amerikansko-Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh , 1915-1916) Besedy l'udu (New York, 1915-1917) Bratstvo Denny hlas (Cleveland, 1915-1925) Farnik (Monessen, Pa. , 1915-1916) Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kritika Kruh mladeze (Pittsburgh , 1915-1934) l.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny Slovensky dennik New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovensky dennik Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1916 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Amerikansko-Slovensky svet Besedy l'udu Bratstvo Certik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1917) Denny hlas Farnik Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze l.:udovy dennik Narod (Pittsburgh, 1916) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny dennik (Pittsburgh, 1916-1924) Narodny slovensky dennik Nedel'a (Hazelton , Pa ., 1916) New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana (Scranton, Pa ., 1916-1972) Slovensky hlasnik 41 42 SLOVAKIA Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky tyzdennik (Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1916) Svetlak Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1917 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria (Cleveland, 1917Besedy l'udu (New York, N.Y., 1915-1917) Bratstvo Certik Chicagsky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago, 1917) Denny hlas Hlas Hlas svobody Jednota . Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze I.:udovy dennik Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike Slovenska mladez (Pittsburgh , 1917-1918) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor (Chicago , 1917-1922) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran (Chicago, 1917-1937) Udalosti sveta (Hazleton, Pa., 1917-1919) Uradny organ (Braddock, Pa., 1917-1918) Vatra (Pittsburgh, 1917) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena 1918 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa (Bridgeport , Conn., 1918-1952) Bratstvo Denny hlas Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran (Streator, Ill., 1918-1941) Mudron district (Chicago , 1918) Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko (Pittsburgh, 1918-1922) Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku (Chicago, 1918-1920) Osadnik (Cleveland , 1918) Prehl'ad Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike SLOVAKIA Slovenska mladez Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Oradny organ Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zurnal spojenych majnerov (Indianapolis , Ind., 1918) 1919 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Denny hlas . Dobry pastier (Munhall, Pa. , 1919) Hlas Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krajan Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Slovak v Amerike 43 Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Udalosti sveta Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1920 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik (Cleveland , 1920-1927) Ceskoslovensky legionar (Pittsburgh , 1920-1926) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota (Cleveland , 1920-1945) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Hlas Sv. Emanuela (Minneapolis , 1920) Jednota Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky Slovak (Chicago, 1920-1921) Katolicky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik (New York, 1920-1921) Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne bratstvo (Cleveland , 1920) Narodne noviny 44 SLOVAKIA Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Obzor Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku Priatel' dietok Proletar (Cleveland, 1920-1921) Rovnost' l'udu Sion (Pittsburgh, 1920Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 192 1 Amerikansk6-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' (Chicago , 1921-1922) Jednota Jara (Middletown, Pa ., 1921-1964) Katolfcke Slovenske noviny Katolfcky Slovak Katolfcky sokol Krajan Krajan dzennik Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy (Chicago, 1918-1945) Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Proletar Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf (Bridgeport, Conn., 1921-1923) Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1922 Americky Slovak (Pittsburgh , 1922) Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Chicagsky Slovensky dennik (Chicago , 1922) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Hlas Host' SLOVAKIA Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Nave Slovensko Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Sokolsky obzor Studentska horlivost' (Lisle, Ill. , 1922-1923) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Narodny dennik New Yorsky dennik Nova vlast' (Pittsburgh, 1923) Nave easy Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Studentska horlivost' Svedok Svornost' Tatran Telegraf Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1923 1924 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky (Danville, Pa., 1923-1970) Furdek (Middletown, Pa., Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoki\.aznik Caskoslovensky legionar Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica (Pittsburgh , 1924-1962) Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek 1923-1941) 45 46 SLOVAKIA Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska (Pittsburgh, 1924) Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Narodny dennik Narodny tyzdennik (Pittsburgh , 1924) Nasa mladez (Chicago , 1924) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota (McKees Rocks, Pa ., 1924-1935) Priatet' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska oqrana Slovensky bulletin (Bethlehem , Pa ., 1924-1929) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1925 Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Denny hlas Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske slovo (Cleveland , 1925) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky narod (Schenectady, N.Y ., 1925) Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legionar Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo 1926 SLOVAKIA Cernoknaznik Ceskoslovensky legiona.r Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicke Slovenske noviny Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet (Pittsburgh, Cernoknaznik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Pok.rokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sdruzeniar (Youngstown, Ohio, 1927) Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena (Cleveland, 1927-1931) 1927 Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Ave Maria 1926-1940) Slovo (Pittsburgh, 1926-19 37) Svetlak Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1928 47 48 SLOVAKIA Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Li sty Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky K,alvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1929 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' (McKeesport, Pa ., 1929-1939) Sion Slovak Manor obzor (Long Island, N.Y ., 1929) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny (New York , N.Y. , 1929-1943) Slovensky bulletin Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo SLOVAKIA 1930 Ave Maria Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet (Cleveland, 1930-1962) Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Orol (New York, N.Y., 1930) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz (Pittsburgh, 1930-1931) Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zapadne hlasy (Milwaukee , 1930) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1931 Ave Maria The Benedictine (Cleveland, 1931-1976) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladze Listy Sv. Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator (Milwaukee , 1931-1932) Nas svet (Chicago, 1931-1940) Nasa straz (Pittsburgh, 1931) New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska ozvena Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin 49 SLOVAKIA 50 Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Sokolska straz Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1932 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske Srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik (Riverside , Ill. , 1932- ) Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jed no ta Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Krest'an Kruh mladeze Lampas (Cleveland, 1932) Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny The Narrator Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske slovenske noviny Zenska jed nota Zivena Zrkadlo 1933 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennlk Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota SLOVAKIA Pravda (Chicago , 193 3-1945} Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostatnost' Sion Slovak Democrat (New York , N.Y., 1933} Slovak V Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky soko l Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wiconsinsky Slovak (Milwaukee, 1933-1936} Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1934 Americky Slovak (Cleveland , 1934-35} Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Detroitsky Slovak (Detroit, 1934} Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Kruh mladeze Listy Sv . Frantiska Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Samostalnost' Sion Slovak (New York , N.Y ., 1934) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenska revizia (Detriot , 1934} Slovenske novin y Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1935 Americky Slovak Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937} Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota 51 52 SLOVAKIA Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik (Chicago, 1935-1945) Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pokrokova jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Rovnost' l'udu Rozsieva/'.: (Gaines , Mich., 1935-1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka (Pittsburgh, 1935-1937) Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1936 Ave Maria The Benedictine Besiedky , Listy Americkych Slovakov (New York , N.Y., 1936) Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier (Granite City, Ill ., 1936-1937) Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda a slavna nadej (Chicago, 1936) Pravda Priatel' dietok Rozsieva/'.: Rozsievac pravdy (Akron, Ohio , 1936) Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky ob/'.:an SLOVAKIA Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Wisconsinsky Slovak Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1937 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Bulletin Slovenskej ligy v Amerike Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota The Courier Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Hlasnik (Akron , Ohio , 1937) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Slovo Svedok Svornost' Tatran Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zahradka Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1938 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Naradne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok 53 54 SLOVAKIA Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Straz (Palmyra , Pa. , 1938) Svedok Svornost' Youngstownske Slovenske noviny Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1939 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Samostatnost' Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1940 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky soko l Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny Nas svet New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak (Chicago, 1940-1942) SLOVAKIA Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenka (Chicago , 1940) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obi':an Slovensky sokol Slovensky svet Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zrkadlo 1941 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Furdek Hlas Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udovy dennik Mlady Luteran Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduverny Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovanske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka (Pittsburgh , 1941Zrkadlo 1942 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jez isa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze (New York , N.Y., 1942-1968) Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Ludovy dennik Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota (Wilkes-Barre, 1942-1944) Pravda Priatel' dietok Roduvern y Slovak Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny 55 56 SLOVAKIA Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1943 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy denn'ik Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Record (Pittsburgh, 1943) Slaboda (New York , N.Y., 1943) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornieka Zrkadlo 1944 Ave Maria The Benedictine Boske srdce Jezisa Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon (Pittsburgh, 1944-1970) Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nave easy Osadne hlasy Pennsylvanska Slovenska jednota Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obean Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo Zornicka Zrkadlo 1945 1946 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo (Wilkes-Barre , Pa. , 1954) Cirkevnik Clevelandska Slovenska jednota Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska Cudove noviny (Chicago , 1945-1984) Cudovy dennik The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Nove easy Osadne hlasy Pravda Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Za tu nasu slovencinu (Scranton , Pa., 1945) Zenska jednota Zivena Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas mladeze Hlas slovenskej slobody (WilkesBarre , Pa ., 1946) Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska Cudove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Digest (Pittsburgh , 1946) Slovak Review (Middletown , Pa., 1946-1947) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 57 58 1947 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas Hlas ml adeze Jednota Jara Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Arnerike Slovak Review Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky obcan Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1948 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica SLOVAKIA Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I..:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradny Slovensky tyzdennik (Chicago , 1948) New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak Bulletin (Pittsburgh, 1948) Slovak v Amerike Slovenska liga (Passaic , 1948) Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1949 Ave Maria The Benedictin e Bozske srdce Jez isa Bratstvo Cirkevnik Denni ca Dobry past ier Fialky Hla s ml adeze Jed nota Jara Kad et Katolicky sokol SLOVAKIA Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Newsletter (Middletown , Pa .. 1949-1958) Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny (Cleveland, 1949-1959) Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii':ka Zrkadlo 1950 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas (Washington , D.C., 1950-1959) Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky' dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1951 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jed no ta Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Naradne novin y New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagl e (Bridgeport, Conn .. 1951) Slovak Newsletter 59 60 Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornii'.:ka Zrkadlo 1952 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bozske srdce Jezisa Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky so!<ol Listy Sv. Frantiska 1'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky soko l Svetlak SLOVAKIA Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1953 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad (Middletown, Pa., 1953-1958) Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak (Maitland, Fla., 1953) Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota SLOVAKIA Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1954 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadel Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most (Cleveland, 1954Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jed nota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1955 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter . Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1956 Ave Maria The Benedictine 61 62 SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady (New York , N .Y., 1956-1959) Sion Slovak V Am'e rike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo The Benedictine Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1957 1958 Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur (Cleveland , 1957-1958) Ave Maria Amerikansko-Slovensky kocur Ave Maria The Benedictine SLOVAKIA Bratstvo Bulletin of the Slovak National Council Abroad Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'ady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Newsletter Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1959 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cas Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Frantiska l'.udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Rozhl'lady Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovenske noviny Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1960 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze 63 64 Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Fran ti ska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1961 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most SLOVAKIA Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svetlak Svornost' Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1962 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin (Pittsburgh , 1962Cirkevnik Dennica Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Kadet Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Naradne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle SLOVAKIA Slovenska obrana Slovensky hlasnik Slovensky Kalvin Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran (Pittsburgh, 1962- ) Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1963 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jaro Katolicky sokol Listy Sv . Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny New Yorsky dennik Osadne hlasy Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Luthera n Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1964 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Jara Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Nardone noviny New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1965 Ave Maria The Benedictine Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 65 66 Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy (Chicago, 1965Nase snahy (Chicago, 1965New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenske obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1966 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine··Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Ciekevmk Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny SLOVAKIA ) ) Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Slovensky sokol Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1967 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovenska obrana Sokol Times (Perth Amboy, N.J ., 1967) SLOVAKIA Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1968 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Hlas mladeze Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska LUdove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest (New York , N.Y., 1968-1975) Sl~venska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1969 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv . Frantiska Ludove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svedok Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1970 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Fialky 67 68 Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny The Lutheran Beacon Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovenska obrana Sokol times Svetlak Svornost' United Lutheran Zenska jednota .Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1971 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik SLOVAKIA Priatel' dietok Sion Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet (Chicago, 1971-72) Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1972 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna (New York, N. Y. , 1972) Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Slovak a Svet Slovenska obrana Sokol Times Svetlak SLOVAKIA United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1973 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1974 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Li sty Sv. Fran ti ska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna Tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Press Digest Sokol Times Svedok United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo 1975 Ave Maria The Benedictine Benedictine Bulletin Bratstvo Calvin Cirkevnik Dobry pastier Floridsky Slovak Jednota Katolicky sokol Listy Sv. Frantiska I.:udove noviny Most Narodne noviny Nase hlasy Nase snahy New Yorsky dennik 69 70 Priatel' dietok Sion Slobodna tribuna Slovak v Amerike Slovak Eagle Slovak Heritage (Detroit , 1975Slovak Press Digest SLOVAKIA Sokol Times Svetlak United Lutheran Zenska jednota Zivena Zornicka Zrkadlo SLOVAKIA LITERATURE 71  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak-American Newspapers, 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 32 (No. 58-59), 1985-86 pp. 34-70 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-86 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/2ebce1988b17156d13ec144732cc216d.pdf ea0c4e9fec3eae43da258b2468bdfa3c PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 47 Slovak Immigration to the United States and its Relation to the American Socialist and Labor Movements M. MARK STOLARIK If one looks at the large number of books and articles that Slovak Marxist historians have written about Slovak immigrants and their relation to the socialist and labor movements, one will get the impression that most Slovak immigrants to the United States joined socialist organizations and took a leading role in the American labor movement. 1 There is very little evidence to support such conclusions. As I will demonstrate in this paper, most Slovak immigrants came to the United States as single young men who wanted to make their "fortunes" and return home and their leaders were more concerned with promoting Slovak nationalism than with any socialist or labor ideology. Slovaks left their homeland in Hungary in the 19th century for three basic reasons: lack of land, lack of industry and lack of opportunity. While serfdom was abolished during the Revolution of 1848, there was no corresponding land reform. Therefore, the nobility (ten per cent of the population) continued to hold more than half of the best arable land. The vast majority of freed serfs held fewer than five hectares of land and soon they began to break up even these meager holdings among their children. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Hungary, unlike the Austrian part of the Empire, did not promote much industry (the nobility preferred the ''rustic'' life to pollution and grime) and, hence , the growing number of landless peasants found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.2 In addition, the Slovaks had only a tiny middle class which �48 SLOVAKIA was engaged in an uneven struggle with the Hungarian government over the issue of 'Magyarization' (the forcible assimilation of non-Magyar nationalities by the Magyars) . This small number of individuals, faced by government discrimination , could not possibly either build up industry large enough to employ all the job-seekers or force the government into land reform. 3 Therefore, by the 1870s it had become common practice for Slovak peasants to migrate each summer to the Hungarian (and in some instances Austrian) lowlands and take in the harvest of the wealthy nobles. Others, particularly from Trencin county, had begun to wander all over Europe as tinkers who would offer to fix household implements, sharpen knives and scissors and do other odd jobs for the few pennies tossed them by sympathetic housewives. Others still sought work in the booming ·metropolises of Vienna and Budapest. 4 Meanwhile, after the American Civil War had ended, the United States of America began to industrialize in earnest. The railroad, coal, steel and oil industries began to greatly expand and they required large numbers of cheap , unskilled laborers, to make them profitable. American industrialists refused to pay the Irish and other immigrants who were already in America a decent wage, and the industrialists also rejected the alternatives of Black labor. Instead, they sent agents to Europe to seek workers who would settle for wages of around $1.50 a day and the agents found such people in eastern and southern Europe. 5 To a Slovak peasant, who could not make a living on five hectares of land, and who earned only the equivalent of 15 to 30 cents a day on a noble's estate, if he could find the work, $1.50 a day was a very handsome salary. Therefore , a few Slovaks responded to the entreaties of railroad agents (who advanced them the $70.00 it would cost to make the trip) in the 1870s and went to America. By then steamships began to carry immigrants across the Ocean in the relatively short time of two weeks. 6 And, while the work on the railroads, in the mines or mills was long and hard, the Slovaks put up with all these hardships because they had not come to stay. Instead, the vast majority were single young men (or newly-married) who came to make their 'fortunes' (usually $1 ,000) and then hoped to return home, buy enough land to make �SLOVAKIA 49 a living, and settle down to the good life in Hungary. Living in cramped boarding houses, the frugal Slovaks managed to pay off the cost of the trip in six months and after that they began to send money home to support their families and to also bring additional relatives to America. 7 Once this process got underway the trickle of Slovaks turned into a deluge in the 1880s and 1890s and peaked in 1905 when over 50,000 made the voyage. Altogether 650,000 Slovaks migrated to the United States between 1870 and 1924 (when immigration was largely halted by the U.S. Congress) and 500,000 eventually chose to remain in the New World. 8 Those who did then sent for their wives and children. Most Slovaks settled in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, half in Pennsylvania and the rest in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. 9 While life was more livable for Slovaks in the New World than in the Old, they did soon come to realize that they were being exploited and started to strike. The first recorded strike by Slovaks in the United States was in Bessemer, Pennsylvania in January of 1886 when 300 men, led by Stefan Stanek, walked off the job because the mine operators refused their modest request for an increase from 2 7 cents per wagon of coal produced to 30 cents per wagon. The mine owners decided to disperse the strikers with local police forces but the miners ' wives saved the day by hurling stones at the police and preventing them from making many arrests. 10 After this Slovaks were found participating in all the major strikes that affected the coal and steel industries, whether in the great Connellsville coal and coke strike of 1891 , the Homestead steel strike of 1892 , the Anthracite coal strike of 1894, the Lattimer coal strike of 1897, the Anthracite strikes of 1900 and 1902 , the Bethlehem Steel strike of 1910, the Westmoreland coal strike of 1911-1912 and the 1919 "Hunky" steel strike. 11 In the Lattimer strike, which turned into a massacre when sheriff's deputies opened fire upon 1,000 peaceful marching strikers , six Slovaks were killed, along with eight Poles and two Lithuanians, and 35 other workers were wounded. 12 In view of the Slovak willingness to strike for better wages and conditions, one might conclude that they were ripe for recruitment by socialist ideologies and organizations . Such w as not the �50 SLOVAKIA case. As early as 1890 the editor of the workers' weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America) denounced socialism for two reasons: he charged that socialists advocated the violent overthrow of the capitalist system, an action which he deemed immoral; and socialism propagated internationalism, which to the beleaguered Slovaks who were fighting 'Magyarization' meant national suicide. 13 A.S. Ambrose , the founder and editor of Slovak v Amerike, had been an organizer of the ill-fated Knights of Labor, who made the first attempt to create an industrial union of unskilled workers in the United States in the 1880s. 14 Thus , while Ambrose was sympathetic to the plight of the workers, he rejected socialism and most other Slovak leaders in American followed suit. In a later article the Reverend Stefan Furdek, who was the most respected of Slovak Catholic clergymen in America, rejected socialism as well , principally because he felt it violated human nature - "people are not sheep" - and also because it opposed organized religion and wanted to root out belief in God. 15 Since both secular and clerical leaders of Slovak-Americans opposed socialism in the United States, it had little chance of success among the masses. This is not to say that socialist societies and newspapers did not arise among American Slovaks. They did , but when compared to other Slovak organizations , the socialist ones came relatively late and in such small numbers that they made very little impact upn Slovak-American life. For instance, A.S. Ambrose joined with P.V. Rovnianek (an ex-seminarian) to found the first nation-wide National Slovak Society of the United States and Canada in 1890 (between 1882 and 1890 more than 40 local fraternals had been established by American Slovaks). 16 Besides providing for fraternal-benefit insurance, the National Slovak Society became the leading nationalist and second-largest Slovak fraternal in the United States by 1918. 17 The largest was the First Catholic Slovak Union, also founded in 1890, but by the Reverend Stefan Furdek. Its goals were fraternal-benefit insurance for its members, and defense of the Catholic faith and the Slovak nation , as embodied in its slogan "Za Boha a narod" (For God and the Nation). 18 Since American Slovaks had interests that went beyond those espoused by the National Slovak Society and the First Catholic �SLOVAKIA 51 Slovak Union, they established even more fraternals. The two aforementioned societies initially admitted only men. Therefore, the wives of the men in these societies established the Zivena (Giver of Life) Beneficial Union in 1891 and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 19 Lutherans followed suit with the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1892. 20 A regional group founded the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893. 21 Militant nationalists established the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 (from which devout Catholics split off to found the larger Slovak Catholic Sokol in 1905) 22 and even Slovak Calvinists, a tiny minority, founded their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in 1901 (all of these later established women's counterparts). 23 By 1918 twelve of the largest nation-wide Slovak societies in the United States enrolled over 200,000 members. The religious ones led with a total of 145,053 (51,817 in the First Catholic Slovak Union), with Catholics enrolling 133,904 and Lutherans 11,149. Secular societies had 69,315 members, and the National Slovak Society led these with 29,118. 24 By 1940 these societies, largely by enrolling their members' children, had doubled their combined membership to over 400,000. Meanwhile, a few isolated Slovak socialist organizations appeared at the turn of the century. The most important one arose in Chicago in 1902. In that year Stefan Martincek arrived from Budapest, where he had been a member of the Hungarian Socialist Party since 1897 and editor of the Slovak Socialist newspaper Nova doba in 1898-1899. He had also helped organize socialist cells among Slovaks in the southernmost counties of the Banat and Backa. However, by 1902 he tired of the Hungarian government's refusal to allow the creation of a Slovak Workers ' Society on the old pretext that ''there is no Slovak nation,'' and left for Chicago where a friend had preceded him. Soon after his arrival Martincek organized the First Slovak Workers Educational Society "Rovnost"' (Equality), which affiliated with the Czech Workers' Section of the Socialist party of America. The latter had been founded in 1901. 25 In the next few years other Slovak socialist societies sprang up in Cleveland, Newark, N.J., and New York City, and elsewhere . By 1911 these various societies decided to federate into the Slovak Section of the American Socialist Party. 26 �52 SLOVAKIA The aim of all of them was to try to spread the socialist ideology among their people and help the Socialist Party win as many elections as possible in order to eventually turn to the United States into a socialist country. Meanwhle, Martincek also wished to establish a Slovak Workers' (fraternal-benefit) Society but found too few potential followers and had to postpone this project until 1915. In that year he managed to persuade 60 members of the Slovak Socialist Section to meet in Newark and organize the Slovak Workers' Society. By the time of its first convention in 1917 it had enrolled 507 members. 27 It slowly grew to 11,107 by 1939 by actively recruiting not only among Slovaks but also among Czechs, Rusins and even Magyars, thereby giving credence to the Slovak nationalist charge that Slovak socialists were not good Slovaks. 28 The tremendous unemployment of the Great Depression also contributed to its growth. On the other hand, the Slovak Section of the Socialist Party in 1919, and the Slovak Workers' Society in 1920 joined the III International and thereby adopted the communist cause, losing significant numbers of members in the process. 29 If one looks at the Slovak-American newspaper press, one will likewise find a dearth of Slovak-American socialist newspapers. The first Slovak-American newspaper was founded in Pittsburgh in 1885 as a commercial venture to provide news from home. 30 By 1918 121 Slovak-language newspapers had sprung up in-this country (although only 41 were still publishing by then) and of 93 newspapers on which there is information regarding their ideology, 54% were Slovak nationalist, 18% were Magyarone, 17% had no political orientation, 4% were "Czechoslovak," 4% were socialist and 2% were neutral. Furthermore, in terms ofreligious orientation, 79% had none, 15% were Roman Catholic, 5% were Lutheran and one was Calvinist. Thus, the Slovak-American press was , by-and-large, secular and nationalist between 1885 and 1918. 31 Only four Slovak-American socialist newspapers appeared between 1885 and 1918, and only one survived. The first sprang up as the weekly Robotnik (Worker) in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1889, but little is known about it and it died a quick death. 32 The second was founded by the brilliant ex-Jesuit (he �SLOVAKIA 53 could speak twelve languages) Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky in 1894. Entitled Fakl'a (Torch), this New York monthly lasted for only nine months because there was not enough of a demand for it. 33 The third (and only successful) attempt to establish a SlovakAmerican socialist newspaper occurred in Chicago in 1906 when a small group, led by Stefan Martincek, established the monthly Rovnost' l'udu (Equality of the people). It became a weekly in 1908 and a daily in 1926. The newspaper changed its name to Eudovy dennfk (The People's Daily) in 1935 and to Eudove noviny (The People's News) in 1945; it folded in 1981. 34 The fou'ith (and last) attempt to establish a Slovak socialist newspaper in America occurred in New York in 1914 when a local group founded the Hlas svobody (Voice of Freedom) to principally serve as the official (fraternal) organ of the about-to-be organized Slovak Workers Society. It lasted only to 1917 because it opposed World War I and such a stand became untenable after the United States entered the war the same year. 35 Having surveyed Slovak immigration to the United States and the establishment of two of its three principal institutions , fraternal-benefit societies and newspapers (the other institution was the parish church) , the question that now arises is why was the socialist movement among American Slovaks so weak, especially when compared to other ehtnic groups who also came from southern or eastern Europe? We know, for instance, that the Czechs , Slovenes and Finns had very vigorous socialist organizations and newspapers. 36 Why did not the Slovaks? The answers are very complex and involve the type of immigrant who came to America, what region he/she came from , who the leaders were, their hopes and aspirations , and the wishes of the immigrants themselves . As we have already seen, most Slovak immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century were single young men who hoped to make their fortunes and return home. Furthermore, the vast majority came from eastern Slovakia, particularly from the counties of Spis , Saris , Zemplin and Abov. This was the most over-populated and economically depressed area of Slovakia and also the weakest in national feeling.37 The principal concerns of the peasants who left this area , whether seasonally to the Hungarian lowlands, or across the Ocean �54 SLOVAKIA to America, was to find work, save their money , help their families survive and, perhaps, even buy some land back home. Until the 20th century they had virtually no knowledge of or contact with socialist ideology. Hungary itself had only a weak socialist movement that got underway in the late 19th century, principally in Budapest. 38 Immigrants from western Slovakia , particularly from Bratislava and Nitra counties, were different. They held more land than their counterparts in the east, were more nationallyconscious, had frequent contacts with their neighbors the Czechs, and often worked on the estates of rich Austrian nobles. They encountered socialist ideas in both the Czech lands and in Austria (Austria had the third-largest socialist movement in terms of votes in Europe in 1912) and brought such ideas with them to America. 39 Thus , not only did Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky , the founder of the socialist Fakl'a (1894) hail from Bursky Sviity Jur, in Bratislava county, but the majority of the members of the Slovak Workers Society also came from western Slovakia. 40 That region, on the other hand , sent only a small number of immigrants to America, and, hence, the " pool" of potential Slovak socialists in the United States was very small. 41 American Slovak leaders , whether secular or clerical, tended to come frorp. central Slovakia. When one looks at the priests , fraternal leaders and journalists who presented themselves as the leaders of American Slovaks, one is bound to notice (as did Hungarian government leaders) that the majority came from the central Slovak counties , particularly from Orava and Turiec - the most nationalist of all Slovak counties . Indeed , the intellectual center of Slovak nationalism in the 19th century was the little town of Turciansky Sviity Martin. Here the Slovaks established their 'Matica slovenska' (a combination of National Library and National Academy) in 1863 (the Hungarian government closed it in 1875) and also their 'Muzealna Slovenska spolocnost" (Slovak Museum Society) in 1893. 42 Slovak-American leaders who originated here , such as the Reverend Stefan Furdek (Orava) , mentioned above , or Jan Spevak, (Turiec) , the second publisher of Slovak v Amerike, or Matus Jankola (Orava) founder of the first Slovak-American religious order of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, or �SLOVAKIA 55 Albert Mamatey (Turiec) wartime president of the Slovak League of America, were first and foremost Slovak nationalists. 43 To all of them socialism was anathema because it preached internationalism which, one of them pointed out, meant for the Slovaks national suicide. Therefore, while most Slovak leaders in America were sympathetic to the plight of Slovak workers , they steered them away from socialist ideology. For instance, while the publisher of Slovak v Amerike might condemn the Pennsylvania state constabulary as "State Cossacks" for their brutality in breaking up a 1912 strike ,44 his colleague Jozef Husek (From Liptov, in central Slovakia) in the Cleveland monthly Kritika would blame the violence of the Colorado miners' strike of 1914 upon "socialist agitators" (in this case the Industrial Workers of the World) .45 Furthermore , at least one powerful Slovak leader was corrupted by greed. P.V. Rovnianek, a co-founder of the National Slovak Society and for many years editor of the first and largest Slovak-American newspaper, Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News), allowed himself to be bribed by mine owners during the Connellsville coal strike of 1891. Rovnianek told the miners in his paper that their cause was hopeless and urged them to return to work. The strike collapsed shortly thereafter. 46 Thus, whether they were concerned with the cause of Slovak nationalism, with keeping their people religious, or with lining their pockets with money , most Slovak-American leaders did nothing to advance the cause of socialism among their people . On the contrary, they opposed it whenever they felt it was necessary. Slovak socialists in America could only lament this stand by " our conservative and clerical leaders. " 47 Furthermore , Slovak socialists (and later communists) in America eventually fell victim to the allure of capitalism. When one looks at the almanacs published by Slovak socialists, one will notice a slow but steady trend away from socialist or communist zealotry . For instance , the first Slovak socialist Robotnicky Kalendar, published in 1914 , rather than having a religious calendar at the beginning , had one featuring secular heroes; it did not list Christmas ; it had many attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church, whether in articles , jokes or cartoons; and it carried only three advertisements , two by fellow-socialists who were selling �56 SLOVAKIA artificial limbs and socialist newspapers. 48 The contents of these almanacs started to change with the second issue (1915) which restored the Roman Catholic and Lutheran calendars, as well as Christmas , and also printed twenty-four advertisements by small businessmen, most of them socialists. 49 By the time the 1946 Eudovy Kalendar (it changed its name in 1935) appeared, it carried Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Catholic and American Saints and heroes, it actually listed Christmas as the birth of Christ, and it had no anti-clerical articles whatever. Indeed, it published the pictures of two Roman Catholic nuns who were daughters of its communist readers! Furthermore, it published 405 advertisements of small businessmen, many of whom were also ostensibly communists. 50 Thus, even though the United States government forced the Slovak Workers Society (which had joined the International Workers' Order in 1931) to disband as a "subversive" society under the McCarren-Walter Act in 1953, the seeds of its dissolution really lay in the success of many of its members in becoming entrepreneurs and also in their children's apparent lack of interest in continuing the old struggle. 51 In view of the relatively late appearance of Slovak socialists in America , their small number, and insignificant organizations, one is left wondering why Slovak Marxist historians have made so much of them. One reason may simply be pride in the fact that the Slovak sodalist movement occurred on both sides of the Atlantic. A more plausible reason is , I think, the fact that SlovakAmerican socialists helped to organize the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While most Slovak-American socialists had become communists by 1920, this kind of split had not yet occurred in the newly-created Czechoslovakia. Therefore , Slovak-American communists sent Jozef Schiffel of Newark, N.J., and Marek Culen of Chicago (both western Slovaks from the Zahorie region) to Slovakia to size up the situation and help lead their comrades to the ''right path.'' Schiffel quickly had himself elected secretary of the more radical wing of the socialists and called a meeting offellow-radicals in I.:ubochna in January, 1921 , which his colleague Marek Culen chaired. Culen was then elected president of the "Action Committee" which planned the organizing meeting of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in May. At this �SLOVAKIA 57 meeting Jozef Schiffel was elected to the Central Committee of the newly-formed Czechoslovak Communist Party. Schiffel later returned to the United States while Culen remained in Slovakia. 52 Thus, just as American Slovaks had helped create the Czechoslovak Republic during World War I, so they helped to establish the Czechoslovak Communist Party. 53 And, this may be the principal reason why Slovak Marxist historians have paid so much attention to the Slovak-American socialist movement which, in the context of Slovak-American history, was relatively unimportant. Meanwhile, what about the Slovak workers and their reactions to labor organizing? This is largely 'terra incognita' at the moment. Paul Krause recently wrote a fine article about the willingness of Slovaks to join with their Anglo-Amer,ican fellowworkers in organizing and striking at Homestead in 1892. 54 I have previously given examples of the willingness of Slovak workers to strike, both in this paper and in my doctoral dissertation. 55 And, in my recent study of Slovaks in Bethlehem, I found them joining in the 1910 strike against Bethlehem Steel and again in 1941. 56 In the latter case they also helped organize the Congress of Industrial Organizations in Bethlehem, just as Thomas Bell, the Slovak-American writer had his hero do in his novel Out of this Furnace. 57 On the other hand, Slovaks were also guilty of scabbing and joining company-controlled unions. The Slovak press occasionally reported such practices, whether or not it approved of them. 58 Furthermore, Slovaks in Bethlehem joined company-sponsored unions in the 1920's and such activities were detrimental to true union organizing. 59 To complicate matters further, American labor organizers were not always receptive to foreigners. The Knights of Labor had tried to organize an industrial union in the coal fields in the 1880' s and did welcome immigrants such as A.S. Ambrose into their ranks, but the union ultimately failed due to poor leadership. In the 1890's skilled workers organized themselves into the American Federation of Labor and systematically excluded unskilled immigrants from their ranks, particularly in the steel mills, and this was one of the main reasons for the failure of the Bethlehem Steel �58 SLOVAKIA strike of 1910. 61 Only the United Mine Workers and the Industrial Workers of the World, which appeared in the early 1900's, successfully recruited and organized immigrant unskilled laborers, the Slovaks among them. 62 While the UMW grew into a large and powerful union, the IWW was destroyed by the United States government during World War I because, as a socialist-syndicalist organization, it opposed American entry into World War 1. 63 Only in the 1930's, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal," did labor organizers not have to worry about government interference in their efforts to establish a union. That was when the Congress of Industrial Organizations finally managed to organize unions in most of America's heavy industries .64 While Slovaks did join the UMW and the CIO in large numbers, the role played by Slovaks in the creation of these unions remains largely unknown. In my research I ran across no Slovak equivalent to Terrence Powderly (the leader of the Knights of Labor) Big Bill Heywood (a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World), John L. Lewis (a leader of the United Mine Workers) or even a Helen Gurley Flynn (an IWW organizer) or a Giuseppe Ettor, another IWW organizer. There may well have been such figures at a lower level of organizing because Anglo-Americans, and later Irish-Americans, tended to dominate the leadership of America's labor unions. 65 If there were Slovaks who tooks a lead in organizing labor unions at local levels, they remain to be discovered ,, Thus, we have seen that socialism and socialist organizations did not attract the vast majority of Slovak-Americans, in spite of what Slovak Marxist historians have written. Furthermore, SlovakAmericans cannot be said to have taken a leading role in the organization of American labor unions , although they may have played minor roles at local levels , and if so, these roles remain to be discovered. Various factors such as the place of origin of the majority of Slovak-Americans (eastern Slovakia) , their leadership (conservative and clerical), the weakness of socialism in Hungary, and the initial desire of Slovak-Americans to make their ''fortunes '' and return home, all worked against the establishment of strong socialist and labor movements among Slovak-Americans. �SLOVAKIA 59 NOTES 1 See for example Milos Gosiorovsky, "K podielu americko-slovenskeho proletariatu na vzniku CSR," in the collection of essays Ke vzniku CSR (Prague, 1958), 171-84 and by the same author "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA ," in Zbornfk Filozofickej Fakulty Univenity Komenskeho, historica, 11-12 (Bratislava , 1962), 40-74 , and " Frantisek Pucher-Ciemovodsky a robotnicke hnutie, " in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 197-207. While Gosiorovsky set the tone, others followed. Examples are Frantisek Bielik and Stefan Vesely, "Zapisnice slovenskych politickych organizacii v Spojenych statoch americky<;h,'' in Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 147-166; Frantisek Bielik et. al., Slovacl vo Svete, 2 (Martin, 1980); Ondrej Kutes, "Spomienky na zivot Slovakov vo Whitingu v state Indiana a m6j prichod do USA," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 8 (Martin, 1982), 127-131 ; Ivan Poljak, "Stefan Martincek," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin, 1979), 305; Jan Siracky, "Pokrokove tradicie zahranicnych Slovakov a ich vyvrcholenie v obdobi boja proti fasizmu pocas druhej svetovej vojny," Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 7-25; and Siracky, ' ' Sucasny stav a problematika vyskumu dejin zahranicnych Slovakov,'' in Bielik et. al., Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete (Martin, 1982), 49-58. 2 Karol Rebro, "Agra.me reformy v habsburskej monarchii od zaciatku 18. stor. do roku 1848 s osobintym zretel'om na Slovensko, Historicke ~tudie XIlI (1968) , 11-13; and Endre Arat6, "K hospodarskym dejinam Slovenska od roku 1848 do 1900," Historicky casopis, I (No. 3, 1953). 432. 3 Arat6, Ibid., 480-86 . 4 Jan Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky," in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 55; See also Narodny hlasnik (Skalica, June 30, 1869), 166 and (February 8, 1881), 1. 5 Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), 239. See also Obzor (Skalica) , June 25 , 1881; Narodnie noviny (Martin), November 14, 1882, 1; February 24, 1887, 4; March 17, 1892 , 3; May 3, 1898 , 1; Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), April 26 , 1900, 9; and July 4, 1901 ; see also the governor's correspondence in the Slovak State Archives for Abov county, Kosice , 460/1900. s Balch, Ibid., 285 . 7 M. Mark Stolarik , " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America , 1870-1918, " in Slovak Studies, XX (Rome, 1980), 34-35. 8 Jan Svetoii., "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu," Ekonomicky casopis, IV (No . 2, 1956), 171-79; and Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, 1922), 973 . 9 Fourteenth Census, Ibid., 984. Narodnie noviny, February 9, 1886, 3. 10 11 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta, October 11, 1894, in the Matica slovenska's Literary Archives, Martin, 37-060; Narodnie noviny, June 30, 1984, 3; August 9, 1894; Slovak v Amerike (New York), September 30, 1897, 2; October 7, 1897, 1; March 31, 1898, 4; Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1; Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 241-250; M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: �SLOVAKIA 60 Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1880-1976 (Lewisburg, 1985), 97-98. 12 The Most complete account of the Lattimer strike is Michael Novak's The Guns of Lattimer: The True Story of a Massacre and Trial, August 1897-March 1898 (New York, 1978) . 13 As cited in Narodnie noviny, November 6, 1890, 2. 14 Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 58-62. 15 Kalendar Jednota (Cleveland , 1910), 190-98. 16 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho (Pittsburgh, 1924). 128-130; Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organisaciami," Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 67. 17 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York, 1921). 88-9 . 18 Jozef Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (Cleveland , 1965), passim. 19 Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileu Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh, 1941), passim; and Jednota (Cleveland , December 9, 1908), 4. 20 Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (Cleveland, 1930), 11. 21 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, July 4, 1896, 1. 22 Ibid., July 13 , 1896, 1; and Gusto KoMk, "Prve desat'rocie nasej Jednoty," Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolickej Telocvicnej Jednoty Sokol (Passaic, N.J., 1916), 35-51. 23 Frank Uherka, "Kratky prehl'ad S.K.P.J. Jednoty," Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvfnov (Pittsburgh, 1927). 37-8. 24 Capek, op. cit. 25 Stefan Martincek, "Z minulosti slovenskeho robotnickeho hnutia, " Robotnicky Kalendar (Chicago, 1927), 25-28. 26 Gosiorovsky , "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA," op. cit. , 45 . 27 Ibid ., 49. 28 Ibid., 41 and 56; and Ivan Poljak and Eva Fordinalova, " Slovenske robotnicke hnutie v Spojenych statoch americkych," in Frantisek Bielik et. al. , Slovaci vo svete, 2 (Martin , 1980). 124. 29 Poljak and Fordinalova, Ibid ., and Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1930, 38. ° Konstantin Culen, Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland , 1970), 29-32 . 3 31 M. Mark Stolarik, "At Horne Abroad: The Slovak-American Press, 1885-1918," in Owen V. Johnson , ed ., Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe (Forthcoming) . 32 Culen, op. cit., 101. 33 Ibid. , 41-2 ; Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky " op . cit. 34 Culen, op. cit., 104-07; For a general discussion of the Slovak-American press see M. Mark Stolarik, " The Slovak-American Press ," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States (Westport, Conn., 1987). 353-68. 35 Culen, op. cit., 47 . 36 In a pamphlet entitled Socialist Party Meeting National Committee, May, 1915: Reports of Foreign Federations (No publisher, place or date given), in the papers of the Slovene National Benefit Society Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, �SLOVAKIA 61 groups such as the Czechs, Slovenes and Finns were reported with tens of thousands of members but the Slovaks had only 751. See also the articles about these groups in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1980). 37 Ladislav Tajtak, "Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny," Nave obzory (Kosice , III, 1961), 221 -47 . 38 Gabriel Louis Jaraj , La Question Sociale et le Socialisme en Hongrie (Paris, 1909), 54-8 ; and Martinl':ek, op. cit., 25 . 39 Poljak & Fordinalova in Slovaci vo svete, 2, op. cit. , 115; Zoltan Sarkozi, "Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskych pol'nohospodarskych sez6nnych robotnfkov {1848-1914)," Historicky tasopis (Bratislava , 1964), 12 , 75-103; and Robotnfcky Kalendar, (1914), in which the editors give the world-wide socialist vote in 1912 as follows: Germany, 4,238,919; France, 1,120,000; Austria, 1,041,948; USA 905,768; Finland, 330,000; Hungary 80 ,000 . •0 Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky," op. cit., and Poljak and Fordinalova , op. cit. 41 Frantisek Bielik & Elo Rakos, Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Bratislava , 1969), 30. 42 Julius Mesaros a kolektiv, Dejiny Slovenska II, od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (Bratislava, 1968), 236-306 ; Monika Glettler, Pittsburg-Wien-Budapest: Program und Praxis der Nationalitlitenpolitik bei der Auswanderung der Ungarischen Slowaken nach Amerika um 1900 (Vienna, 1980), 208-17. 43 See Jozef Paul':o , Slovenskf priekopnfci v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972) for the biographies of Furdek (72-127), Jankola (208-22), and Mamatey (269-75), and Culen, Slovenske tasopisy op . cit., 125 , for the origins of Jan Spevak. 44 Slovak v Amerike, May 14, 1912 , 1. 45 Kritika, May 20, 1914, 2. 46 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta , op. cit., and Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1. 47 Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1914, 15 . 48 Ibid. , passim . Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1915 , passim. so L:udovy Kalendar, 1946, passim. 49 s, Gosiorovsky, " K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 70-71. Even the covers of the Slovak Communist Almanac cited above changed dramatically over the years. The 1932 cover, for instance, featured a very revolutionary scene of workers storming the barricades, whereas the 1950 cover showed a rather bourgeois photograph of a beautiful Slovak mother and child. 52 Gosiorovsky, "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 52-3 . 53 For the story of the World War I liberation movement see my The Role of American Slovaks in th e Creation ofCzecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918 (Rome , Slovak Studies, VIII , 1968) . 54 Paul Krause, "Labor Republicanism and 'Za Chlebom ': Anglo-Americans and Slavic Solidarity in Homestead, " in Dirk Hoerder ed ., " Struggle a Hard Battle ": Essays on Working-Class Immigrants (DeKalb , Ill ., 1986), 121-42 . �62 55 SLOVAKIA See above, page 4 and Stolarik, " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America," op. cit., 65-7 . 56 Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side, op. cit., 97-9 . 57 Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace (Boston, 1941) , 395-404. 58 Na.rodnie noviny, August 13 , 1892, 3; June 30, 1894, 3; and Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1912, 246-50. 59 Stolarik, Growing Up, op. cit. , 98 . 6 °For an excellent article on immigrants and the American labor movement see David Brody's contribution "Labor" in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, op. cit., 609-18. 61 62 Robert Hessen, Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab (New York, 1976), 194-208 . Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, April 11 , 1905, 4; March 27, 1906, 1; July 30 , 1907, 1; Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1908, 144-56; Ibid., 1912 , 241-50. 63 For the story of the IWW see Melvin Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago , 1969). The section on their destruction appears on pages 350-462. 64 The role of the CIO in organizing many of America's heavy industries was outlined by Sidney lens in The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns (Garden City, N.J., 1973), 285-375 . 65 David Brody makes this point about the ethnic composition of America 's labor leaders in his article, cited above, on pages 611 and 615. � SLOVAKIA 47 Slovak Immigration to the United States and its Relation to the American Socialist and Labor Movements M. MARK STOLARIK If one looks at the large number of books and articles that Slovak Marxist historians have written about Slovak immigrants and their relation to the socialist and labor movements, one will get the impression that most Slovak immigrants to the United States joined socialist organizations and took a leading role in the American labor movement. 1 There is very little evidence to support such conclusions. As I will demonstrate in this paper, most Slovak immigrants came to the United States as single young men who wanted to make their "fortunes" and return home and their leaders were more concerned with promoting Slovak nationalism than with any socialist or labor ideology. Slovaks left their homeland in Hungary in the 19th century for three basic reasons: lack of land, lack of industry and lack of opportunity. While serfdom was abolished during the Revolution of 1848, there was no corresponding land reform. Therefore, the nobility (ten per cent of the population) continued to hold more than half of the best arable land. The vast majority of freed serfs held fewer than five hectares of land and soon they began to break up even these meager holdings among their children. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Hungary, unlike the Austrian part of the Empire, did not promote much industry (the nobility preferred the ''rustic'' life to pollution and grime) and, hence , the growing number of landless peasants found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.2 In addition, the Slovaks had only a tiny middle class which �48 SLOVAKIA was engaged in an uneven struggle with the Hungarian government over the issue of 'Magyarization' (the forcible assimilation of non-Magyar nationalities by the Magyars) . This small number of individuals, faced by government discrimination , could not possibly either build up industry large enough to employ all the job-seekers or force the government into land reform. 3 Therefore, by the 1870s it had become common practice for Slovak peasants to migrate each summer to the Hungarian (and in some instances Austrian) lowlands and take in the harvest of the wealthy nobles. Others, particularly from Trencin county, had begun to wander all over Europe as tinkers who would offer to fix household implements, sharpen knives and scissors and do other odd jobs for the few pennies tossed them by sympathetic housewives. Others still sought work in the booming ·metropolises of Vienna and Budapest. 4 Meanwhile, after the American Civil War had ended, the United States of America began to industrialize in earnest. The railroad, coal, steel and oil industries began to greatly expand and they required large numbers of cheap , unskilled laborers, to make them profitable. American industrialists refused to pay the Irish and other immigrants who were already in America a decent wage, and the industrialists also rejected the alternatives of Black labor. Instead, they sent agents to Europe to seek workers who would settle for wages of around $1.50 a day and the agents found such people in eastern and southern Europe. 5 To a Slovak peasant, who could not make a living on five hectares of land, and who earned only the equivalent of 15 to 30 cents a day on a noble's estate, if he could find the work, $1.50 a day was a very handsome salary. Therefore , a few Slovaks responded to the entreaties of railroad agents (who advanced them the $70.00 it would cost to make the trip) in the 1870s and went to America. By then steamships began to carry immigrants across the Ocean in the relatively short time of two weeks. 6 And, while the work on the railroads, in the mines or mills was long and hard, the Slovaks put up with all these hardships because they had not come to stay. Instead, the vast majority were single young men (or newly-married) who came to make their 'fortunes' (usually $1 ,000) and then hoped to return home, buy enough land to make �SLOVAKIA 49 a living, and settle down to the good life in Hungary. Living in cramped boarding houses, the frugal Slovaks managed to pay off the cost of the trip in six months and after that they began to send money home to support their families and to also bring additional relatives to America. 7 Once this process got underway the trickle of Slovaks turned into a deluge in the 1880s and 1890s and peaked in 1905 when over 50,000 made the voyage. Altogether 650,000 Slovaks migrated to the United States between 1870 and 1924 (when immigration was largely halted by the U.S. Congress) and 500,000 eventually chose to remain in the New World. 8 Those who did then sent for their wives and children. Most Slovaks settled in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, half in Pennsylvania and the rest in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. 9 While life was more livable for Slovaks in the New World than in the Old, they did soon come to realize that they were being exploited and started to strike. The first recorded strike by Slovaks in the United States was in Bessemer, Pennsylvania in January of 1886 when 300 men, led by Stefan Stanek, walked off the job because the mine operators refused their modest request for an increase from 2 7 cents per wagon of coal produced to 30 cents per wagon. The mine owners decided to disperse the strikers with local police forces but the miners ' wives saved the day by hurling stones at the police and preventing them from making many arrests. 10 After this Slovaks were found participating in all the major strikes that affected the coal and steel industries, whether in the great Connellsville coal and coke strike of 1891 , the Homestead steel strike of 1892 , the Anthracite coal strike of 1894, the Lattimer coal strike of 1897, the Anthracite strikes of 1900 and 1902 , the Bethlehem Steel strike of 1910, the Westmoreland coal strike of 1911-1912 and the 1919 "Hunky" steel strike. 11 In the Lattimer strike, which turned into a massacre when sheriff's deputies opened fire upon 1,000 peaceful marching strikers , six Slovaks were killed, along with eight Poles and two Lithuanians, and 35 other workers were wounded. 12 In view of the Slovak willingness to strike for better wages and conditions, one might conclude that they were ripe for recruitment by socialist ideologies and organizations . Such w as not the �50 SLOVAKIA case. As early as 1890 the editor of the workers' weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America) denounced socialism for two reasons: he charged that socialists advocated the violent overthrow of the capitalist system, an action which he deemed immoral; and socialism propagated internationalism, which to the beleaguered Slovaks who were fighting 'Magyarization' meant national suicide. 13 A.S. Ambrose , the founder and editor of Slovak v Amerike, had been an organizer of the ill-fated Knights of Labor, who made the first attempt to create an industrial union of unskilled workers in the United States in the 1880s. 14 Thus , while Ambrose was sympathetic to the plight of the workers, he rejected socialism and most other Slovak leaders in American followed suit. In a later article the Reverend Stefan Furdek, who was the most respected of Slovak Catholic clergymen in America, rejected socialism as well , principally because he felt it violated human nature - "people are not sheep" - and also because it opposed organized religion and wanted to root out belief in God. 15 Since both secular and clerical leaders of Slovak-Americans opposed socialism in the United States, it had little chance of success among the masses. This is not to say that socialist societies and newspapers did not arise among American Slovaks. They did , but when compared to other Slovak organizations , the socialist ones came relatively late and in such small numbers that they made very little impact upn Slovak-American life. For instance, A.S. Ambrose joined with P.V. Rovnianek (an ex-seminarian) to found the first nation-wide National Slovak Society of the United States and Canada in 1890 (between 1882 and 1890 more than 40 local fraternals had been established by American Slovaks). 16 Besides providing for fraternal-benefit insurance, the National Slovak Society became the leading nationalist and second-largest Slovak fraternal in the United States by 1918. 17 The largest was the First Catholic Slovak Union, also founded in 1890, but by the Reverend Stefan Furdek. Its goals were fraternal-benefit insurance for its members, and defense of the Catholic faith and the Slovak nation , as embodied in its slogan "Za Boha a narod" (For God and the Nation). 18 Since American Slovaks had interests that went beyond those espoused by the National Slovak Society and the First Catholic �SLOVAKIA 51 Slovak Union, they established even more fraternals. The two aforementioned societies initially admitted only men. Therefore, the wives of the men in these societies established the Zivena (Giver of Life) Beneficial Union in 1891 and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 19 Lutherans followed suit with the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1892. 20 A regional group founded the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893. 21 Militant nationalists established the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 (from which devout Catholics split off to found the larger Slovak Catholic Sokol in 1905) 22 and even Slovak Calvinists, a tiny minority, founded their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in 1901 (all of these later established women's counterparts). 23 By 1918 twelve of the largest nation-wide Slovak societies in the United States enrolled over 200,000 members. The religious ones led with a total of 145,053 (51,817 in the First Catholic Slovak Union), with Catholics enrolling 133,904 and Lutherans 11,149. Secular societies had 69,315 members, and the National Slovak Society led these with 29,118. 24 By 1940 these societies, largely by enrolling their members' children, had doubled their combined membership to over 400,000. Meanwhile, a few isolated Slovak socialist organizations appeared at the turn of the century. The most important one arose in Chicago in 1902. In that year Stefan Martincek arrived from Budapest, where he had been a member of the Hungarian Socialist Party since 1897 and editor of the Slovak Socialist newspaper Nova doba in 1898-1899. He had also helped organize socialist cells among Slovaks in the southernmost counties of the Banat and Backa. However, by 1902 he tired of the Hungarian government's refusal to allow the creation of a Slovak Workers ' Society on the old pretext that ''there is no Slovak nation,'' and left for Chicago where a friend had preceded him. Soon after his arrival Martincek organized the First Slovak Workers Educational Society "Rovnost"' (Equality), which affiliated with the Czech Workers' Section of the Socialist party of America. The latter had been founded in 1901. 25 In the next few years other Slovak socialist societies sprang up in Cleveland, Newark, N.J., and New York City, and elsewhere . By 1911 these various societies decided to federate into the Slovak Section of the American Socialist Party. 26 �52 SLOVAKIA The aim of all of them was to try to spread the socialist ideology among their people and help the Socialist Party win as many elections as possible in order to eventually turn to the United States into a socialist country. Meanwhle, Martincek also wished to establish a Slovak Workers' (fraternal-benefit) Society but found too few potential followers and had to postpone this project until 1915. In that year he managed to persuade 60 members of the Slovak Socialist Section to meet in Newark and organize the Slovak Workers' Society. By the time of its first convention in 1917 it had enrolled 507 members. 27 It slowly grew to 11,107 by 1939 by actively recruiting not only among Slovaks but also among Czechs, Rusins and even Magyars, thereby giving credence to the Slovak nationalist charge that Slovak socialists were not good Slovaks. 28 The tremendous unemployment of the Great Depression also contributed to its growth. On the other hand, the Slovak Section of the Socialist Party in 1919, and the Slovak Workers' Society in 1920 joined the III International and thereby adopted the communist cause, losing significant numbers of members in the process. 29 If one looks at the Slovak-American newspaper press, one will likewise find a dearth of Slovak-American socialist newspapers. The first Slovak-American newspaper was founded in Pittsburgh in 1885 as a commercial venture to provide news from home. 30 By 1918 121 Slovak-language newspapers had sprung up in-this country (although only 41 were still publishing by then) and of 93 newspapers on which there is information regarding their ideology, 54% were Slovak nationalist, 18% were Magyarone, 17% had no political orientation, 4% were "Czechoslovak," 4% were socialist and 2% were neutral. Furthermore, in terms ofreligious orientation, 79% had none, 15% were Roman Catholic, 5% were Lutheran and one was Calvinist. Thus, the Slovak-American press was , by-and-large, secular and nationalist between 1885 and 1918. 31 Only four Slovak-American socialist newspapers appeared between 1885 and 1918, and only one survived. The first sprang up as the weekly Robotnik (Worker) in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1889, but little is known about it and it died a quick death. 32 The second was founded by the brilliant ex-Jesuit (he �SLOVAKIA 53 could speak twelve languages) Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky in 1894. Entitled Fakl'a (Torch), this New York monthly lasted for only nine months because there was not enough of a demand for it. 33 The third (and only successful) attempt to establish a SlovakAmerican socialist newspaper occurred in Chicago in 1906 when a small group, led by Stefan Martincek, established the monthly Rovnost' l'udu (Equality of the people). It became a weekly in 1908 and a daily in 1926. The newspaper changed its name to Eudovy dennfk (The People's Daily) in 1935 and to Eudove noviny (The People's News) in 1945; it folded in 1981. 34 The fou'ith (and last) attempt to establish a Slovak socialist newspaper in America occurred in New York in 1914 when a local group founded the Hlas svobody (Voice of Freedom) to principally serve as the official (fraternal) organ of the about-to-be organized Slovak Workers Society. It lasted only to 1917 because it opposed World War I and such a stand became untenable after the United States entered the war the same year. 35 Having surveyed Slovak immigration to the United States and the establishment of two of its three principal institutions , fraternal-benefit societies and newspapers (the other institution was the parish church) , the question that now arises is why was the socialist movement among American Slovaks so weak, especially when compared to other ehtnic groups who also came from southern or eastern Europe? We know, for instance, that the Czechs , Slovenes and Finns had very vigorous socialist organizations and newspapers. 36 Why did not the Slovaks? The answers are very complex and involve the type of immigrant who came to America, what region he/she came from , who the leaders were, their hopes and aspirations , and the wishes of the immigrants themselves . As we have already seen, most Slovak immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century were single young men who hoped to make their fortunes and return home. Furthermore, the vast majority came from eastern Slovakia, particularly from the counties of Spis , Saris , Zemplin and Abov. This was the most over-populated and economically depressed area of Slovakia and also the weakest in national feeling.37 The principal concerns of the peasants who left this area , whether seasonally to the Hungarian lowlands, or across the Ocean �54 SLOVAKIA to America, was to find work, save their money , help their families survive and, perhaps, even buy some land back home. Until the 20th century they had virtually no knowledge of or contact with socialist ideology. Hungary itself had only a weak socialist movement that got underway in the late 19th century, principally in Budapest. 38 Immigrants from western Slovakia , particularly from Bratislava and Nitra counties, were different. They held more land than their counterparts in the east, were more nationallyconscious, had frequent contacts with their neighbors the Czechs, and often worked on the estates of rich Austrian nobles. They encountered socialist ideas in both the Czech lands and in Austria (Austria had the third-largest socialist movement in terms of votes in Europe in 1912) and brought such ideas with them to America. 39 Thus , not only did Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky , the founder of the socialist Fakl'a (1894) hail from Bursky Sviity Jur, in Bratislava county, but the majority of the members of the Slovak Workers Society also came from western Slovakia. 40 That region, on the other hand , sent only a small number of immigrants to America, and, hence, the " pool" of potential Slovak socialists in the United States was very small. 41 American Slovak leaders , whether secular or clerical, tended to come frorp. central Slovakia. When one looks at the priests , fraternal leaders and journalists who presented themselves as the leaders of American Slovaks, one is bound to notice (as did Hungarian government leaders) that the majority came from the central Slovak counties , particularly from Orava and Turiec - the most nationalist of all Slovak counties . Indeed , the intellectual center of Slovak nationalism in the 19th century was the little town of Turciansky Sviity Martin. Here the Slovaks established their 'Matica slovenska' (a combination of National Library and National Academy) in 1863 (the Hungarian government closed it in 1875) and also their 'Muzealna Slovenska spolocnost" (Slovak Museum Society) in 1893. 42 Slovak-American leaders who originated here , such as the Reverend Stefan Furdek (Orava) , mentioned above , or Jan Spevak, (Turiec) , the second publisher of Slovak v Amerike, or Matus Jankola (Orava) founder of the first Slovak-American religious order of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, or �SLOVAKIA 55 Albert Mamatey (Turiec) wartime president of the Slovak League of America, were first and foremost Slovak nationalists. 43 To all of them socialism was anathema because it preached internationalism which, one of them pointed out, meant for the Slovaks national suicide. Therefore, while most Slovak leaders in America were sympathetic to the plight of Slovak workers , they steered them away from socialist ideology. For instance, while the publisher of Slovak v Amerike might condemn the Pennsylvania state constabulary as "State Cossacks" for their brutality in breaking up a 1912 strike ,44 his colleague Jozef Husek (From Liptov, in central Slovakia) in the Cleveland monthly Kritika would blame the violence of the Colorado miners' strike of 1914 upon "socialist agitators" (in this case the Industrial Workers of the World) .45 Furthermore , at least one powerful Slovak leader was corrupted by greed. P.V. Rovnianek, a co-founder of the National Slovak Society and for many years editor of the first and largest Slovak-American newspaper, Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News), allowed himself to be bribed by mine owners during the Connellsville coal strike of 1891. Rovnianek told the miners in his paper that their cause was hopeless and urged them to return to work. The strike collapsed shortly thereafter. 46 Thus, whether they were concerned with the cause of Slovak nationalism, with keeping their people religious, or with lining their pockets with money , most Slovak-American leaders did nothing to advance the cause of socialism among their people . On the contrary, they opposed it whenever they felt it was necessary. Slovak socialists in America could only lament this stand by " our conservative and clerical leaders. " 47 Furthermore , Slovak socialists (and later communists) in America eventually fell victim to the allure of capitalism. When one looks at the almanacs published by Slovak socialists, one will notice a slow but steady trend away from socialist or communist zealotry . For instance , the first Slovak socialist Robotnicky Kalendar, published in 1914 , rather than having a religious calendar at the beginning , had one featuring secular heroes; it did not list Christmas ; it had many attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church, whether in articles , jokes or cartoons; and it carried only three advertisements , two by fellow-socialists who were selling �56 SLOVAKIA artificial limbs and socialist newspapers. 48 The contents of these almanacs started to change with the second issue (1915) which restored the Roman Catholic and Lutheran calendars, as well as Christmas , and also printed twenty-four advertisements by small businessmen, most of them socialists. 49 By the time the 1946 Eudovy Kalendar (it changed its name in 1935) appeared, it carried Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Catholic and American Saints and heroes, it actually listed Christmas as the birth of Christ, and it had no anti-clerical articles whatever. Indeed, it published the pictures of two Roman Catholic nuns who were daughters of its communist readers! Furthermore, it published 405 advertisements of small businessmen, many of whom were also ostensibly communists. 50 Thus, even though the United States government forced the Slovak Workers Society (which had joined the International Workers' Order in 1931) to disband as a "subversive" society under the McCarren-Walter Act in 1953, the seeds of its dissolution really lay in the success of many of its members in becoming entrepreneurs and also in their children's apparent lack of interest in continuing the old struggle. 51 In view of the relatively late appearance of Slovak socialists in America , their small number, and insignificant organizations, one is left wondering why Slovak Marxist historians have made so much of them. One reason may simply be pride in the fact that the Slovak sodalist movement occurred on both sides of the Atlantic. A more plausible reason is , I think, the fact that SlovakAmerican socialists helped to organize the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While most Slovak-American socialists had become communists by 1920, this kind of split had not yet occurred in the newly-created Czechoslovakia. Therefore , Slovak-American communists sent Jozef Schiffel of Newark, N.J., and Marek Culen of Chicago (both western Slovaks from the Zahorie region) to Slovakia to size up the situation and help lead their comrades to the ''right path.'' Schiffel quickly had himself elected secretary of the more radical wing of the socialists and called a meeting offellow-radicals in I.:ubochna in January, 1921 , which his colleague Marek Culen chaired. Culen was then elected president of the "Action Committee" which planned the organizing meeting of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in May. At this �SLOVAKIA 57 meeting Jozef Schiffel was elected to the Central Committee of the newly-formed Czechoslovak Communist Party. Schiffel later returned to the United States while Culen remained in Slovakia. 52 Thus, just as American Slovaks had helped create the Czechoslovak Republic during World War I, so they helped to establish the Czechoslovak Communist Party. 53 And, this may be the principal reason why Slovak Marxist historians have paid so much attention to the Slovak-American socialist movement which, in the context of Slovak-American history, was relatively unimportant. Meanwhile, what about the Slovak workers and their reactions to labor organizing? This is largely 'terra incognita' at the moment. Paul Krause recently wrote a fine article about the willingness of Slovaks to join with their Anglo-Amer,ican fellowworkers in organizing and striking at Homestead in 1892. 54 I have previously given examples of the willingness of Slovak workers to strike, both in this paper and in my doctoral dissertation. 55 And, in my recent study of Slovaks in Bethlehem, I found them joining in the 1910 strike against Bethlehem Steel and again in 1941. 56 In the latter case they also helped organize the Congress of Industrial Organizations in Bethlehem, just as Thomas Bell, the Slovak-American writer had his hero do in his novel Out of this Furnace. 57 On the other hand, Slovaks were also guilty of scabbing and joining company-controlled unions. The Slovak press occasionally reported such practices, whether or not it approved of them. 58 Furthermore, Slovaks in Bethlehem joined company-sponsored unions in the 1920's and such activities were detrimental to true union organizing. 59 To complicate matters further, American labor organizers were not always receptive to foreigners. The Knights of Labor had tried to organize an industrial union in the coal fields in the 1880' s and did welcome immigrants such as A.S. Ambrose into their ranks, but the union ultimately failed due to poor leadership. In the 1890's skilled workers organized themselves into the American Federation of Labor and systematically excluded unskilled immigrants from their ranks, particularly in the steel mills, and this was one of the main reasons for the failure of the Bethlehem Steel �58 SLOVAKIA strike of 1910. 61 Only the United Mine Workers and the Industrial Workers of the World, which appeared in the early 1900's, successfully recruited and organized immigrant unskilled laborers, the Slovaks among them. 62 While the UMW grew into a large and powerful union, the IWW was destroyed by the United States government during World War I because, as a socialist-syndicalist organization, it opposed American entry into World War 1. 63 Only in the 1930's, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal," did labor organizers not have to worry about government interference in their efforts to establish a union. That was when the Congress of Industrial Organizations finally managed to organize unions in most of America's heavy industries .64 While Slovaks did join the UMW and the CIO in large numbers, the role played by Slovaks in the creation of these unions remains largely unknown. In my research I ran across no Slovak equivalent to Terrence Powderly (the leader of the Knights of Labor) Big Bill Heywood (a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World), John L. Lewis (a leader of the United Mine Workers) or even a Helen Gurley Flynn (an IWW organizer) or a Giuseppe Ettor, another IWW organizer. There may well have been such figures at a lower level of organizing because Anglo-Americans, and later Irish-Americans, tended to dominate the leadership of America's labor unions. 65 If there were Slovaks who tooks a lead in organizing labor unions at local levels, they remain to be discovered ,, Thus, we have seen that socialism and socialist organizations did not attract the vast majority of Slovak-Americans, in spite of what Slovak Marxist historians have written. Furthermore, SlovakAmericans cannot be said to have taken a leading role in the organization of American labor unions , although they may have played minor roles at local levels , and if so, these roles remain to be discovered. Various factors such as the place of origin of the majority of Slovak-Americans (eastern Slovakia) , their leadership (conservative and clerical), the weakness of socialism in Hungary, and the initial desire of Slovak-Americans to make their ''fortunes '' and return home, all worked against the establishment of strong socialist and labor movements among Slovak-Americans. �SLOVAKIA 59 NOTES 1 See for example Milos Gosiorovsky, "K podielu americko-slovenskeho proletariatu na vzniku CSR," in the collection of essays Ke vzniku CSR (Prague, 1958), 171-84 and by the same author "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA ," in Zbornfk Filozofickej Fakulty Univenity Komenskeho, historica, 11-12 (Bratislava , 1962), 40-74 , and " Frantisek Pucher-Ciemovodsky a robotnicke hnutie, " in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 197-207. While Gosiorovsky set the tone, others followed. Examples are Frantisek Bielik and Stefan Vesely, "Zapisnice slovenskych politickych organizacii v Spojenych statoch americky<;h,'' in Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 147-166; Frantisek Bielik et. al., Slovacl vo Svete, 2 (Martin, 1980); Ondrej Kutes, "Spomienky na zivot Slovakov vo Whitingu v state Indiana a m6j prichod do USA," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 8 (Martin, 1982), 127-131 ; Ivan Poljak, "Stefan Martincek," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin, 1979), 305; Jan Siracky, "Pokrokove tradicie zahranicnych Slovakov a ich vyvrcholenie v obdobi boja proti fasizmu pocas druhej svetovej vojny," Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 7-25; and Siracky, ' ' Sucasny stav a problematika vyskumu dejin zahranicnych Slovakov,'' in Bielik et. al., Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete (Martin, 1982), 49-58. 2 Karol Rebro, "Agra.me reformy v habsburskej monarchii od zaciatku 18. stor. do roku 1848 s osobintym zretel'om na Slovensko, Historicke ~tudie XIlI (1968) , 11-13; and Endre Arat6, "K hospodarskym dejinam Slovenska od roku 1848 do 1900," Historicky casopis, I (No. 3, 1953). 432. 3 Arat6, Ibid., 480-86 . 4 Jan Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky," in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 55; See also Narodny hlasnik (Skalica, June 30, 1869), 166 and (February 8, 1881), 1. 5 Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), 239. See also Obzor (Skalica) , June 25 , 1881; Narodnie noviny (Martin), November 14, 1882, 1; February 24, 1887, 4; March 17, 1892 , 3; May 3, 1898 , 1; Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), April 26 , 1900, 9; and July 4, 1901 ; see also the governor's correspondence in the Slovak State Archives for Abov county, Kosice , 460/1900. s Balch, Ibid., 285 . 7 M. Mark Stolarik , " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America , 1870-1918, " in Slovak Studies, XX (Rome, 1980), 34-35. 8 Jan Svetoii., "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu," Ekonomicky casopis, IV (No . 2, 1956), 171-79; and Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, 1922), 973 . 9 Fourteenth Census, Ibid., 984. Narodnie noviny, February 9, 1886, 3. 10 11 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta, October 11, 1894, in the Matica slovenska's Literary Archives, Martin, 37-060; Narodnie noviny, June 30, 1984, 3; August 9, 1894; Slovak v Amerike (New York), September 30, 1897, 2; October 7, 1897, 1; March 31, 1898, 4; Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1; Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 241-250; M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: �SLOVAKIA 60 Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1880-1976 (Lewisburg, 1985), 97-98. 12 The Most complete account of the Lattimer strike is Michael Novak's The Guns of Lattimer: The True Story of a Massacre and Trial, August 1897-March 1898 (New York, 1978) . 13 As cited in Narodnie noviny, November 6, 1890, 2. 14 Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 58-62. 15 Kalendar Jednota (Cleveland , 1910), 190-98. 16 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho (Pittsburgh, 1924). 128-130; Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organisaciami," Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 67. 17 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York, 1921). 88-9 . 18 Jozef Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (Cleveland , 1965), passim. 19 Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileu Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh, 1941), passim; and Jednota (Cleveland , December 9, 1908), 4. 20 Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (Cleveland, 1930), 11. 21 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, July 4, 1896, 1. 22 Ibid., July 13 , 1896, 1; and Gusto KoMk, "Prve desat'rocie nasej Jednoty," Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolickej Telocvicnej Jednoty Sokol (Passaic, N.J., 1916), 35-51. 23 Frank Uherka, "Kratky prehl'ad S.K.P.J. Jednoty," Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvfnov (Pittsburgh, 1927). 37-8. 24 Capek, op. cit. 25 Stefan Martincek, "Z minulosti slovenskeho robotnickeho hnutia, " Robotnicky Kalendar (Chicago, 1927), 25-28. 26 Gosiorovsky , "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA," op. cit. , 45 . 27 Ibid ., 49. 28 Ibid., 41 and 56; and Ivan Poljak and Eva Fordinalova, " Slovenske robotnicke hnutie v Spojenych statoch americkych," in Frantisek Bielik et. al. , Slovaci vo svete, 2 (Martin , 1980). 124. 29 Poljak and Fordinalova, Ibid ., and Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1930, 38. ° Konstantin Culen, Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland , 1970), 29-32 . 3 31 M. Mark Stolarik, "At Horne Abroad: The Slovak-American Press, 1885-1918," in Owen V. Johnson , ed ., Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe (Forthcoming) . 32 Culen, op. cit., 101. 33 Ibid. , 41-2 ; Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky " op . cit. 34 Culen, op. cit., 104-07; For a general discussion of the Slovak-American press see M. Mark Stolarik, " The Slovak-American Press ," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States (Westport, Conn., 1987). 353-68. 35 Culen, op. cit., 47 . 36 In a pamphlet entitled Socialist Party Meeting National Committee, May, 1915: Reports of Foreign Federations (No publisher, place or date given), in the papers of the Slovene National Benefit Society Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, �SLOVAKIA 61 groups such as the Czechs, Slovenes and Finns were reported with tens of thousands of members but the Slovaks had only 751. See also the articles about these groups in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1980). 37 Ladislav Tajtak, "Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny," Nave obzory (Kosice , III, 1961), 221 -47 . 38 Gabriel Louis Jaraj , La Question Sociale et le Socialisme en Hongrie (Paris, 1909), 54-8 ; and Martinl':ek, op. cit., 25 . 39 Poljak & Fordinalova in Slovaci vo svete, 2, op. cit. , 115; Zoltan Sarkozi, "Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskych pol'nohospodarskych sez6nnych robotnfkov {1848-1914)," Historicky tasopis (Bratislava , 1964), 12 , 75-103; and Robotnfcky Kalendar, (1914), in which the editors give the world-wide socialist vote in 1912 as follows: Germany, 4,238,919; France, 1,120,000; Austria, 1,041,948; USA 905,768; Finland, 330,000; Hungary 80 ,000 . •0 Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky," op. cit., and Poljak and Fordinalova , op. cit. 41 Frantisek Bielik & Elo Rakos, Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Bratislava , 1969), 30. 42 Julius Mesaros a kolektiv, Dejiny Slovenska II, od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (Bratislava, 1968), 236-306 ; Monika Glettler, Pittsburg-Wien-Budapest: Program und Praxis der Nationalitlitenpolitik bei der Auswanderung der Ungarischen Slowaken nach Amerika um 1900 (Vienna, 1980), 208-17. 43 See Jozef Paul':o , Slovenskf priekopnfci v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972) for the biographies of Furdek (72-127), Jankola (208-22), and Mamatey (269-75), and Culen, Slovenske tasopisy op . cit., 125 , for the origins of Jan Spevak. 44 Slovak v Amerike, May 14, 1912 , 1. 45 Kritika, May 20, 1914, 2. 46 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta , op. cit., and Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1. 47 Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1914, 15 . 48 Ibid. , passim . Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1915 , passim. so L:udovy Kalendar, 1946, passim. 49 s, Gosiorovsky, " K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 70-71. Even the covers of the Slovak Communist Almanac cited above changed dramatically over the years. The 1932 cover, for instance, featured a very revolutionary scene of workers storming the barricades, whereas the 1950 cover showed a rather bourgeois photograph of a beautiful Slovak mother and child. 52 Gosiorovsky, "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 52-3 . 53 For the story of the World War I liberation movement see my The Role of American Slovaks in th e Creation ofCzecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918 (Rome , Slovak Studies, VIII , 1968) . 54 Paul Krause, "Labor Republicanism and 'Za Chlebom ': Anglo-Americans and Slavic Solidarity in Homestead, " in Dirk Hoerder ed ., " Struggle a Hard Battle ": Essays on Working-Class Immigrants (DeKalb , Ill ., 1986), 121-42 . �62 55 SLOVAKIA See above, page 4 and Stolarik, " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America," op. cit., 65-7 . 56 Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side, op. cit., 97-9 . 57 Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace (Boston, 1941) , 395-404. 58 Na.rodnie noviny, August 13 , 1892, 3; June 30, 1894, 3; and Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1912, 246-50. 59 Stolarik, Growing Up, op. cit. , 98 . 6 °For an excellent article on immigrants and the American labor movement see David Brody's contribution "Labor" in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, op. cit., 609-18. 61 62 Robert Hessen, Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab (New York, 1976), 194-208 . Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, April 11 , 1905, 4; March 27, 1906, 1; July 30 , 1907, 1; Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1908, 144-56; Ibid., 1912 , 241-50. 63 For the story of the IWW see Melvin Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago , 1969). The section on their destruction appears on pages 350-462. 64 The role of the CIO in organizing many of America's heavy industries was outlined by Sidney lens in The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns (Garden City, N.J., 1973), 285-375 . 65 David Brody makes this point about the ethnic composition of America 's labor leaders in his article, cited above, on pages 611 and 615. � 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 1987-88, Vol. 33 Description An account of the resource Vol. 33 (No. 60-61), 1987-88. 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 1987-88 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 Slovak Immigration to the United States and its Relation to the American Socialist and Labor Movements M. MARK STOLARIK If one looks at the large number of books and articles that Slovak Marxist historians have written about Slovak immigrants and their relation to the socialist and labor movements, one will get the impression that most Slovak immigrants to the United States joined socialist organizations and took a leading role in the American labor movement. 1 There is very little evidence to support such conclusions. As I will demonstrate in this paper, most Slovak immigrants came to the United States as single young men who wanted to make their "fortunes" and return home and their leaders were more concerned with promoting Slovak nationalism than with any socialist or labor ideology. Slovaks left their homeland in Hungary in the 19th century for three basic reasons: lack of land, lack of industry and lack of opportunity. While serfdom was abolished during the Revolution of 1848, there was no corresponding land reform. Therefore, the nobility (ten per cent of the population) continued to hold more than half of the best arable land. The vast majority of freed serfs held fewer than five hectares of land and soon they began to break up even these meager holdings among their children. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Hungary, unlike the Austrian part of the Empire, did not promote much industry (the nobility preferred the ''rustic'' life to pollution and grime) and, hence , the growing number of landless peasants found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.2 In addition, the Slovaks had only a tiny middle class which 48 SLOVAKIA was engaged in an uneven struggle with the Hungarian government over the issue of 'Magyarization' (the forcible assimilation of non-Magyar nationalities by the Magyars) . This small number of individuals, faced by government discrimination , could not possibly either build up industry large enough to employ all the job-seekers or force the government into land reform. 3 Therefore, by the 1870s it had become common practice for Slovak peasants to migrate each summer to the Hungarian (and in some instances Austrian) lowlands and take in the harvest of the wealthy nobles. Others, particularly from Trencin county, had begun to wander all over Europe as tinkers who would offer to fix household implements, sharpen knives and scissors and do other odd jobs for the few pennies tossed them by sympathetic housewives. Others still sought work in the booming ·metropolises of Vienna and Budapest. 4 Meanwhile, after the American Civil War had ended, the United States of America began to industrialize in earnest. The railroad, coal, steel and oil industries began to greatly expand and they required large numbers of cheap , unskilled laborers, to make them profitable. American industrialists refused to pay the Irish and other immigrants who were already in America a decent wage, and the industrialists also rejected the alternatives of Black labor. Instead, they sent agents to Europe to seek workers who would settle for wages of around $1.50 a day and the agents found such people in eastern and southern Europe. 5 To a Slovak peasant, who could not make a living on five hectares of land, and who earned only the equivalent of 15 to 30 cents a day on a noble's estate, if he could find the work, $1.50 a day was a very handsome salary. Therefore , a few Slovaks responded to the entreaties of railroad agents (who advanced them the $70.00 it would cost to make the trip) in the 1870s and went to America. By then steamships began to carry immigrants across the Ocean in the relatively short time of two weeks. 6 And, while the work on the railroads, in the mines or mills was long and hard, the Slovaks put up with all these hardships because they had not come to stay. Instead, the vast majority were single young men (or newly-married) who came to make their 'fortunes' (usually $1 ,000) and then hoped to return home, buy enough land to make SLOVAKIA 49 a living, and settle down to the good life in Hungary. Living in cramped boarding houses, the frugal Slovaks managed to pay off the cost of the trip in six months and after that they began to send money home to support their families and to also bring additional relatives to America. 7 Once this process got underway the trickle of Slovaks turned into a deluge in the 1880s and 1890s and peaked in 1905 when over 50,000 made the voyage. Altogether 650,000 Slovaks migrated to the United States between 1870 and 1924 (when immigration was largely halted by the U.S. Congress) and 500,000 eventually chose to remain in the New World. 8 Those who did then sent for their wives and children. Most Slovaks settled in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, half in Pennsylvania and the rest in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. 9 While life was more livable for Slovaks in the New World than in the Old, they did soon come to realize that they were being exploited and started to strike. The first recorded strike by Slovaks in the United States was in Bessemer, Pennsylvania in January of 1886 when 300 men, led by Stefan Stanek, walked off the job because the mine operators refused their modest request for an increase from 2 7 cents per wagon of coal produced to 30 cents per wagon. The mine owners decided to disperse the strikers with local police forces but the miners ' wives saved the day by hurling stones at the police and preventing them from making many arrests. 10 After this Slovaks were found participating in all the major strikes that affected the coal and steel industries, whether in the great Connellsville coal and coke strike of 1891 , the Homestead steel strike of 1892 , the Anthracite coal strike of 1894, the Lattimer coal strike of 1897, the Anthracite strikes of 1900 and 1902 , the Bethlehem Steel strike of 1910, the Westmoreland coal strike of 1911-1912 and the 1919 "Hunky" steel strike. 11 In the Lattimer strike, which turned into a massacre when sheriff's deputies opened fire upon 1,000 peaceful marching strikers , six Slovaks were killed, along with eight Poles and two Lithuanians, and 35 other workers were wounded. 12 In view of the Slovak willingness to strike for better wages and conditions, one might conclude that they were ripe for recruitment by socialist ideologies and organizations . Such w as not the 50 SLOVAKIA case. As early as 1890 the editor of the workers' weekly Slovak v Amerike (The Slovak in America) denounced socialism for two reasons: he charged that socialists advocated the violent overthrow of the capitalist system, an action which he deemed immoral; and socialism propagated internationalism, which to the beleaguered Slovaks who were fighting 'Magyarization' meant national suicide. 13 A.S. Ambrose , the founder and editor of Slovak v Amerike, had been an organizer of the ill-fated Knights of Labor, who made the first attempt to create an industrial union of unskilled workers in the United States in the 1880s. 14 Thus , while Ambrose was sympathetic to the plight of the workers, he rejected socialism and most other Slovak leaders in American followed suit. In a later article the Reverend Stefan Furdek, who was the most respected of Slovak Catholic clergymen in America, rejected socialism as well , principally because he felt it violated human nature - "people are not sheep" - and also because it opposed organized religion and wanted to root out belief in God. 15 Since both secular and clerical leaders of Slovak-Americans opposed socialism in the United States, it had little chance of success among the masses. This is not to say that socialist societies and newspapers did not arise among American Slovaks. They did , but when compared to other Slovak organizations , the socialist ones came relatively late and in such small numbers that they made very little impact upn Slovak-American life. For instance, A.S. Ambrose joined with P.V. Rovnianek (an ex-seminarian) to found the first nation-wide National Slovak Society of the United States and Canada in 1890 (between 1882 and 1890 more than 40 local fraternals had been established by American Slovaks). 16 Besides providing for fraternal-benefit insurance, the National Slovak Society became the leading nationalist and second-largest Slovak fraternal in the United States by 1918. 17 The largest was the First Catholic Slovak Union, also founded in 1890, but by the Reverend Stefan Furdek. Its goals were fraternal-benefit insurance for its members, and defense of the Catholic faith and the Slovak nation , as embodied in its slogan "Za Boha a narod" (For God and the Nation). 18 Since American Slovaks had interests that went beyond those espoused by the National Slovak Society and the First Catholic SLOVAKIA 51 Slovak Union, they established even more fraternals. The two aforementioned societies initially admitted only men. Therefore, the wives of the men in these societies established the Zivena (Giver of Life) Beneficial Union in 1891 and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 19 Lutherans followed suit with the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1892. 20 A regional group founded the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893. 21 Militant nationalists established the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 (from which devout Catholics split off to found the larger Slovak Catholic Sokol in 1905) 22 and even Slovak Calvinists, a tiny minority, founded their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in 1901 (all of these later established women's counterparts). 23 By 1918 twelve of the largest nation-wide Slovak societies in the United States enrolled over 200,000 members. The religious ones led with a total of 145,053 (51,817 in the First Catholic Slovak Union), with Catholics enrolling 133,904 and Lutherans 11,149. Secular societies had 69,315 members, and the National Slovak Society led these with 29,118. 24 By 1940 these societies, largely by enrolling their members' children, had doubled their combined membership to over 400,000. Meanwhile, a few isolated Slovak socialist organizations appeared at the turn of the century. The most important one arose in Chicago in 1902. In that year Stefan Martincek arrived from Budapest, where he had been a member of the Hungarian Socialist Party since 1897 and editor of the Slovak Socialist newspaper Nova doba in 1898-1899. He had also helped organize socialist cells among Slovaks in the southernmost counties of the Banat and Backa. However, by 1902 he tired of the Hungarian government's refusal to allow the creation of a Slovak Workers ' Society on the old pretext that ''there is no Slovak nation,'' and left for Chicago where a friend had preceded him. Soon after his arrival Martincek organized the First Slovak Workers Educational Society "Rovnost"' (Equality), which affiliated with the Czech Workers' Section of the Socialist party of America. The latter had been founded in 1901. 25 In the next few years other Slovak socialist societies sprang up in Cleveland, Newark, N.J., and New York City, and elsewhere . By 1911 these various societies decided to federate into the Slovak Section of the American Socialist Party. 26 52 SLOVAKIA The aim of all of them was to try to spread the socialist ideology among their people and help the Socialist Party win as many elections as possible in order to eventually turn to the United States into a socialist country. Meanwhle, Martincek also wished to establish a Slovak Workers' (fraternal-benefit) Society but found too few potential followers and had to postpone this project until 1915. In that year he managed to persuade 60 members of the Slovak Socialist Section to meet in Newark and organize the Slovak Workers' Society. By the time of its first convention in 1917 it had enrolled 507 members. 27 It slowly grew to 11,107 by 1939 by actively recruiting not only among Slovaks but also among Czechs, Rusins and even Magyars, thereby giving credence to the Slovak nationalist charge that Slovak socialists were not good Slovaks. 28 The tremendous unemployment of the Great Depression also contributed to its growth. On the other hand, the Slovak Section of the Socialist Party in 1919, and the Slovak Workers' Society in 1920 joined the III International and thereby adopted the communist cause, losing significant numbers of members in the process. 29 If one looks at the Slovak-American newspaper press, one will likewise find a dearth of Slovak-American socialist newspapers. The first Slovak-American newspaper was founded in Pittsburgh in 1885 as a commercial venture to provide news from home. 30 By 1918 121 Slovak-language newspapers had sprung up in-this country (although only 41 were still publishing by then) and of 93 newspapers on which there is information regarding their ideology, 54% were Slovak nationalist, 18% were Magyarone, 17% had no political orientation, 4% were "Czechoslovak," 4% were socialist and 2% were neutral. Furthermore, in terms ofreligious orientation, 79% had none, 15% were Roman Catholic, 5% were Lutheran and one was Calvinist. Thus, the Slovak-American press was , by-and-large, secular and nationalist between 1885 and 1918. 31 Only four Slovak-American socialist newspapers appeared between 1885 and 1918, and only one survived. The first sprang up as the weekly Robotnik (Worker) in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1889, but little is known about it and it died a quick death. 32 The second was founded by the brilliant ex-Jesuit (he SLOVAKIA 53 could speak twelve languages) Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky in 1894. Entitled Fakl'a (Torch), this New York monthly lasted for only nine months because there was not enough of a demand for it. 33 The third (and only successful) attempt to establish a SlovakAmerican socialist newspaper occurred in Chicago in 1906 when a small group, led by Stefan Martincek, established the monthly Rovnost' l'udu (Equality of the people). It became a weekly in 1908 and a daily in 1926. The newspaper changed its name to Eudovy dennfk (The People's Daily) in 1935 and to Eudove noviny (The People's News) in 1945; it folded in 1981. 34 The fou'ith (and last) attempt to establish a Slovak socialist newspaper in America occurred in New York in 1914 when a local group founded the Hlas svobody (Voice of Freedom) to principally serve as the official (fraternal) organ of the about-to-be organized Slovak Workers Society. It lasted only to 1917 because it opposed World War I and such a stand became untenable after the United States entered the war the same year. 35 Having surveyed Slovak immigration to the United States and the establishment of two of its three principal institutions , fraternal-benefit societies and newspapers (the other institution was the parish church) , the question that now arises is why was the socialist movement among American Slovaks so weak, especially when compared to other ehtnic groups who also came from southern or eastern Europe? We know, for instance, that the Czechs , Slovenes and Finns had very vigorous socialist organizations and newspapers. 36 Why did not the Slovaks? The answers are very complex and involve the type of immigrant who came to America, what region he/she came from , who the leaders were, their hopes and aspirations , and the wishes of the immigrants themselves . As we have already seen, most Slovak immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century were single young men who hoped to make their fortunes and return home. Furthermore, the vast majority came from eastern Slovakia, particularly from the counties of Spis , Saris , Zemplin and Abov. This was the most over-populated and economically depressed area of Slovakia and also the weakest in national feeling.37 The principal concerns of the peasants who left this area , whether seasonally to the Hungarian lowlands, or across the Ocean 54 SLOVAKIA to America, was to find work, save their money , help their families survive and, perhaps, even buy some land back home. Until the 20th century they had virtually no knowledge of or contact with socialist ideology. Hungary itself had only a weak socialist movement that got underway in the late 19th century, principally in Budapest. 38 Immigrants from western Slovakia , particularly from Bratislava and Nitra counties, were different. They held more land than their counterparts in the east, were more nationallyconscious, had frequent contacts with their neighbors the Czechs, and often worked on the estates of rich Austrian nobles. They encountered socialist ideas in both the Czech lands and in Austria (Austria had the third-largest socialist movement in terms of votes in Europe in 1912) and brought such ideas with them to America. 39 Thus , not only did Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky , the founder of the socialist Fakl'a (1894) hail from Bursky Sviity Jur, in Bratislava county, but the majority of the members of the Slovak Workers Society also came from western Slovakia. 40 That region, on the other hand , sent only a small number of immigrants to America, and, hence, the " pool" of potential Slovak socialists in the United States was very small. 41 American Slovak leaders , whether secular or clerical, tended to come frorp. central Slovakia. When one looks at the priests , fraternal leaders and journalists who presented themselves as the leaders of American Slovaks, one is bound to notice (as did Hungarian government leaders) that the majority came from the central Slovak counties , particularly from Orava and Turiec - the most nationalist of all Slovak counties . Indeed , the intellectual center of Slovak nationalism in the 19th century was the little town of Turciansky Sviity Martin. Here the Slovaks established their 'Matica slovenska' (a combination of National Library and National Academy) in 1863 (the Hungarian government closed it in 1875) and also their 'Muzealna Slovenska spolocnost" (Slovak Museum Society) in 1893. 42 Slovak-American leaders who originated here , such as the Reverend Stefan Furdek (Orava) , mentioned above , or Jan Spevak, (Turiec) , the second publisher of Slovak v Amerike, or Matus Jankola (Orava) founder of the first Slovak-American religious order of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, or SLOVAKIA 55 Albert Mamatey (Turiec) wartime president of the Slovak League of America, were first and foremost Slovak nationalists. 43 To all of them socialism was anathema because it preached internationalism which, one of them pointed out, meant for the Slovaks national suicide. Therefore, while most Slovak leaders in America were sympathetic to the plight of Slovak workers , they steered them away from socialist ideology. For instance, while the publisher of Slovak v Amerike might condemn the Pennsylvania state constabulary as "State Cossacks" for their brutality in breaking up a 1912 strike ,44 his colleague Jozef Husek (From Liptov, in central Slovakia) in the Cleveland monthly Kritika would blame the violence of the Colorado miners' strike of 1914 upon "socialist agitators" (in this case the Industrial Workers of the World) .45 Furthermore , at least one powerful Slovak leader was corrupted by greed. P.V. Rovnianek, a co-founder of the National Slovak Society and for many years editor of the first and largest Slovak-American newspaper, Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (American-Slovak News), allowed himself to be bribed by mine owners during the Connellsville coal strike of 1891. Rovnianek told the miners in his paper that their cause was hopeless and urged them to return to work. The strike collapsed shortly thereafter. 46 Thus, whether they were concerned with the cause of Slovak nationalism, with keeping their people religious, or with lining their pockets with money , most Slovak-American leaders did nothing to advance the cause of socialism among their people . On the contrary, they opposed it whenever they felt it was necessary. Slovak socialists in America could only lament this stand by " our conservative and clerical leaders. " 47 Furthermore , Slovak socialists (and later communists) in America eventually fell victim to the allure of capitalism. When one looks at the almanacs published by Slovak socialists, one will notice a slow but steady trend away from socialist or communist zealotry . For instance , the first Slovak socialist Robotnicky Kalendar, published in 1914 , rather than having a religious calendar at the beginning , had one featuring secular heroes; it did not list Christmas ; it had many attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church, whether in articles , jokes or cartoons; and it carried only three advertisements , two by fellow-socialists who were selling 56 SLOVAKIA artificial limbs and socialist newspapers. 48 The contents of these almanacs started to change with the second issue (1915) which restored the Roman Catholic and Lutheran calendars, as well as Christmas , and also printed twenty-four advertisements by small businessmen, most of them socialists. 49 By the time the 1946 Eudovy Kalendar (it changed its name in 1935) appeared, it carried Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Catholic and American Saints and heroes, it actually listed Christmas as the birth of Christ, and it had no anti-clerical articles whatever. Indeed, it published the pictures of two Roman Catholic nuns who were daughters of its communist readers! Furthermore, it published 405 advertisements of small businessmen, many of whom were also ostensibly communists. 50 Thus, even though the United States government forced the Slovak Workers Society (which had joined the International Workers' Order in 1931) to disband as a "subversive" society under the McCarren-Walter Act in 1953, the seeds of its dissolution really lay in the success of many of its members in becoming entrepreneurs and also in their children's apparent lack of interest in continuing the old struggle. 51 In view of the relatively late appearance of Slovak socialists in America , their small number, and insignificant organizations, one is left wondering why Slovak Marxist historians have made so much of them. One reason may simply be pride in the fact that the Slovak sodalist movement occurred on both sides of the Atlantic. A more plausible reason is , I think, the fact that SlovakAmerican socialists helped to organize the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While most Slovak-American socialists had become communists by 1920, this kind of split had not yet occurred in the newly-created Czechoslovakia. Therefore , Slovak-American communists sent Jozef Schiffel of Newark, N.J., and Marek Culen of Chicago (both western Slovaks from the Zahorie region) to Slovakia to size up the situation and help lead their comrades to the ''right path.'' Schiffel quickly had himself elected secretary of the more radical wing of the socialists and called a meeting offellow-radicals in I.:ubochna in January, 1921 , which his colleague Marek Culen chaired. Culen was then elected president of the "Action Committee" which planned the organizing meeting of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in May. At this SLOVAKIA 57 meeting Jozef Schiffel was elected to the Central Committee of the newly-formed Czechoslovak Communist Party. Schiffel later returned to the United States while Culen remained in Slovakia. 52 Thus, just as American Slovaks had helped create the Czechoslovak Republic during World War I, so they helped to establish the Czechoslovak Communist Party. 53 And, this may be the principal reason why Slovak Marxist historians have paid so much attention to the Slovak-American socialist movement which, in the context of Slovak-American history, was relatively unimportant. Meanwhile, what about the Slovak workers and their reactions to labor organizing? This is largely 'terra incognita' at the moment. Paul Krause recently wrote a fine article about the willingness of Slovaks to join with their Anglo-Amer,ican fellowworkers in organizing and striking at Homestead in 1892. 54 I have previously given examples of the willingness of Slovak workers to strike, both in this paper and in my doctoral dissertation. 55 And, in my recent study of Slovaks in Bethlehem, I found them joining in the 1910 strike against Bethlehem Steel and again in 1941. 56 In the latter case they also helped organize the Congress of Industrial Organizations in Bethlehem, just as Thomas Bell, the Slovak-American writer had his hero do in his novel Out of this Furnace. 57 On the other hand, Slovaks were also guilty of scabbing and joining company-controlled unions. The Slovak press occasionally reported such practices, whether or not it approved of them. 58 Furthermore, Slovaks in Bethlehem joined company-sponsored unions in the 1920's and such activities were detrimental to true union organizing. 59 To complicate matters further, American labor organizers were not always receptive to foreigners. The Knights of Labor had tried to organize an industrial union in the coal fields in the 1880' s and did welcome immigrants such as A.S. Ambrose into their ranks, but the union ultimately failed due to poor leadership. In the 1890's skilled workers organized themselves into the American Federation of Labor and systematically excluded unskilled immigrants from their ranks, particularly in the steel mills, and this was one of the main reasons for the failure of the Bethlehem Steel 58 SLOVAKIA strike of 1910. 61 Only the United Mine Workers and the Industrial Workers of the World, which appeared in the early 1900's, successfully recruited and organized immigrant unskilled laborers, the Slovaks among them. 62 While the UMW grew into a large and powerful union, the IWW was destroyed by the United States government during World War I because, as a socialist-syndicalist organization, it opposed American entry into World War 1. 63 Only in the 1930's, during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal," did labor organizers not have to worry about government interference in their efforts to establish a union. That was when the Congress of Industrial Organizations finally managed to organize unions in most of America's heavy industries .64 While Slovaks did join the UMW and the CIO in large numbers, the role played by Slovaks in the creation of these unions remains largely unknown. In my research I ran across no Slovak equivalent to Terrence Powderly (the leader of the Knights of Labor) Big Bill Heywood (a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World), John L. Lewis (a leader of the United Mine Workers) or even a Helen Gurley Flynn (an IWW organizer) or a Giuseppe Ettor, another IWW organizer. There may well have been such figures at a lower level of organizing because Anglo-Americans, and later Irish-Americans, tended to dominate the leadership of America's labor unions. 65 If there were Slovaks who tooks a lead in organizing labor unions at local levels, they remain to be discovered ,, Thus, we have seen that socialism and socialist organizations did not attract the vast majority of Slovak-Americans, in spite of what Slovak Marxist historians have written. Furthermore, SlovakAmericans cannot be said to have taken a leading role in the organization of American labor unions , although they may have played minor roles at local levels , and if so, these roles remain to be discovered. Various factors such as the place of origin of the majority of Slovak-Americans (eastern Slovakia) , their leadership (conservative and clerical), the weakness of socialism in Hungary, and the initial desire of Slovak-Americans to make their ''fortunes '' and return home, all worked against the establishment of strong socialist and labor movements among Slovak-Americans. SLOVAKIA 59 NOTES 1 See for example Milos Gosiorovsky, "K podielu americko-slovenskeho proletariatu na vzniku CSR," in the collection of essays Ke vzniku CSR (Prague, 1958), 171-84 and by the same author "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA ," in Zbornfk Filozofickej Fakulty Univenity Komenskeho, historica, 11-12 (Bratislava , 1962), 40-74 , and " Frantisek Pucher-Ciemovodsky a robotnicke hnutie, " in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 197-207. While Gosiorovsky set the tone, others followed. Examples are Frantisek Bielik and Stefan Vesely, "Zapisnice slovenskych politickych organizacii v Spojenych statoch americky<;h,'' in Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 147-166; Frantisek Bielik et. al., Slovacl vo Svete, 2 (Martin, 1980); Ondrej Kutes, "Spomienky na zivot Slovakov vo Whitingu v state Indiana a m6j prichod do USA," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 8 (Martin, 1982), 127-131 ; Ivan Poljak, "Stefan Martincek," in Slovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin, 1979), 305; Jan Siracky, "Pokrokove tradicie zahranicnych Slovakov a ich vyvrcholenie v obdobi boja proti fasizmu pocas druhej svetovej vojny," Slovaci v zahranicf, 3 (Martin, 1979), 7-25; and Siracky, ' ' Sucasny stav a problematika vyskumu dejin zahranicnych Slovakov,'' in Bielik et. al., Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete (Martin, 1982), 49-58. 2 Karol Rebro, "Agra.me reformy v habsburskej monarchii od zaciatku 18. stor. do roku 1848 s osobintym zretel'om na Slovensko, Historicke ~tudie XIlI (1968) , 11-13; and Endre Arat6, "K hospodarskym dejinam Slovenska od roku 1848 do 1900," Historicky casopis, I (No. 3, 1953). 432. 3 Arat6, Ibid., 480-86 . 4 Jan Hanzlik, "Zaciatky vyst'ahovalectva zo Slovenska do USA a jeho priebeh az do roku 1918, jeho priciny a nasledky," in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA (Bratislava, 1970), 55; See also Narodny hlasnik (Skalica, June 30, 1869), 166 and (February 8, 1881), 1. 5 Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (New York, 1910), 239. See also Obzor (Skalica) , June 25 , 1881; Narodnie noviny (Martin), November 14, 1882, 1; February 24, 1887, 4; March 17, 1892 , 3; May 3, 1898 , 1; Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), April 26 , 1900, 9; and July 4, 1901 ; see also the governor's correspondence in the Slovak State Archives for Abov county, Kosice , 460/1900. s Balch, Ibid., 285 . 7 M. Mark Stolarik , " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America , 1870-1918, " in Slovak Studies, XX (Rome, 1980), 34-35. 8 Jan Svetoii., "Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo v obdobi uhorskeho kapitalizmu," Ekonomicky casopis, IV (No . 2, 1956), 171-79; and Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, 1922), 973 . 9 Fourteenth Census, Ibid., 984. Narodnie noviny, February 9, 1886, 3. 10 11 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta, October 11, 1894, in the Matica slovenska's Literary Archives, Martin, 37-060; Narodnie noviny, June 30, 1984, 3; August 9, 1894; Slovak v Amerike (New York), September 30, 1897, 2; October 7, 1897, 1; March 31, 1898, 4; Narodny Kalendar (Pittsburgh), 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1; Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 241-250; M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: SLOVAKIA 60 Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1880-1976 (Lewisburg, 1985), 97-98. 12 The Most complete account of the Lattimer strike is Michael Novak's The Guns of Lattimer: The True Story of a Massacre and Trial, August 1897-March 1898 (New York, 1978) . 13 As cited in Narodnie noviny, November 6, 1890, 2. 14 Narodny Kalendar, 1912, 58-62. 15 Kalendar Jednota (Cleveland , 1910), 190-98. 16 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho (Pittsburgh, 1924). 128-130; Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organisaciami," Narodny Kalendar, 1911, 67. 17 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York, 1921). 88-9 . 18 Jozef Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (Cleveland , 1965), passim. 19 Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileu Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh, 1941), passim; and Jednota (Cleveland , December 9, 1908), 4. 20 Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (Cleveland, 1930), 11. 21 Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, July 4, 1896, 1. 22 Ibid., July 13 , 1896, 1; and Gusto KoMk, "Prve desat'rocie nasej Jednoty," Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolickej Telocvicnej Jednoty Sokol (Passaic, N.J., 1916), 35-51. 23 Frank Uherka, "Kratky prehl'ad S.K.P.J. Jednoty," Kalendar pre Slovenskych Kalvfnov (Pittsburgh, 1927). 37-8. 24 Capek, op. cit. 25 Stefan Martincek, "Z minulosti slovenskeho robotnickeho hnutia, " Robotnicky Kalendar (Chicago, 1927), 25-28. 26 Gosiorovsky , "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku v USA," op. cit. , 45 . 27 Ibid ., 49. 28 Ibid., 41 and 56; and Ivan Poljak and Eva Fordinalova, " Slovenske robotnicke hnutie v Spojenych statoch americkych," in Frantisek Bielik et. al. , Slovaci vo svete, 2 (Martin , 1980). 124. 29 Poljak and Fordinalova, Ibid ., and Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1930, 38. ° Konstantin Culen, Slovenske casopisy v Amerike (Cleveland , 1970), 29-32 . 3 31 M. Mark Stolarik, "At Horne Abroad: The Slovak-American Press, 1885-1918," in Owen V. Johnson , ed ., Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Role and Functions of the Mass Media in Eastern Europe (Forthcoming) . 32 Culen, op. cit., 101. 33 Ibid. , 41-2 ; Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky " op . cit. 34 Culen, op. cit., 104-07; For a general discussion of the Slovak-American press see M. Mark Stolarik, " The Slovak-American Press ," in Sally M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States (Westport, Conn., 1987). 353-68. 35 Culen, op. cit., 47 . 36 In a pamphlet entitled Socialist Party Meeting National Committee, May, 1915: Reports of Foreign Federations (No publisher, place or date given), in the papers of the Slovene National Benefit Society Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, SLOVAKIA 61 groups such as the Czechs, Slovenes and Finns were reported with tens of thousands of members but the Slovaks had only 751. See also the articles about these groups in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1980). 37 Ladislav Tajtak, "Vychodoslovenske vyst'ahovalectvo do prvej svetovej vojny," Nave obzory (Kosice , III, 1961), 221 -47 . 38 Gabriel Louis Jaraj , La Question Sociale et le Socialisme en Hongrie (Paris, 1909), 54-8 ; and Martinl':ek, op. cit., 25 . 39 Poljak & Fordinalova in Slovaci vo svete, 2, op. cit. , 115; Zoltan Sarkozi, "Prfspevok k dejinam slovenskych pol'nohospodarskych sez6nnych robotnfkov {1848-1914)," Historicky tasopis (Bratislava , 1964), 12 , 75-103; and Robotnfcky Kalendar, (1914), in which the editors give the world-wide socialist vote in 1912 as follows: Germany, 4,238,919; France, 1,120,000; Austria, 1,041,948; USA 905,768; Finland, 330,000; Hungary 80 ,000 . •0 Gosiorovsky, "Frantisek Pucher-Ciernovodsky," op. cit., and Poljak and Fordinalova , op. cit. 41 Frantisek Bielik & Elo Rakos, Slovenske vyst'ahovalectvo: Dokumenty I, do roku 1918 (Bratislava , 1969), 30. 42 Julius Mesaros a kolektiv, Dejiny Slovenska II, od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (Bratislava, 1968), 236-306 ; Monika Glettler, Pittsburg-Wien-Budapest: Program und Praxis der Nationalitlitenpolitik bei der Auswanderung der Ungarischen Slowaken nach Amerika um 1900 (Vienna, 1980), 208-17. 43 See Jozef Paul':o , Slovenskf priekopnfci v Amerike (Cleveland, 1972) for the biographies of Furdek (72-127), Jankola (208-22), and Mamatey (269-75), and Culen, Slovenske tasopisy op . cit., 125 , for the origins of Jan Spevak. 44 Slovak v Amerike, May 14, 1912 , 1. 45 Kritika, May 20, 1914, 2. 46 Gustav Marsall-Petrovsky to Julo Kuchta , op. cit., and Slovak v Amerike, July 7, 1908, 1. 47 Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1914, 15 . 48 Ibid. , passim . Robotnfcky Kalendar, 1915 , passim. so L:udovy Kalendar, 1946, passim. 49 s, Gosiorovsky, " K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 70-71. Even the covers of the Slovak Communist Almanac cited above changed dramatically over the years. The 1932 cover, for instance, featured a very revolutionary scene of workers storming the barricades, whereas the 1950 cover showed a rather bourgeois photograph of a beautiful Slovak mother and child. 52 Gosiorovsky, "K historii Slovenskeho robotnickeho spolku," op. cit., 52-3 . 53 For the story of the World War I liberation movement see my The Role of American Slovaks in th e Creation ofCzecho-Slovakia, 1914-1918 (Rome , Slovak Studies, VIII , 1968) . 54 Paul Krause, "Labor Republicanism and 'Za Chlebom ': Anglo-Americans and Slavic Solidarity in Homestead, " in Dirk Hoerder ed ., " Struggle a Hard Battle ": Essays on Working-Class Immigrants (DeKalb , Ill ., 1986), 121-42 . 62 55 SLOVAKIA See above, page 4 and Stolarik, " Slovak Migration from Europe to North America," op. cit., 65-7 . 56 Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side, op. cit., 97-9 . 57 Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace (Boston, 1941) , 395-404. 58 Na.rodnie noviny, August 13 , 1892, 3; June 30, 1894, 3; and Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1912, 246-50. 59 Stolarik, Growing Up, op. cit. , 98 . 6 °For an excellent article on immigrants and the American labor movement see David Brody's contribution "Labor" in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, op. cit., 609-18. 61 62 Robert Hessen, Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab (New York, 1976), 194-208 . Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1903, 49-64; Slovak v Amerike, April 11 , 1905, 4; March 27, 1906, 1; July 30 , 1907, 1; Na.rodny Kalenda.r, 1908, 144-56; Ibid., 1912 , 241-50. 63 For the story of the IWW see Melvin Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago , 1969). The section on their destruction appears on pages 350-462. 64 The role of the CIO in organizing many of America's heavy industries was outlined by Sidney lens in The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns (Garden City, N.J., 1973), 285-375 . 65 David Brody makes this point about the ethnic composition of America 's labor leaders in his article, cited above, on pages 611 and 615.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Immigration to the United States and Its Relation to the American Socialist and Labor Movements Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 33 (No. 60-61), 1987-88 pp. 47-62 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-88 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/1e958a7fb0f45a77e82449ee9293e71e.pdf 0383e8a23ccc91c55e4945bdaf319a16 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXIV NUMBERS 62-63 1989-1990 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Editorial Board DAVID P . DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A. HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a si ngle issue is U.S. $6.00 . Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Avenue, Havertown, PA 19083. ��Table of Contents Editorial M. Mark Stolarik 5 ARTICLES The Impact of the Protestant Reformation on Education in Slovakia David P. Daniel 9 Learning and Education in Slovakia during the late 17th and 18th centuries Eva Kawa/ska 28 The Kremlin and The Slovak National Uprising, August-October, 1944 Michael Kraus 50 An Act of Faith and Integrity: Bishop Korec's Letter to Czechoslovak Television Introduced and Tran slated by Stanis/av ]. Kirschbaum 61 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et. al., Kratky slovnfk slovenskeho jazyka Jan Simko 129 REVIEWS Vladimir Matula, Jozef Vozar et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, II (1526-1848) Gavin Lewis 161 Viliam Cicaj, Knizna kultura na strednom Slovensku v 16.-18. storocf R. Vladim ir Baumgarten 163 �4 SLOVAKIA Viera Urbancova, 5/ovenska etnografia v 19. storoci Magda Zelinska Fer/ 165 Michal Elias & Vojtech Sarluska eds., Narodna svetlica: Vyber dokumentov k dejinam Matice slovenskej John A. Berta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Jan Kmec, Jugoslovensko-slovacke slavisticke veze Jan Frydecky 169 Josef Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslovakia Gregory C. Ference 171 Michal Baranovsky et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, VI (1945-1960) Stanis/av J. Krischbaum 174 Jim & Susan Borchert, Lakewood: The First Hundred Years Carol Towarnicky 176 Abel Kral', Pravid/a slovenskej vyslovnosti Louise B. Hammer ................. .. .. ... .. . . . . . ... .. .. . . ... 179 Books and Articles Received 182 Contributors 190 Guidelines for Manuscripts 192 �SLOVAKIA 5 EDITORIAL This is a very special issue of Slovakia. It reflects the revolutionary changes that swept the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic in 1989. For the first time since our journal was founded in 1951, we are publishing an article by an historian in Slovakia (Ewa Kowalska). This had been impossible before the "velvet revolution" of November, 1989. We hope to bring you more such scholarship from Slovakia in the future. Furthermore, we are pleased to publish a long article by a Slovak Roman Catholic Bishop who did not send it to us. Instead, he sent it to Czechoslovak television in Bratislava in the spring of 1989 after the latter had aired an expressly anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Slovak series on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. After I read the Slovak text of the Bishop's letter, as it was published in Jednota (June 28, July 5, 12, 19, 26, and August 7, 1989), I concluded that it was too important an historical document to leave in an ethnic newspaper. Rather, his missive can be considered a prelude to how Slovak history will be re-written now that the Slovaks are finally free from forty-two years of Communist oppression. Finally, in the "Books and Articles Received" section of this issue, I still differentiate between those we received from Eastern Europe and those published in the West. Since Slovak historians have been freed from the shackles of Communism only for a few months, they have not yet had the time to re-write our national history without the bias of Marxism. In the next issue of Slovakia I may be able to list the books and articles received according to subject, rather than for political reasons. I look forward to doing so. M. Mark Stolarik Editor ��ARTICLES �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXIV NUMBERS 62-63 1989-1990 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Editorial Board DAVID P . DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A. HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a si ngle issue is U.S. $6.00 . Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Avenue, Havertown, PA 19083. ��Table of Contents Editorial M. Mark Stolarik 5 ARTICLES The Impact of the Protestant Reformation on Education in Slovakia David P. Daniel 9 Learning and Education in Slovakia during the late 17th and 18th centuries Eva Kawa/ska 28 The Kremlin and The Slovak National Uprising, August-October, 1944 Michael Kraus 50 An Act of Faith and Integrity: Bishop Korec's Letter to Czechoslovak Television Introduced and Tran slated by Stanis/av ]. Kirschbaum 61 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et. al., Kratky slovnfk slovenskeho jazyka Jan Simko 129 REVIEWS Vladimir Matula, Jozef Vozar et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, II (1526-1848) Gavin Lewis 161 Viliam Cicaj, Knizna kultura na strednom Slovensku v 16.-18. storocf R. Vladim ir Baumgarten 163 �4 SLOVAKIA Viera Urbancova, 5/ovenska etnografia v 19. storoci Magda Zelinska Fer/ 165 Michal Elias & Vojtech Sarluska eds., Narodna svetlica: Vyber dokumentov k dejinam Matice slovenskej John A. Berta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Jan Kmec, Jugoslovensko-slovacke slavisticke veze Jan Frydecky 169 Josef Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslovakia Gregory C. Ference 171 Michal Baranovsky et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, VI (1945-1960) Stanis/av J. Krischbaum 174 Jim & Susan Borchert, Lakewood: The First Hundred Years Carol Towarnicky 176 Abel Kral', Pravid/a slovenskej vyslovnosti Louise B. Hammer ................. .. .. ... .. . . . . . ... .. .. . . ... 179 Books and Articles Received 182 Contributors 190 Guidelines for Manuscripts 192 �SLOVAKIA 5 EDITORIAL This is a very special issue of Slovakia. It reflects the revolutionary changes that swept the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic in 1989. For the first time since our journal was founded in 1951, we are publishing an article by an historian in Slovakia (Ewa Kowalska). This had been impossible before the "velvet revolution" of November, 1989. We hope to bring you more such scholarship from Slovakia in the future. Furthermore, we are pleased to publish a long article by a Slovak Roman Catholic Bishop who did not send it to us. Instead, he sent it to Czechoslovak television in Bratislava in the spring of 1989 after the latter had aired an expressly anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Slovak series on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. After I read the Slovak text of the Bishop's letter, as it was published in Jednota (June 28, July 5, 12, 19, 26, and August 7, 1989), I concluded that it was too important an historical document to leave in an ethnic newspaper. Rather, his missive can be considered a prelude to how Slovak history will be re-written now that the Slovaks are finally free from forty-two years of Communist oppression. Finally, in the "Books and Articles Received" section of this issue, I still differentiate between those we received from Eastern Europe and those published in the West. Since Slovak historians have been freed from the shackles of Communism only for a few months, they have not yet had the time to re-write our national history without the bias of Marxism. In the next issue of Slovakia I may be able to list the books and articles received according to subject, rather than for political reasons. I look forward to doing so. M. Mark Stolarik Editor ��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 1989-90, Vol. 34 Description An account of the resource Vol. 34 (No. 62-63), 1989-90. 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 1989-90 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 XXXIV NUMBERS 62-63 1989-1990 A scholarly annual devoted to the history, literature, and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Editorial Board DAVID P . DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute ROBERT K. EV ANSON University of Missouri PETER PETRO University of British Columbia LOUISE B. HAMMER Indiana University NORMA L. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A. HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson, NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a si ngle issue is U.S. $6.00 . Manuscripts for possible publication and books for review should be sent to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Avenue, Havertown, PA 19083. Table of Contents Editorial M. Mark Stolarik 5 ARTICLES The Impact of the Protestant Reformation on Education in Slovakia David P. Daniel 9 Learning and Education in Slovakia during the late 17th and 18th centuries Eva Kawa/ska 28 The Kremlin and The Slovak National Uprising, August-October, 1944 Michael Kraus 50 An Act of Faith and Integrity: Bishop Korec's Letter to Czechoslovak Television Introduced and Tran slated by Stanis/av ]. Kirschbaum 61 REVIEW ESSAY Jan Kacala, Maria Pisarcikova et. al., Kratky slovnfk slovenskeho jazyka Jan Simko 129 REVIEWS Vladimir Matula, Jozef Vozar et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, II (1526-1848) Gavin Lewis 161 Viliam Cicaj, Knizna kultura na strednom Slovensku v 16.-18. storocf R. Vladim ir Baumgarten 163 4 SLOVAKIA Viera Urbancova, 5/ovenska etnografia v 19. storoci Magda Zelinska Fer/ 165 Michal Elias & Vojtech Sarluska eds., Narodna svetlica: Vyber dokumentov k dejinam Matice slovenskej John A. Berta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Jan Kmec, Jugoslovensko-slovacke slavisticke veze Jan Frydecky 169 Josef Kalvoda, The Genesis of Czechoslovakia Gregory C. Ference 171 Michal Baranovsky et. al. , Dejiny Slovenska, VI (1945-1960) Stanis/av J. Krischbaum 174 Jim & Susan Borchert, Lakewood: The First Hundred Years Carol Towarnicky 176 Abel Kral', Pravid/a slovenskej vyslovnosti Louise B. Hammer ................. .. .. ... .. . . . . . ... .. .. . . ... 179 Books and Articles Received 182 Contributors 190 Guidelines for Manuscripts 192 SLOVAKIA 5 EDITORIAL This is a very special issue of Slovakia. It reflects the revolutionary changes that swept the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic in 1989. For the first time since our journal was founded in 1951, we are publishing an article by an historian in Slovakia (Ewa Kowalska). This had been impossible before the "velvet revolution" of November, 1989. We hope to bring you more such scholarship from Slovakia in the future. Furthermore, we are pleased to publish a long article by a Slovak Roman Catholic Bishop who did not send it to us. Instead, he sent it to Czechoslovak television in Bratislava in the spring of 1989 after the latter had aired an expressly anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Slovak series on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Slovak independence. After I read the Slovak text of the Bishop's letter, as it was published in Jednota (June 28, July 5, 12, 19, 26, and August 7, 1989), I concluded that it was too important an historical document to leave in an ethnic newspaper. Rather, his missive can be considered a prelude to how Slovak history will be re-written now that the Slovaks are finally free from forty-two years of Communist oppression. Finally, in the "Books and Articles Received" section of this issue, I still differentiate between those we received from Eastern Europe and those published in the West. Since Slovak historians have been freed from the shackles of Communism only for a few months, they have not yet had the time to re-write our national history without the bias of Marxism. In the next issue of Slovakia I may be able to list the books and articles received according to subject, rather than for political reasons. I look forward to doing so. M. Mark Stolarik Editor 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. 34 (No. 62-63) Description An account of the resource includes Editorial (M. Mark Stolarik) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-90 https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/b13cfc56ad80dc1b5db1b60f7f5a531a.pdf 66851a74918bd62e4c8d2e4ba7f6c9eb PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. �120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. �SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it �122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism. � SLOVAKIA 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. �120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. �SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it �122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1991-92, Vol. 35 Description An account of the resource Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Slovak League of America Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 1991-92 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 119 REVIEW ESSAY Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Dejiny Slovenska, ill (od roku 1848 do konca 19. storocia). Milan Podrimavsky et.al. Bratislava: VEDA, 1992. 829pp. M. MARK STOLARIK University of Ottawa The volume under review represents the beginning of the revision of forty years of Slovak Marxist historiography. As Richard Marsina and Julius Mesaros recently pointed out, Slovak history was bound up in the straight-jacket of Marxism from 1949 until 1989, and only after the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989 did it shake itself free from the shackles of Communism and "Czechoslovakism" .1 Dejiny Slovenska, III represents the transition of the writing of history from a Marxist perspective to a more objective one. The last of a six-volume synthesis of Slovak history which began to appear in 1985, Volume III covers only the period 1848-1900. The largest portion of the book was written by Julius Mesaros, who had been fired as Director of the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1970. Mesaros, and many other Slovak historians, were purged from the Historical Institute as a part of the "consolidation process" that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoSlovakia in 1968. For over twenty years Mesaros could not write any history. He was allowed to contribute to Volume III only because no-one else could be found with his intimate knowledge of 1Richard Marsina, "Slovenska historiografia 1945-1990, "Historickj casopis, 39 (Nos.4-5, 1991), 370-79; and Julius Mesaro~. "Reflexie o piifdesiatych a ~esfdesiatych rokoch", ibid., 379-88. 120 SLOVAKIA the period. Also, Michal Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" and "perestrojka" had an impact on Czecho-Slovakia and, by the late 1980's, even blacklisted historians such as Mesaros could stage a comeback. At the author's reception held in Bratislava on the occasion of the publication of this book in May, 1992, Julius Mesaros reminisced about the difficulties that he, and other historians, had faced during communist rule. He pointed out that Volume III was ready to go to press in late 1989; however, because of the "Velvet Revolution," he and the other historians involved decided to revise it and eliminate from it all the crude Marxist terminology that appeared in the previous five volumes. Thus, Volume III, in contrast to the others which had appeared earlier (especially Volumes IV, V, and VI, which covered the period 1900-1960), is a solid contribution to Slovak historical scholarship. It analyzes the role of the Slovaks in the Revolution of 1848, how they fared in the repressive Bach Era, then details the relatively productive (for the Slovaks) period of institutional growth between 1860 and 1867, and the spectre of Magyarization between 1867 and 1900 and various Slovak stragegies to deal with it. The corresponding social, political, economic and cultural development of Slovakia in the second half of the nineteenth century is covered in meticulous detail, perhaps even excessively. Excessive length, however, is the least of Volume Ill's weaknesses. More serious (and this is true of the other five volumes as well) is its only peripheral treatment of the various religions in the Kingdom of Hungary (of which Slovakia formed an integral part) and of the nobility. The churches and the nobility, after all, possessed the greatest wealth in Hungary and ruled the country. This is a fact that Marxist historians could never come to terms with. They condemned both institutions but never really analyzed or sufficiently described them. In the future, when all six volumes of Dejiny Slovenska are revised, (and revised they must be, in spite of Ivan Kamenec's protestations at the May, 1992 book reception in Bratislava that it would "take another twenty years to do so,") future historians will have to make up for these serious deficiencies. SLOVAKIA 121 Meanwhile, it is important to put the Dejiny Slovenska into historical perspective. For all their weaknesses, these six volumes represent the triumph of Slovak nationalism over "Czechoslovak.ism". They constituted the fourth attempt to write a large-scale synthesis of Slovak history in the 20th century. The first (and largely successful) attempt to write a synthesis of Slovak history was made during the first Slovak Republic (19391945). The newly-created (1943) Slovak Academy of Arts and Sciences published the 5 volume Slovenska vlastiveda, which included Volume IV, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsfch cias at po prftomnos( (1946) by Frantisek Bokes . This solid monograph (and vlastiveda) did not survive the communist coup d'etat of 1948. It was too Slovak nationalist for both the Communists and the exponents of 'Czechoslovakism'. Instead, the Communists decided that they needed a Marxist synthesis, and they struggled to produce one in the next forty years. The first attempt was made by the all-Marxist Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960's. It resulted in Dejiny Slovenska, I. Od najstarsfch cias do roku 1848 (1961) edited by I:'udovft Holitfk and Jan Tibensky and Dejiny Slovenska, II. Od roku 1848 do roku 1900 (1968), compiled largely by Julius Mesaros. No subsequent volumes appeared because the dogmatic Marxist :Cudovft Holotfk could not come to terms with the modem period, especially after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Meanwhile, the forces of "Czechoslovakism" produced the competing Pfehled ceskoslovenskych dejfn, 3 Volumes in 4 (Prague, 1958-1960), which muddied the waters of Slovak national identity. In spite of these difficulties, Slovak historians and others attempted to produce another Slovenska vlastiveda in the late 1960's, and partly succeeded. Between 1971 and 1980, the Slovak Academy of Sciences published four volumes in six of the vlastiveda, with the first volume being devoted to history: Slovensko: Dejiny (1971) edited by Jan Tibensky. Unfortunately , because the history volume was completed during the Dubcek era, it was considered too "liberal" by the neo-Stalinist regime of post-invasion Czecho-Slovakia, and was recalled from all public institutions and shredded. In 1978 it 122 SLOVAKIA was replaced by a new, "revised, updated and corrected" volume which spouted the neo-Stalinst party line. And, to keep the "Czechoslovaks" happy, another Pfehled dejfn Ceskoslovenska, 2 Vols. (1980-1982), appeared in Prague as a counterweight to the proSlovak vlastiveda. Ironically enough, some of the same Slovak historians worked on the latter as had on the former! Finally, in the 1980's, the Slovak historians produced the massive Dejiny Slovenska in 6 volumes, to which Prague and the Czechsolovaks had no answer. Slovak nationalism had triumphed, even though it had to do so via the route of Marxism.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Review Essay: Marxist Historians in Search of Slovak History Description An account of the resource Milan Podrimavský et. al., Dejiny Slovenska, III (od roku 1848 do knoca 19. storočia) M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 35 (No. 64-65), 1991-92 pp. 119-122 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-92 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/331321884c9f55aa84206b61ad4f3cc0.pdf 64fa100b538c3e122102ada6133bffb9 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak FraternalBenefit Societies in North America: An Overview (1883-1993) M. Mark Stolarik (Conference on The Development and Significance of the Fraternal Movement and Fraternal Organizations Among Immigrants in North and South America and Europe, Maribor, Slovenia, May, 1994) In a book of essays that set out to explore how ethnic groups have used the principles of collectivism to deal with their new life in America, Scott Cummings lamented that "Relatively little has been written about self-help institutions and mutual benefit societies created by immigrant groups." 1 When applied to the Slovaks in North America, this statement still holds true. While several community studies of Slovaks in North America have appeared in recent years, none have compared and contrasted the creation of fraternal-benefit societies among Slovaks in the United States and Canada. 2 This essay will make such an attempt, 1 Scott Cummings, ed., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1980), 5. 2 The principal community studies are M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, /880- 1976 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985) and June Granatir Alexander, �8 SLOVAKIA although only in a preliminary fashion, because we still lack professional studies of the many fraternal-benefit societies established by Slovak immigrants to North America over the last 100 years. 3 When Slovaks from the Kingdom of Hungary (and other immigrants as well) began to migrate to North America in search of work in the late 19th century, they quickly discovered that, while the New World had plenty of job opportunities in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries, it did not provide much in the way of social welfare benefits. Thus, if an immigrant fell ill, was injured on the job, or even killed, neither his employer, nor The Immigrant Church and Community: Pittsburgh's Slovak Catholics and Lutherans, 1880-1915 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987). 3 Besides many jubilee-books written by talented amateurs (some of which will be cited later on), three semi-professional histories of Slovak fratemals do exist: Jozef Pauco's 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union] (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Union , 1965); Anthony X. Sutherland's The Canadian Slovak League: A History, /9321982 (Toronto: Canadian Slovak League, 1984); and R. Vladimir Baumgarten's and Joseph Stefka's The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, 1890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990). Although the latter do provide us with basic information about these societies over time, they are all "in-house" histories aimed at their members and ignore the basic conventions of professional historians, especially the concerns of the new social history. In addition, three articles (or chapters in books) written by professional historians or anthropologists focusing on Slovak fraternals in specific locations also exist. June Alexander has detailed the rise and functions of fraternals in the Pittsburgh area in chapter two "From Self-Help to Community Development: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," of her book cited above, pp.15-27; the psycho-anthropologist Howard F. Stein has analyzed Slovak fraternals in western Pennsylvania, especially in the McKeesport and Duquesne settlements in "An Ethnohistory of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions," in Slovakia, XXIX (1980-1981) , 63-88; and the author of this paper has provided an over-view of Slovak-American fraternals based upon his study of the Slovak community in Bethlehem in "A Place for Everyone: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," in the book edited by Scott Cummings, cited above, pp.130-41. �SLOVAKIA 9 any level of government, paid him or his family any form of support or compensation. 4 The Slovaks were not the first to discover this shortcoming in American society. Indeed, as early as the 17th century, Scottish immigrants to America began to form self-help organizations, which later came to be known as fraternal-benefit societies. These were private bodies consisting of immigrants and their descendants who pooled their resources, established a common treasury, and paid relief or compensation to members who had become victims of some misfortune. 5 Contrary to Oscar Handlin's claim that they were products of the American environment, fraternal-benefit societies had roots in Europe dating back to at least the 15th century, and perhaps even earlier. Similarly, craft-guilds, which were not abolished until 1872 in the Kingdom of Hungary, also had a social-welfare component. 6 4 Margaret Byington, Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (Pitt sburgh : The Russell Sage Foundation, 1910. Reprinted by the University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), 161. 5 Gordon Donaldson, "Scots," in Stephan Thernstrom et.al., Harvard Encyclo- pedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1980), 915 . 6 Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that MadetheAmerican People (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1951), 170-71, 176; Al:!beta Gacsova traced the first fraternal-benefit society in Hungary to the silver miners of Slovakia in 1460. See her Boje slovenskeho fudu proti feudalnemu utlaku a vykorist'ovaniu [The Struggle of the Slovak People Against Feudal Oppression and Exploitation] (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1960), 64; Slovak editors discussed both fraternal-benefit societies and craft guilds in Narodnf hlasnik (National Herald , Turc. Sv. Martin), October 31, 1868, p.225 ; January 31, 1869, p.22; November 30, 1871, pp.331-32; and August 31, 1872, pp.242-44; and workers in Slovakia did try to organize fraternal-benefit societies in the 1870's and l 880's, before the massive emigration of Slovaks to the United States began. Cf. Narodnf hlasnik, March 31, 1874, pp.62-3, and Narodnie noviny (National News, Turc. Sv. Martin), February 8, 1881 , p. I. For an analysis of workers' societies in the city of Kosice in eastern Slovakia in the late �SLOVAKIA Thus, when central and eastern European migrants came to North America in the late 19th century, they had several models to choose from when they began to establish fraternal-benefit societies. They could copy from their American neighbours the structure of their fraternal-benefit societies, or some of these Slovaks, especially the skilled craftsmen or former miners, could draw upon previous experiences with craft guilds or fraternalbenefit societies in their homelands.7 Whatever their model, Slovak immigrants, who started to appear in the United States in the late 1870's, established around 50 local fraternal-benefit societies by 1890. 8 When one looks closely at these societies, one is bound to notice a tremendous variety in their origins, composition, religious, secular or national orientation. From Stefan Vesely's recent description, and listing of Slovak-American fraternals between 1883 and 1890, I extrapolated the following information: seven of these fraternals included the word "Hungarian" (along with "Slovak") in their titles; 26 used only the word "Slovak" (and not Hungarian) in their official name; 16 were secular-oriented, and 33 were religious. Of the 16 secular ones, two were organized by and for craftsmen. Furthermore, 25 of the fratemals arose in Pennsylvania, 8 in New Jersey, 6 in Ohio, 5 in New York, 3 in Connecticut and 1 each in Illinois and Minnesota. The largest concentration in and around cities was found in the Pittsburgh region 19th century, see Pavel Hapak, "K dejinam robotnfckych spolkov v Ko~iciach v druhej polovici 19. storocia," Nove obzory, 4 (1962), 162-63. 7 Slovaks in Bayonne, New Jersey and in Braddock, Pennsylvania said they learned about fraternal -benefit societies from their German and Irish neighbours. Cf. Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organizaciami." [Fraternals Before Organizations] , Narodnf kalendar, 191 I (Pittsburgh), 74-76. For a discussion of fraternal-benefit societies in Slovakia in the late 19th century see my Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-/918 (New York : AMS Press, 1989), 70-72. 8 Stefan Vesely, "Prve slovenske spolky v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in America], S/ovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1979, 53-55. �SLOVAKIA 11 (7), followed by Cleveland (6), New York City (3), Passaic, New Jersey (3) and Bridgeport, Connecticut (3). The largest regional concentration was in eastern Pennsylvania, where 16 of the 50 fraternals sprang up. 9 The above statistical summary very nicely parallels what is widely-known about the Slovak-American community: that approximately half of all Slovak immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, and the rest in the surrounding Northeastern states; that the religious orientation of Slovak immigrants outweighed the secular, and that Slovak nationalism established a quick foothold in America at the expense of pro-Hungarian feeling. 10 Furthermore, when one looks at Slovak fraternals at a local level, as I have done in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one will learn even more about the Slovak community in America. Between 1891 and 1918, the approximately 1,000 Slovaks who settled in the steel town of Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania, established 19 fraternal-benefit societies. Since the men had come first, they created the 10 earliest fraternals, starting in 1891, and their wives followed suit with 9 fraternals of their own (the men initially did not allow women to join their fraternals ). 11 In addition to this division by sex, Slovak fraternals were also established on the basis of religion. Thus, of the 19 fraternals in Bethlehem, 12 were religious, with the Roman Catholics claiming eight, the Lutherans two and the Greek Catholics two as well. These religiously-based fraternals were equally divided by gender. 12 9 Ibid. IO Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, D.C., 1922), 984. Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 99; Alexander, Immigrant Church and Community, 132-34; and M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak Search for Identity in the United States, 1880-19 I 8," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism , XX (Nos. 1-2, 1993), 45-55 . I I Stolarik, Growing Up, 34-38. 12 Ibid. �12 SLOVAKIA Seven of the Slovak fraternals in Bethlehem were secularoriented, and they also highlighted both national and regional differences among the Slovaks. Six of these fraternals were ultra-nationalist, and their members hailed predominantly from central and western Slovakia. 13 This major difference among Slovaks in Bethlehem became apparent only in the fraternal records, because the majority of Slovaks in this town came from Eastern Slovakia. 14 Both dialectical, and national feelings, divided the Slovaks in Bethlehem. Furthermore, some of the fraternal records in Bethlehem also revealed class divisions within the Slovak community. The Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, for instance, which was the first to be founded (in 1891 ), attracted the wealthiest and most successful of the Slovak businessmen in town, and by 1900 it demanded a $6.00 initiation fee from prospective members. Since this represented half a week's wages in the steel mill, only the better-off Slovaks could afford to join this lodge. The rest had to content themselves with less-expensive (and lessprestigious) lodges.1 s While Slovak fraternals mirrored the divisions within the community, they also performed many positive functions. As already mentioned, in return for monthly dues of about $0.50 they provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members, or their survivors. 16 They also provided personal loans, or even mortgages, to members in good standing, if their treasuries were large enough. 17 Furthermore, they taught their members the principles of democracy through their election of officers, and through the procedure of their meetings. 18 Indeed, many Slovak 13 Ibid., 36. 14 Ibid., 23, 28-30, 36. 15 Ibid., 34-5. I 6 Ibid., 38, 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 39. �SLOVAKIA 13 politicians started their careers as officers of fraternal-benefit societies, and used them as launching pads for election to city and even state offices. 19 Fratemals also enforced a personal code of behavior, especially if they were founded on religious principles. 20 And, by helping to establish parish churches, by publishing their own newspapers, and often by erecting meeting halls, they helped to create other very important pillars of their ethnic communities. 21 Meanwhile, among the Slovaks in North America, local fratemals began to federate into larger bodies starting in 1890. This movement was launched by the ex-seminarian and leading Slovak nationalist Peter V. Rovnianek ( 1867-1933 ). He dreamed of uniting all Slovak fratemals into a National Slovak Society, which he founded in Pittsburgh on February 15, 1890.22 However, another budding leader of American Slovaks, the Rev. Stefan Furdek ( 1855-1915) dashed Rovnianek's dreams. Furdek, who was pastor of a Czech parish in Cleveland, had witnessed the growing anti-clericalism of the secular Czech Slavic Benevolent Society which had been founded in St. Louis in 1854. Furdek feared that Rovnianek's society would follow a similar path. Therefore, on September 4, 1890, he founded the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America I 9 Ibid., 102-03. 20 Ibid., 39. 21 Ibid., 45-9, 39-40; for the story of Slovak newspapers published by fraternal- benefit societies see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller's The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 356. 22 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky z.a liva pochovaneho. Z mojho 25 rocneho verejneho ucinkovania na naroda roli dedicnej [Notes of One Buried Alive: My 25 Years of Work on Behalf of the Slovak Nation] (Pittsburgh : National Slovak Society, 1924), 127-30. �14 SLOVAKIA (and later Canada) and formalized at the national level what had already been happening locally. 23 Once the secular-Catholic split was formalized, other groups followed suit. Slovak Lutherans established their Slovak Evangelical Union in Freeland, Pennsylvania in 1893, and the Calvinists likewise created their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania in 1901.24 Militant Slovak nationalists, meanwhile, formed the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 in New York City, while their more devout countrymen split off and established the Slovak Roman and Greek Catholic Sokol in Passaic, New Jersey in 1905. 25 Even a tiny group of Slovak socialists established a Slovak Workers' Society in Newark, New Jersey, in 1915. 26 All of these organizations encouraged the local fratemals to federate with their national bodies, and most did so. 23 Ibid., 127; Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskfch a Lakewoodskfch Slovakov [A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks] (Cleveland: Author's publication, I 930), 32; Stefan Furdek, "Katolfcka Slovenska Jednota v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America], Kalendar Jednota, 1896 (Cleveland), 26-7; for more Information on the Czech Slavic Benevolent Society see Jan Habenicht, Dejiny Cechuv Americkfch [A History of American Czechs] (St. Louis: Hlas Publishing Co., 1910), 36-7, and Thomas Capek, The Cechs (Bohemians) in America (Boston : Houghton Mifflin), 1920, 258 . 24 Stefan Zeman, "Pat'desiat rokov st'achetnej prace slov . evanjelikov v Amerike," in Martin Brozek ed., Zlata kniha Slovenskej Evanje/ickej Jednoty, 1893-/943 [Golden Jubilee of the Slovak Evangelical Union, 1893-1943] (Pittsburgh : Slovenskf hlasnik, 1943), 33-36; Frank Uherk.a, "Kratky prehfad S.K.P. Jednoty" [A Short History of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union], Kalendar pre slovenskfch Kalvfnov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 37-8. 25 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), July 13, 1896, p.l, and Gusto Kosfk, "Prve desairocie nasej Jednoty" [The First Decade of Our Union], Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolfckej Telocvitnej Jednoty Sokol, 1916 (Passaic, NJ.), 35-51. 26 Jan Diacik, "Z dejin Slovenskeho Robotnickeho Spolku" [A History of the Slovak Workers' Society], in Jan Vrabel ed., Pamatnik Slovenskeho Robotnfckeho Spolku, 1915-1925 (Chicago, Rovnos( l:udu, 1925), 5. �SLOVAKIA 15 Since these national Slovak fratemals were founded by men, and initially most did not admit women into their ranks, Slovak women quickly proceeded to establish their own national organizations. The first to do so were the wives of the men who had founded the National Slovak Society. Urged on by P. V. Rovnianek, these women founded the 'Zivena' Slovak National Women's Benefit Society on July 19, 1891 in New York City. 27 Not to be outdone, the Reverend Stefan Furdek then urged a group of Roman Catholic women in Cleveland to establish the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 28 After this Lutheran women established their own Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and the wives of the secular and Catholic Sokols established their own "Wreaths" as adjuncts to the men's national organizations. 29 In addition, Slovaks also established fraternals on a regional basis. For instance, in 1893 Slovak men in eastern Pennsylvania created the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union and a little later their wives organized the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Ladies Union.30 Similarly, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Slovaks founded the Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle in 1896. 31 Similar regional organizations also arose in New York, Passaic, New Jersey, 27 Helen Pn1cazky, "Kratke dejiny I. odboru v New York, N.Y." [A Short Hi story of Branch I in New York], in Pavel Blazek, ed., Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileju Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh : Slavia Printing Company, 1941), 211. 28 Kenneth Baka, "The First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association," in Joseph C. Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study (Middletown, PA: Slovak League of America, 1976), 172. 29 Alvin J. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 343 for the establishment of the Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and Joseph G. Prufa, ed., Golden Jubilee (1905-1955) Souvenir Book of the Slovak Catholic Sokol (Passaic, NJ : Slovak Catholic Sokol, 1955), for the Sokol Wreaths. 30 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, July 4, I 896, p. l ; "Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union," in Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America, 197; and "The Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, 1898-1976," Ibid., 20 I. 31 "First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle," Ibid., 22 I. �16 SLOVAKIA Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and elsewhere, and many soon also began to recruit members nation-wide.32 If we look at some membership statistics, we will quickly notice that Slovak Catholic fratemals attracted far more members than the secular ones in the United States. For instance, Thomas Capek Jr. did a survey of the principal Slovak national fratemals in 1920 and discovered that twelve such societies had a combined adult membership of 212,241. 33 This was an astonishing number when one considers that the 1920 United States Census counted 619,866 Slovaks in this country. 34 Furthermore, Capek's survey actually under-counted the number of Slovaks enrolled in fraternals because he did not list members of youth divisions. For instance, in 1920 the First Catholic Slovak Union also had 21,860 Youth Division members and the National Slovak Society's Young Folks Circle counted 14,124. 35 Nevertheless, if we break down Capek's adult members into those who belonged to religious fraternals versus those who belonged to secular ones, we discover that 142,946 were members of religious fraternals and only 69,315 belonged to non-denominational ones.36 If we compare the principal Catholic versus secular societies established by Slovaks in the United States over a longer period of time, we will notice an ever-widening gulf between them. Thus, while the National Slovak Society initially enrolled more members than the First Catholic Slovak Union (2,871 versus 864 in 1891), by 1898 the FCSU had overtaken the NSS 32 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York: Czechoslovak Section of America's Making, Inc. , 1921 ), 88-9. 33 Ibid., 89. 34 See above, footnote 10. 35 Paufo, 75 rokov, 158; and Juraj J. Niznansky and Vendelin Platek, compilers, Dejiny a Pamatnica Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, 1890-1950 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1950), 219. 36 Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88-9. �SLOVAKIA 17 (10,547 versus 9,573) and eventually left it far behind. 37 By 1929, when the membership of the National Slovak Society peaked, the latter had 42,646 adult members and 21,437 youth, for a grand total of 64,083, whereas the First Catholic Slovak Union had 102,000 adult and youth members that year. 38 Indeed, after 1929 membership in the NSS began a slow and steady decline to only 30,129 adult members and 7,508 youth in 1949, while the FCSU actually grew to 104,558 members in 1931, declined to 91,719 in 1939 due to the Great Depression, but rebounded after World War II to 95,712 members in 1948, and ultimately to 105,800 members in 1977, when its membership peaked.39 By contrast, membership in the National Slovak Society had fallen to 23,415 in 1975.40 While no-one has yet systematically studied the rise and decline of the major Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in America, I have noticed a surprising trend when briefly comparing men's and women's fratemals. For instance, while Capek reported 49,680 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1920, and only 28,264 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union that year,41 by 1985 the women's organization had outstripped the men in both membership and assets. In that year the women's Union had 105,955 members and assets of $94,000,000 versus 95,090 members in the men's Union, and assets of only $51 ,800,000.42 How and why the women overtook the men still needs to be determined. 37 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 2 14; Pauco, 75 rokov, 13, 31. 38 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214, 219; Pauco, 75 rokov, 230. 39 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214; Pauco, 75 rokov, 246, 322, 370, and Slovakia, 27 (1977), back cover. 4o Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 156. 4 l Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88. 42 1985 Statistics of Fraternal Benefit Societies, 1986 Edition (Naperville, ILL: The National Fraternal Congress of America, 1986), I I 8-19. �18 SLOVAKIA The story of the establishment of Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in Canada likewise reveals a great deal about the Slovak-Canadian community, and its similarities and differences when compared with the American community. Unlike Slovak immigration to the United States, which proceeded directly from Slovakia to the industrial heartland of the American Northeast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Slovak immigration to Canada before World War I was principally from the United States to the western provinces. American Slovaks were lured to Canada's west either by work to be found in the newly-opened coal mines of Alberta or British Columbia, to construction of spurs of Canada's railroads through the Rocky Mountains, or by cheap and available farmland on the prairies. 43 Since these Slovak pioneers had gone to Canada via the United States, they naturally brought with them ties to SlovakAmerican institutions, including fraternal-benefit societies. From the only complete list of Canadian branches of an American Slovak fraternal in existence, we can clearly see the pattern of Slovak settlement in Canada. The first branch of a SlovakAmerican fraternal arose in the coal-mining town of Ladysmith, British Columbia in 1891. It was Assembly number 52 of the 4 3 Slovak-American newspapers had many reports from these "pioneers" who settled in Canada before World War I. For examples of coal miners who settled in British Columbia and Alberta see Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, January 28, 1902, p.1, Slovak v Amerike (New York), January 12, 1902, p.1, February 11 , 1902, p.l, February 9, 1906, p.3, July 29, 1913, p.7, Narodnie noviny, No. 69 (1902), p.3, Jed nota (Cleveland), August 23, 1905, p.5, October 10, 1906, p.1, April 9, 1909, p.2, November 15, 191 I, p.2, December 20, 1911, p.2, December 4, 1912, p.2, November 26, 1913, p.2; for examples of American Slovaks who settled on Canada's prairies and took up farming see Slovak v Amerike, October 29, 1901, p.3, January 2, 1908, p.2, June 17, 1909, p.2, December 21, 1909, p.4, August 25, 1910, p.2, January 2, 1912, p.3, June 17, 1913, p.6, Jednota, February 22, 1905, p.5, October 15, 1905, p.5, June 27, 1906, p.2, January 8, 1914, p.3 . For the story of a railroad worker who came to British Columbia via the United States in 1910 consult my interview with Andrej Potocky of Thunder Bay, Ontario, June 24, 1977, tapes STO-C-46, 47, 48, 49, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Quebec. �SLOVAKIA 19 National Slovak Society, and in subsequent years branches of the NSS also arose in Fernie, British Columbia (1900), in Natal, B.C. (1903), in Coleman, Alberta (1904), in Frank Alberta (1905), in Trail, B.C. (1906), in Canmore, Alberta (1906), in Corbin, B.C. (1909), in Maple Leaf, Ontario (1913) and in Blainnore, Alberta ( 1918). 44 Thus, nine of the ten branches of the NSS established in Canada before the end of World War I were in the two westernmost provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Only after World War I, when the United States started to close its borders to unrestricted immigration, while Canada still accepted cheap laborers, did the pattern of Slovak settlement change. 45 Now Slovaks immigrated directly to Canada via the ports of Quebec and Montreal, and, although the Canadian government wanted them to continue on to the West, most chose to settle in Ontario and Quebec, which formed the industrial heartland of Canada. 46 Thus, branches of the National Slovak Society sprang up in Windsor in 1929 and in 1937; in Montreal in 1931; in Hamilton in 1931 and 1939 and in Timmins in 1932. After World War II more branches arose in Toronto in 1956, and in Montreal that same year; in Welland in 1957, another one in Toronto in 1964, and in Galt in 1965.47 In spite of this growth in branches, membership in the NSS in Canada was unimpres- 44 Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 251, 264, 266-67, 27071, 275-76, 278. 45 For the story of the Immigration Restriction Acts in the United States see E.P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798-1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press for the Balch Institute, 1981 ), 171-213. 46 For Canada's Immigration Policies during the 1920's see Donald Avery, Reluctant Host: Canada's Response to Immigrant Workers , 1896-1994 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1995), 82-107. 4 7 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 279-82. �20 SLOVAKIA sive at only 320 adults in 1964.48 Indeed, in 1989 the few remaining members of the NSS in Canada were urged by the Head Officers in Pittsburgh to join local branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union because the cost of administering so few members had become prohibitive. 49 While we do not have complete lists of branches of other Slovak-American societies in Canada, we do have partial listings of their locations, and these confirm the above observations. Thus, the first five branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union established in Canada before World War I appeared in Lethbridge, Alberta (1894), Fernie, B.C., Canmore and Coleman, Alberta, and Fort William, Ontario. 50 After the first and second World Wars another 51 branches of the "Jednota" were established principally in Ontario and Quebec, and by 1965 all the Jednota branches combined had 2,988 members, making them by far the largest American-Slovak fraternal-benefit society in Canada. 51 Meanwhile, among other American fraternals established in Canada, the same pattern appears. Thus, two branches of the Slovak Catholic Sokol arose in Canmore and Blairmore, Alberta, before World War I; and one each in Toronto and Montreal after the war. 52 The Slovak Evangelical Union did not move into Canada until after World War I, probably because Slovak Lutherans did not come in any great numbers until that time. However, it did eventually establish twelve branches in Ontario and Quebec, starting in Fort William in 1927, and later in Windsor, 48 Joseph M. Kirschbaum, Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, 1967), 182. 49 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 184. 5o Kirschbaum, op.cit., 184; and Elena Jake~ova, Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1981), 75-6. 5 l Kirschbaum, op.cit., 185. 52 Ibid., 187. �SLOVAKIA 21 Timmins, Toronto, Montreal, and elsewhere. 53 The Slovak Workers' Society also established six branches in Canada between 1926 and 1929, principally in Ontario and Quebec. 54 By 1934 various American Slovak fraternal-benefit societies had organized around 100 branches in Canada performing the same functions, and reflecting the same divisions in the Slovak community, as they had had in the United States. 55 Meanwhile, with the arrival of immigrants directly from Slovakia in the 1920's, a movement arose to establish purely Canadian fraternals as well. It started in Montreal in 1924 when the restaurant-owner Frantisek Capkovic decided to create a Slovak fraternal-benefit society. However, some Czechs also wished to join it, and the local Czechoslovak Consul persuaded Capkovic to organize the Czechoslovak Benefit Society, in order to promote the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" among immigrants in Canada. This philosophy received official government sanction in 1918 with the creation of the new Republic of Czechoslovakia upon the ruins of Austria-Hungary. Thus, the new Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal subsidized the Czechoslovak Benefit Society with a monthly contribution of $60.00. 56 While this Czechoslovak society grew to 1, 135 members in 17 branches across Ontario and Quebec, and even a few in the west by 1931, old-world politics ultimately divided it. Slovak nationalists in both the United States and Canada attacked this society as a tool of the Czechoslovak government. Therefore, in 1931 it split into the First Slovak Benefit Society headquartered 53 Jake§ova, op. cit., 113. 5 4 Ibid., 113-15. 55 This is my estimate, based upon my reading of Kirschbaum, Jake~ova, Baumgarten & Stefka. Kirschbaum under-counted them at only 78 in that year. Cf. Kirschbaum, op.cit., 193. The exact number of branches of Slovak-American fratemals in Canada in that year, and in others, still remains to be determined. 56 Jakdova, op. cit., I 16. �22 SLOVAKIA in Montreal (8 branches) and the old Czechoslovak Benefit Society (9 branches).57 Furthermore, one of the early organizers and supporters of the original Czechoslovak Benefit Society also broke with it Gabriel Kurdel, who had been its secretary in 1926-1927, decided to take up farming near Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1928. However, his organizing instinct spurred him to establish several Slovak Benefit Societies in the West, and also among the precious metals miners in Northern Ontario between 1929 and 1932. These societies eventually federated into the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1946, and became the second-largest purely Canadian fraternal with 38 branches and 2,035 members in 1965. 58 The largest Slovak-Canadian fraternal-benefit society, ironically enough, was a child of an American organization. Nationalist Slovaks in Fort William, Ontario, had established a branch of the Slovak League of America in 1916, and other branches arose soon after the war in Corbin, British Columbia, Flin Flon and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto and Oshawa, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec, and in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. 59 Slovaks in these centers were grateful that a delegate of the Slovak League of America had visited various camps in Canada in which Slovaks, among others, had been interned as "enemy aliens" in 1915 and 1916, and had persuaded the Canadian authorities to release them. 60 Unfortunately for these Canadian members of the Slovak League of America, the latter was not a fraternal-benefit society. It was the cover organization that spoke for most American57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 117-20; Kirschbaum, op. cit., 194-95, 204, 206-09. 59 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198-20 I ; Jakefova, op. cit., 120; Sutherland, op. cit., 24-8. 60 Jednota , June 9, 1915, p.1, June 23 , 1915, p.5, July 14, 1915, p.l , July 21, 1915, p.1, August 11 , 1915, p. l , January 12, 1916, p.5, February 2, 1916, p.1, June 13, 1917, p.6. See also Kirschbaum, op. cit. , 92-3. �SLOVAKIA 23 Slovak fratemals, but it had few assets of its own. 61 Thus, after the Great Depression had broken out, members of the Slovak League of America in Canada felt the need to organize a mutualaid society, and, therefore, in December, 1932, in a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, delegates from Slovak League of America branches in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Corbin, B.C., met and established the Canadian Slovak League, which remained strongly nationalist, but also began to function as a fraternalbenefit society.62 In the next few decades the Canadian Slovak League grew into the largest Slovak organization in Canada, with 55 branches and 3,247 members in 1965. 63 Also, as a reflection of the shifting population of Slovaks in the Dominion, the Canadian Slovak League moved its headquarters first from Winnipeg to Fort William, Ontario, later to Montreal, and finally , to Toronto, where most Slovak-Canadian fraternals are now headquartered. 64 Slovak socialists, meanwhile, also began to shift allegiances. After the Great Depression broke out, Canadian members of the American Slovak Workers' Society were no longer able to pay their dues, and the six branches of the American society withered. 65 However, the Canadian socialists did not abandon the cause. Instead, in 1931 they began to establish "Workers' Education Clubs," along the lines followed by other ethnic groups, principally the Hungarians. In 1934 these clubs joined the Communist Party of Canada, and by 1936 they federated into the 61 For a brief history of the Slovak League of America see Mikula~ Sprinc, ed., Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsalrocna [Forty Y~ of the Slovak League of America], (Scranton, PA: Obrana Press, 1947). 62 Sutherland, op. cit., 25 . 63 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198, 204. 64 Jake~ova, op.cit., 120, and Sutherland, op. cit., 70. According to lmrich Stolarik, who was president of the CSL at the time, the League's headquarters was moved to Toronto in 1980, when the League purchased a building for this purpose (telephone conversation with the author, May 6, 1994). 65 Jake~ova, op. cit., 120. �24 SLOVAKIA Slovak Cultural Society. During the Second World War these Slovak socialists finally formed a fraternal Slovak Benefit Society and by 1965 it had grown to 27 branches with 1,200 members, making it the third-largest Slovak-Canadian fraternalbenefit organization at that time. 66 Having surveyed the creation of the principal American and Canadian Slovak fraternal-benefit societies over the last 100 years, we are now in a position to notice their similarities and differences. American Slovak fraternals tended to reflect their earlier origins and were divided by religion, gender, class, regionalism and nationalism. Thus, among American fraternals the religious ones predominated, the men and women established their own organizations, there was some class differentiation both at the local, and at the national level, as there was in regional origins, and the chief political division initially had to do with Slovak nationalism versus loyalty to Hungary. Branches of American fraternals established in Canada tended to reflect these divisions. Canadian Slovak fraternals, by contrast, were founded later and reflected new political and other concerns. The major political divisions among them concerned Slovak identity versus 'Czechoslovakism.' On the other hand, Canadian Slovaks did not establish fraternals based upon gender, nor did they splinter along religious lines. Their much stronger national feeling, arising from their origins in the new Republic of Czechoslovakia, seemed to overcome these potential divisions. On class lines, however, Canadian Slovaks showed a much greater propensity towards division than did American Slovaks. While both groups founded Slovak "workers" organizations, those in Canada had proportionately more members than their cousins in the United States. Thus, in 1939, when the American Slovak Workers' Society peaked at approximately 11,000 members (out of a total of perhaps 400,000 Slovaks organized in 66 Ibid., 121-23, and Kirschbaum, op. cit., 209-12. �SLOVAKIA 25 fratemals), its Canadian counterpart peaked at 1,200 members in 1965.67 At first glance, the latter number seems very small, but it actually represents third place among Slovak-Canadian fratemals (the Canadian Slovak League had over 3,000 members and the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society around 2,000 in that same year). If we were to rank the American Slovak Workers' Society in 1939, it would not even have made tenth place among its countrymen's fraternals . Thus, socialism had a much stronger hold upon Canadian Slovaks than it did among its American cousins. In the final analysis, when establishing fraternal-benefit societies, Canadian Slovaks faced the same dilemmas that other immigrants to North America confronted: would they follow American models, or create distinctly Canadian ones? They ended up doing both, which is a typically Canadian reaction to the problem of ethnic identity in North America. 68 67 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnfckeho spolku v USA" (A History of the Slovak Workers Society in the USA], Zbomlk Fi/ozofickej Fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, historica , //-12 (Bratislava: Comenius University, 1962), 56. 68 For a brilliant discussion of Canada's continuing efforts to forge a national identity see Robert F. Hamey, "So Great a Heritage as Ours" : Immigration and the Survival of the Canadian Polity," Daedalus, 117 (No. 4, 1988), 51-97. � SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak FraternalBenefit Societies in North America: An Overview (1883-1993) M. Mark Stolarik (Conference on The Development and Significance of the Fraternal Movement and Fraternal Organizations Among Immigrants in North and South America and Europe, Maribor, Slovenia, May, 1994) In a book of essays that set out to explore how ethnic groups have used the principles of collectivism to deal with their new life in America, Scott Cummings lamented that "Relatively little has been written about self-help institutions and mutual benefit societies created by immigrant groups." 1 When applied to the Slovaks in North America, this statement still holds true. While several community studies of Slovaks in North America have appeared in recent years, none have compared and contrasted the creation of fraternal-benefit societies among Slovaks in the United States and Canada. 2 This essay will make such an attempt, 1 Scott Cummings, ed., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1980), 5. 2 The principal community studies are M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, /880- 1976 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985) and June Granatir Alexander, �8 SLOVAKIA although only in a preliminary fashion, because we still lack professional studies of the many fraternal-benefit societies established by Slovak immigrants to North America over the last 100 years. 3 When Slovaks from the Kingdom of Hungary (and other immigrants as well) began to migrate to North America in search of work in the late 19th century, they quickly discovered that, while the New World had plenty of job opportunities in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries, it did not provide much in the way of social welfare benefits. Thus, if an immigrant fell ill, was injured on the job, or even killed, neither his employer, nor The Immigrant Church and Community: Pittsburgh's Slovak Catholics and Lutherans, 1880-1915 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987). 3 Besides many jubilee-books written by talented amateurs (some of which will be cited later on), three semi-professional histories of Slovak fratemals do exist: Jozef Pauco's 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union] (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Union , 1965); Anthony X. Sutherland's The Canadian Slovak League: A History, /9321982 (Toronto: Canadian Slovak League, 1984); and R. Vladimir Baumgarten's and Joseph Stefka's The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, 1890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990). Although the latter do provide us with basic information about these societies over time, they are all "in-house" histories aimed at their members and ignore the basic conventions of professional historians, especially the concerns of the new social history. In addition, three articles (or chapters in books) written by professional historians or anthropologists focusing on Slovak fraternals in specific locations also exist. June Alexander has detailed the rise and functions of fraternals in the Pittsburgh area in chapter two "From Self-Help to Community Development: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," of her book cited above, pp.15-27; the psycho-anthropologist Howard F. Stein has analyzed Slovak fraternals in western Pennsylvania, especially in the McKeesport and Duquesne settlements in "An Ethnohistory of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions," in Slovakia, XXIX (1980-1981) , 63-88; and the author of this paper has provided an over-view of Slovak-American fraternals based upon his study of the Slovak community in Bethlehem in "A Place for Everyone: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," in the book edited by Scott Cummings, cited above, pp.130-41. �SLOVAKIA 9 any level of government, paid him or his family any form of support or compensation. 4 The Slovaks were not the first to discover this shortcoming in American society. Indeed, as early as the 17th century, Scottish immigrants to America began to form self-help organizations, which later came to be known as fraternal-benefit societies. These were private bodies consisting of immigrants and their descendants who pooled their resources, established a common treasury, and paid relief or compensation to members who had become victims of some misfortune. 5 Contrary to Oscar Handlin's claim that they were products of the American environment, fraternal-benefit societies had roots in Europe dating back to at least the 15th century, and perhaps even earlier. Similarly, craft-guilds, which were not abolished until 1872 in the Kingdom of Hungary, also had a social-welfare component. 6 4 Margaret Byington, Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (Pitt sburgh : The Russell Sage Foundation, 1910. Reprinted by the University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), 161. 5 Gordon Donaldson, "Scots," in Stephan Thernstrom et.al., Harvard Encyclo- pedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1980), 915 . 6 Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that MadetheAmerican People (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1951), 170-71, 176; Al:!beta Gacsova traced the first fraternal-benefit society in Hungary to the silver miners of Slovakia in 1460. See her Boje slovenskeho fudu proti feudalnemu utlaku a vykorist'ovaniu [The Struggle of the Slovak People Against Feudal Oppression and Exploitation] (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1960), 64; Slovak editors discussed both fraternal-benefit societies and craft guilds in Narodnf hlasnik (National Herald , Turc. Sv. Martin), October 31, 1868, p.225 ; January 31, 1869, p.22; November 30, 1871, pp.331-32; and August 31, 1872, pp.242-44; and workers in Slovakia did try to organize fraternal-benefit societies in the 1870's and l 880's, before the massive emigration of Slovaks to the United States began. Cf. Narodnf hlasnik, March 31, 1874, pp.62-3, and Narodnie noviny (National News, Turc. Sv. Martin), February 8, 1881 , p. I. For an analysis of workers' societies in the city of Kosice in eastern Slovakia in the late �SLOVAKIA Thus, when central and eastern European migrants came to North America in the late 19th century, they had several models to choose from when they began to establish fraternal-benefit societies. They could copy from their American neighbours the structure of their fraternal-benefit societies, or some of these Slovaks, especially the skilled craftsmen or former miners, could draw upon previous experiences with craft guilds or fraternalbenefit societies in their homelands.7 Whatever their model, Slovak immigrants, who started to appear in the United States in the late 1870's, established around 50 local fraternal-benefit societies by 1890. 8 When one looks closely at these societies, one is bound to notice a tremendous variety in their origins, composition, religious, secular or national orientation. From Stefan Vesely's recent description, and listing of Slovak-American fraternals between 1883 and 1890, I extrapolated the following information: seven of these fraternals included the word "Hungarian" (along with "Slovak") in their titles; 26 used only the word "Slovak" (and not Hungarian) in their official name; 16 were secular-oriented, and 33 were religious. Of the 16 secular ones, two were organized by and for craftsmen. Furthermore, 25 of the fratemals arose in Pennsylvania, 8 in New Jersey, 6 in Ohio, 5 in New York, 3 in Connecticut and 1 each in Illinois and Minnesota. The largest concentration in and around cities was found in the Pittsburgh region 19th century, see Pavel Hapak, "K dejinam robotnfckych spolkov v Ko~iciach v druhej polovici 19. storocia," Nove obzory, 4 (1962), 162-63. 7 Slovaks in Bayonne, New Jersey and in Braddock, Pennsylvania said they learned about fraternal -benefit societies from their German and Irish neighbours. Cf. Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organizaciami." [Fraternals Before Organizations] , Narodnf kalendar, 191 I (Pittsburgh), 74-76. For a discussion of fraternal-benefit societies in Slovakia in the late 19th century see my Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-/918 (New York : AMS Press, 1989), 70-72. 8 Stefan Vesely, "Prve slovenske spolky v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in America], S/ovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1979, 53-55. �SLOVAKIA 11 (7), followed by Cleveland (6), New York City (3), Passaic, New Jersey (3) and Bridgeport, Connecticut (3). The largest regional concentration was in eastern Pennsylvania, where 16 of the 50 fraternals sprang up. 9 The above statistical summary very nicely parallels what is widely-known about the Slovak-American community: that approximately half of all Slovak immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, and the rest in the surrounding Northeastern states; that the religious orientation of Slovak immigrants outweighed the secular, and that Slovak nationalism established a quick foothold in America at the expense of pro-Hungarian feeling. 10 Furthermore, when one looks at Slovak fraternals at a local level, as I have done in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one will learn even more about the Slovak community in America. Between 1891 and 1918, the approximately 1,000 Slovaks who settled in the steel town of Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania, established 19 fraternal-benefit societies. Since the men had come first, they created the 10 earliest fraternals, starting in 1891, and their wives followed suit with 9 fraternals of their own (the men initially did not allow women to join their fraternals ). 11 In addition to this division by sex, Slovak fraternals were also established on the basis of religion. Thus, of the 19 fraternals in Bethlehem, 12 were religious, with the Roman Catholics claiming eight, the Lutherans two and the Greek Catholics two as well. These religiously-based fraternals were equally divided by gender. 12 9 Ibid. IO Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, D.C., 1922), 984. Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 99; Alexander, Immigrant Church and Community, 132-34; and M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak Search for Identity in the United States, 1880-19 I 8," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism , XX (Nos. 1-2, 1993), 45-55 . I I Stolarik, Growing Up, 34-38. 12 Ibid. �12 SLOVAKIA Seven of the Slovak fraternals in Bethlehem were secularoriented, and they also highlighted both national and regional differences among the Slovaks. Six of these fraternals were ultra-nationalist, and their members hailed predominantly from central and western Slovakia. 13 This major difference among Slovaks in Bethlehem became apparent only in the fraternal records, because the majority of Slovaks in this town came from Eastern Slovakia. 14 Both dialectical, and national feelings, divided the Slovaks in Bethlehem. Furthermore, some of the fraternal records in Bethlehem also revealed class divisions within the Slovak community. The Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, for instance, which was the first to be founded (in 1891 ), attracted the wealthiest and most successful of the Slovak businessmen in town, and by 1900 it demanded a $6.00 initiation fee from prospective members. Since this represented half a week's wages in the steel mill, only the better-off Slovaks could afford to join this lodge. The rest had to content themselves with less-expensive (and lessprestigious) lodges.1 s While Slovak fraternals mirrored the divisions within the community, they also performed many positive functions. As already mentioned, in return for monthly dues of about $0.50 they provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members, or their survivors. 16 They also provided personal loans, or even mortgages, to members in good standing, if their treasuries were large enough. 17 Furthermore, they taught their members the principles of democracy through their election of officers, and through the procedure of their meetings. 18 Indeed, many Slovak 13 Ibid., 36. 14 Ibid., 23, 28-30, 36. 15 Ibid., 34-5. I 6 Ibid., 38, 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 39. �SLOVAKIA 13 politicians started their careers as officers of fraternal-benefit societies, and used them as launching pads for election to city and even state offices. 19 Fratemals also enforced a personal code of behavior, especially if they were founded on religious principles. 20 And, by helping to establish parish churches, by publishing their own newspapers, and often by erecting meeting halls, they helped to create other very important pillars of their ethnic communities. 21 Meanwhile, among the Slovaks in North America, local fratemals began to federate into larger bodies starting in 1890. This movement was launched by the ex-seminarian and leading Slovak nationalist Peter V. Rovnianek ( 1867-1933 ). He dreamed of uniting all Slovak fratemals into a National Slovak Society, which he founded in Pittsburgh on February 15, 1890.22 However, another budding leader of American Slovaks, the Rev. Stefan Furdek ( 1855-1915) dashed Rovnianek's dreams. Furdek, who was pastor of a Czech parish in Cleveland, had witnessed the growing anti-clericalism of the secular Czech Slavic Benevolent Society which had been founded in St. Louis in 1854. Furdek feared that Rovnianek's society would follow a similar path. Therefore, on September 4, 1890, he founded the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America I 9 Ibid., 102-03. 20 Ibid., 39. 21 Ibid., 45-9, 39-40; for the story of Slovak newspapers published by fraternal- benefit societies see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller's The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 356. 22 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky z.a liva pochovaneho. Z mojho 25 rocneho verejneho ucinkovania na naroda roli dedicnej [Notes of One Buried Alive: My 25 Years of Work on Behalf of the Slovak Nation] (Pittsburgh : National Slovak Society, 1924), 127-30. �14 SLOVAKIA (and later Canada) and formalized at the national level what had already been happening locally. 23 Once the secular-Catholic split was formalized, other groups followed suit. Slovak Lutherans established their Slovak Evangelical Union in Freeland, Pennsylvania in 1893, and the Calvinists likewise created their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania in 1901.24 Militant Slovak nationalists, meanwhile, formed the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 in New York City, while their more devout countrymen split off and established the Slovak Roman and Greek Catholic Sokol in Passaic, New Jersey in 1905. 25 Even a tiny group of Slovak socialists established a Slovak Workers' Society in Newark, New Jersey, in 1915. 26 All of these organizations encouraged the local fratemals to federate with their national bodies, and most did so. 23 Ibid., 127; Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskfch a Lakewoodskfch Slovakov [A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks] (Cleveland: Author's publication, I 930), 32; Stefan Furdek, "Katolfcka Slovenska Jednota v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America], Kalendar Jednota, 1896 (Cleveland), 26-7; for more Information on the Czech Slavic Benevolent Society see Jan Habenicht, Dejiny Cechuv Americkfch [A History of American Czechs] (St. Louis: Hlas Publishing Co., 1910), 36-7, and Thomas Capek, The Cechs (Bohemians) in America (Boston : Houghton Mifflin), 1920, 258 . 24 Stefan Zeman, "Pat'desiat rokov st'achetnej prace slov . evanjelikov v Amerike," in Martin Brozek ed., Zlata kniha Slovenskej Evanje/ickej Jednoty, 1893-/943 [Golden Jubilee of the Slovak Evangelical Union, 1893-1943] (Pittsburgh : Slovenskf hlasnik, 1943), 33-36; Frank Uherk.a, "Kratky prehfad S.K.P. Jednoty" [A Short History of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union], Kalendar pre slovenskfch Kalvfnov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 37-8. 25 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), July 13, 1896, p.l, and Gusto Kosfk, "Prve desairocie nasej Jednoty" [The First Decade of Our Union], Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolfckej Telocvitnej Jednoty Sokol, 1916 (Passaic, NJ.), 35-51. 26 Jan Diacik, "Z dejin Slovenskeho Robotnickeho Spolku" [A History of the Slovak Workers' Society], in Jan Vrabel ed., Pamatnik Slovenskeho Robotnfckeho Spolku, 1915-1925 (Chicago, Rovnos( l:udu, 1925), 5. �SLOVAKIA 15 Since these national Slovak fratemals were founded by men, and initially most did not admit women into their ranks, Slovak women quickly proceeded to establish their own national organizations. The first to do so were the wives of the men who had founded the National Slovak Society. Urged on by P. V. Rovnianek, these women founded the 'Zivena' Slovak National Women's Benefit Society on July 19, 1891 in New York City. 27 Not to be outdone, the Reverend Stefan Furdek then urged a group of Roman Catholic women in Cleveland to establish the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 28 After this Lutheran women established their own Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and the wives of the secular and Catholic Sokols established their own "Wreaths" as adjuncts to the men's national organizations. 29 In addition, Slovaks also established fraternals on a regional basis. For instance, in 1893 Slovak men in eastern Pennsylvania created the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union and a little later their wives organized the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Ladies Union.30 Similarly, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Slovaks founded the Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle in 1896. 31 Similar regional organizations also arose in New York, Passaic, New Jersey, 27 Helen Pn1cazky, "Kratke dejiny I. odboru v New York, N.Y." [A Short Hi story of Branch I in New York], in Pavel Blazek, ed., Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileju Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh : Slavia Printing Company, 1941), 211. 28 Kenneth Baka, "The First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association," in Joseph C. Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study (Middletown, PA: Slovak League of America, 1976), 172. 29 Alvin J. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 343 for the establishment of the Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and Joseph G. Prufa, ed., Golden Jubilee (1905-1955) Souvenir Book of the Slovak Catholic Sokol (Passaic, NJ : Slovak Catholic Sokol, 1955), for the Sokol Wreaths. 30 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, July 4, I 896, p. l ; "Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union," in Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America, 197; and "The Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, 1898-1976," Ibid., 20 I. 31 "First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle," Ibid., 22 I. �16 SLOVAKIA Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and elsewhere, and many soon also began to recruit members nation-wide.32 If we look at some membership statistics, we will quickly notice that Slovak Catholic fratemals attracted far more members than the secular ones in the United States. For instance, Thomas Capek Jr. did a survey of the principal Slovak national fratemals in 1920 and discovered that twelve such societies had a combined adult membership of 212,241. 33 This was an astonishing number when one considers that the 1920 United States Census counted 619,866 Slovaks in this country. 34 Furthermore, Capek's survey actually under-counted the number of Slovaks enrolled in fraternals because he did not list members of youth divisions. For instance, in 1920 the First Catholic Slovak Union also had 21,860 Youth Division members and the National Slovak Society's Young Folks Circle counted 14,124. 35 Nevertheless, if we break down Capek's adult members into those who belonged to religious fraternals versus those who belonged to secular ones, we discover that 142,946 were members of religious fraternals and only 69,315 belonged to non-denominational ones.36 If we compare the principal Catholic versus secular societies established by Slovaks in the United States over a longer period of time, we will notice an ever-widening gulf between them. Thus, while the National Slovak Society initially enrolled more members than the First Catholic Slovak Union (2,871 versus 864 in 1891), by 1898 the FCSU had overtaken the NSS 32 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York: Czechoslovak Section of America's Making, Inc. , 1921 ), 88-9. 33 Ibid., 89. 34 See above, footnote 10. 35 Paufo, 75 rokov, 158; and Juraj J. Niznansky and Vendelin Platek, compilers, Dejiny a Pamatnica Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, 1890-1950 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1950), 219. 36 Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88-9. �SLOVAKIA 17 (10,547 versus 9,573) and eventually left it far behind. 37 By 1929, when the membership of the National Slovak Society peaked, the latter had 42,646 adult members and 21,437 youth, for a grand total of 64,083, whereas the First Catholic Slovak Union had 102,000 adult and youth members that year. 38 Indeed, after 1929 membership in the NSS began a slow and steady decline to only 30,129 adult members and 7,508 youth in 1949, while the FCSU actually grew to 104,558 members in 1931, declined to 91,719 in 1939 due to the Great Depression, but rebounded after World War II to 95,712 members in 1948, and ultimately to 105,800 members in 1977, when its membership peaked.39 By contrast, membership in the National Slovak Society had fallen to 23,415 in 1975.40 While no-one has yet systematically studied the rise and decline of the major Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in America, I have noticed a surprising trend when briefly comparing men's and women's fratemals. For instance, while Capek reported 49,680 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1920, and only 28,264 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union that year,41 by 1985 the women's organization had outstripped the men in both membership and assets. In that year the women's Union had 105,955 members and assets of $94,000,000 versus 95,090 members in the men's Union, and assets of only $51 ,800,000.42 How and why the women overtook the men still needs to be determined. 37 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 2 14; Pauco, 75 rokov, 13, 31. 38 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214, 219; Pauco, 75 rokov, 230. 39 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214; Pauco, 75 rokov, 246, 322, 370, and Slovakia, 27 (1977), back cover. 4o Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 156. 4 l Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88. 42 1985 Statistics of Fraternal Benefit Societies, 1986 Edition (Naperville, ILL: The National Fraternal Congress of America, 1986), I I 8-19. �18 SLOVAKIA The story of the establishment of Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in Canada likewise reveals a great deal about the Slovak-Canadian community, and its similarities and differences when compared with the American community. Unlike Slovak immigration to the United States, which proceeded directly from Slovakia to the industrial heartland of the American Northeast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Slovak immigration to Canada before World War I was principally from the United States to the western provinces. American Slovaks were lured to Canada's west either by work to be found in the newly-opened coal mines of Alberta or British Columbia, to construction of spurs of Canada's railroads through the Rocky Mountains, or by cheap and available farmland on the prairies. 43 Since these Slovak pioneers had gone to Canada via the United States, they naturally brought with them ties to SlovakAmerican institutions, including fraternal-benefit societies. From the only complete list of Canadian branches of an American Slovak fraternal in existence, we can clearly see the pattern of Slovak settlement in Canada. The first branch of a SlovakAmerican fraternal arose in the coal-mining town of Ladysmith, British Columbia in 1891. It was Assembly number 52 of the 4 3 Slovak-American newspapers had many reports from these "pioneers" who settled in Canada before World War I. For examples of coal miners who settled in British Columbia and Alberta see Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, January 28, 1902, p.1, Slovak v Amerike (New York), January 12, 1902, p.1, February 11 , 1902, p.l, February 9, 1906, p.3, July 29, 1913, p.7, Narodnie noviny, No. 69 (1902), p.3, Jed nota (Cleveland), August 23, 1905, p.5, October 10, 1906, p.1, April 9, 1909, p.2, November 15, 191 I, p.2, December 20, 1911, p.2, December 4, 1912, p.2, November 26, 1913, p.2; for examples of American Slovaks who settled on Canada's prairies and took up farming see Slovak v Amerike, October 29, 1901, p.3, January 2, 1908, p.2, June 17, 1909, p.2, December 21, 1909, p.4, August 25, 1910, p.2, January 2, 1912, p.3, June 17, 1913, p.6, Jednota, February 22, 1905, p.5, October 15, 1905, p.5, June 27, 1906, p.2, January 8, 1914, p.3 . For the story of a railroad worker who came to British Columbia via the United States in 1910 consult my interview with Andrej Potocky of Thunder Bay, Ontario, June 24, 1977, tapes STO-C-46, 47, 48, 49, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Quebec. �SLOVAKIA 19 National Slovak Society, and in subsequent years branches of the NSS also arose in Fernie, British Columbia (1900), in Natal, B.C. (1903), in Coleman, Alberta (1904), in Frank Alberta (1905), in Trail, B.C. (1906), in Canmore, Alberta (1906), in Corbin, B.C. (1909), in Maple Leaf, Ontario (1913) and in Blainnore, Alberta ( 1918). 44 Thus, nine of the ten branches of the NSS established in Canada before the end of World War I were in the two westernmost provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Only after World War I, when the United States started to close its borders to unrestricted immigration, while Canada still accepted cheap laborers, did the pattern of Slovak settlement change. 45 Now Slovaks immigrated directly to Canada via the ports of Quebec and Montreal, and, although the Canadian government wanted them to continue on to the West, most chose to settle in Ontario and Quebec, which formed the industrial heartland of Canada. 46 Thus, branches of the National Slovak Society sprang up in Windsor in 1929 and in 1937; in Montreal in 1931; in Hamilton in 1931 and 1939 and in Timmins in 1932. After World War II more branches arose in Toronto in 1956, and in Montreal that same year; in Welland in 1957, another one in Toronto in 1964, and in Galt in 1965.47 In spite of this growth in branches, membership in the NSS in Canada was unimpres- 44 Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 251, 264, 266-67, 27071, 275-76, 278. 45 For the story of the Immigration Restriction Acts in the United States see E.P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798-1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press for the Balch Institute, 1981 ), 171-213. 46 For Canada's Immigration Policies during the 1920's see Donald Avery, Reluctant Host: Canada's Response to Immigrant Workers , 1896-1994 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1995), 82-107. 4 7 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 279-82. �20 SLOVAKIA sive at only 320 adults in 1964.48 Indeed, in 1989 the few remaining members of the NSS in Canada were urged by the Head Officers in Pittsburgh to join local branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union because the cost of administering so few members had become prohibitive. 49 While we do not have complete lists of branches of other Slovak-American societies in Canada, we do have partial listings of their locations, and these confirm the above observations. Thus, the first five branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union established in Canada before World War I appeared in Lethbridge, Alberta (1894), Fernie, B.C., Canmore and Coleman, Alberta, and Fort William, Ontario. 50 After the first and second World Wars another 51 branches of the "Jednota" were established principally in Ontario and Quebec, and by 1965 all the Jednota branches combined had 2,988 members, making them by far the largest American-Slovak fraternal-benefit society in Canada. 51 Meanwhile, among other American fraternals established in Canada, the same pattern appears. Thus, two branches of the Slovak Catholic Sokol arose in Canmore and Blairmore, Alberta, before World War I; and one each in Toronto and Montreal after the war. 52 The Slovak Evangelical Union did not move into Canada until after World War I, probably because Slovak Lutherans did not come in any great numbers until that time. However, it did eventually establish twelve branches in Ontario and Quebec, starting in Fort William in 1927, and later in Windsor, 48 Joseph M. Kirschbaum, Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, 1967), 182. 49 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 184. 5o Kirschbaum, op.cit., 184; and Elena Jake~ova, Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1981), 75-6. 5 l Kirschbaum, op.cit., 185. 52 Ibid., 187. �SLOVAKIA 21 Timmins, Toronto, Montreal, and elsewhere. 53 The Slovak Workers' Society also established six branches in Canada between 1926 and 1929, principally in Ontario and Quebec. 54 By 1934 various American Slovak fraternal-benefit societies had organized around 100 branches in Canada performing the same functions, and reflecting the same divisions in the Slovak community, as they had had in the United States. 55 Meanwhile, with the arrival of immigrants directly from Slovakia in the 1920's, a movement arose to establish purely Canadian fraternals as well. It started in Montreal in 1924 when the restaurant-owner Frantisek Capkovic decided to create a Slovak fraternal-benefit society. However, some Czechs also wished to join it, and the local Czechoslovak Consul persuaded Capkovic to organize the Czechoslovak Benefit Society, in order to promote the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" among immigrants in Canada. This philosophy received official government sanction in 1918 with the creation of the new Republic of Czechoslovakia upon the ruins of Austria-Hungary. Thus, the new Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal subsidized the Czechoslovak Benefit Society with a monthly contribution of $60.00. 56 While this Czechoslovak society grew to 1, 135 members in 17 branches across Ontario and Quebec, and even a few in the west by 1931, old-world politics ultimately divided it. Slovak nationalists in both the United States and Canada attacked this society as a tool of the Czechoslovak government. Therefore, in 1931 it split into the First Slovak Benefit Society headquartered 53 Jake§ova, op. cit., 113. 5 4 Ibid., 113-15. 55 This is my estimate, based upon my reading of Kirschbaum, Jake~ova, Baumgarten & Stefka. Kirschbaum under-counted them at only 78 in that year. Cf. Kirschbaum, op.cit., 193. The exact number of branches of Slovak-American fratemals in Canada in that year, and in others, still remains to be determined. 56 Jakdova, op. cit., I 16. �22 SLOVAKIA in Montreal (8 branches) and the old Czechoslovak Benefit Society (9 branches).57 Furthermore, one of the early organizers and supporters of the original Czechoslovak Benefit Society also broke with it Gabriel Kurdel, who had been its secretary in 1926-1927, decided to take up farming near Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1928. However, his organizing instinct spurred him to establish several Slovak Benefit Societies in the West, and also among the precious metals miners in Northern Ontario between 1929 and 1932. These societies eventually federated into the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1946, and became the second-largest purely Canadian fraternal with 38 branches and 2,035 members in 1965. 58 The largest Slovak-Canadian fraternal-benefit society, ironically enough, was a child of an American organization. Nationalist Slovaks in Fort William, Ontario, had established a branch of the Slovak League of America in 1916, and other branches arose soon after the war in Corbin, British Columbia, Flin Flon and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto and Oshawa, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec, and in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. 59 Slovaks in these centers were grateful that a delegate of the Slovak League of America had visited various camps in Canada in which Slovaks, among others, had been interned as "enemy aliens" in 1915 and 1916, and had persuaded the Canadian authorities to release them. 60 Unfortunately for these Canadian members of the Slovak League of America, the latter was not a fraternal-benefit society. It was the cover organization that spoke for most American57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 117-20; Kirschbaum, op. cit., 194-95, 204, 206-09. 59 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198-20 I ; Jakefova, op. cit., 120; Sutherland, op. cit., 24-8. 60 Jednota , June 9, 1915, p.1, June 23 , 1915, p.5, July 14, 1915, p.l , July 21, 1915, p.1, August 11 , 1915, p. l , January 12, 1916, p.5, February 2, 1916, p.1, June 13, 1917, p.6. See also Kirschbaum, op. cit. , 92-3. �SLOVAKIA 23 Slovak fratemals, but it had few assets of its own. 61 Thus, after the Great Depression had broken out, members of the Slovak League of America in Canada felt the need to organize a mutualaid society, and, therefore, in December, 1932, in a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, delegates from Slovak League of America branches in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Corbin, B.C., met and established the Canadian Slovak League, which remained strongly nationalist, but also began to function as a fraternalbenefit society.62 In the next few decades the Canadian Slovak League grew into the largest Slovak organization in Canada, with 55 branches and 3,247 members in 1965. 63 Also, as a reflection of the shifting population of Slovaks in the Dominion, the Canadian Slovak League moved its headquarters first from Winnipeg to Fort William, Ontario, later to Montreal, and finally , to Toronto, where most Slovak-Canadian fraternals are now headquartered. 64 Slovak socialists, meanwhile, also began to shift allegiances. After the Great Depression broke out, Canadian members of the American Slovak Workers' Society were no longer able to pay their dues, and the six branches of the American society withered. 65 However, the Canadian socialists did not abandon the cause. Instead, in 1931 they began to establish "Workers' Education Clubs," along the lines followed by other ethnic groups, principally the Hungarians. In 1934 these clubs joined the Communist Party of Canada, and by 1936 they federated into the 61 For a brief history of the Slovak League of America see Mikula~ Sprinc, ed., Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsalrocna [Forty Y~ of the Slovak League of America], (Scranton, PA: Obrana Press, 1947). 62 Sutherland, op. cit., 25 . 63 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198, 204. 64 Jake~ova, op.cit., 120, and Sutherland, op. cit., 70. According to lmrich Stolarik, who was president of the CSL at the time, the League's headquarters was moved to Toronto in 1980, when the League purchased a building for this purpose (telephone conversation with the author, May 6, 1994). 65 Jake~ova, op. cit., 120. �24 SLOVAKIA Slovak Cultural Society. During the Second World War these Slovak socialists finally formed a fraternal Slovak Benefit Society and by 1965 it had grown to 27 branches with 1,200 members, making it the third-largest Slovak-Canadian fraternalbenefit organization at that time. 66 Having surveyed the creation of the principal American and Canadian Slovak fraternal-benefit societies over the last 100 years, we are now in a position to notice their similarities and differences. American Slovak fraternals tended to reflect their earlier origins and were divided by religion, gender, class, regionalism and nationalism. Thus, among American fraternals the religious ones predominated, the men and women established their own organizations, there was some class differentiation both at the local, and at the national level, as there was in regional origins, and the chief political division initially had to do with Slovak nationalism versus loyalty to Hungary. Branches of American fraternals established in Canada tended to reflect these divisions. Canadian Slovak fraternals, by contrast, were founded later and reflected new political and other concerns. The major political divisions among them concerned Slovak identity versus 'Czechoslovakism.' On the other hand, Canadian Slovaks did not establish fraternals based upon gender, nor did they splinter along religious lines. Their much stronger national feeling, arising from their origins in the new Republic of Czechoslovakia, seemed to overcome these potential divisions. On class lines, however, Canadian Slovaks showed a much greater propensity towards division than did American Slovaks. While both groups founded Slovak "workers" organizations, those in Canada had proportionately more members than their cousins in the United States. Thus, in 1939, when the American Slovak Workers' Society peaked at approximately 11,000 members (out of a total of perhaps 400,000 Slovaks organized in 66 Ibid., 121-23, and Kirschbaum, op. cit., 209-12. �SLOVAKIA 25 fratemals), its Canadian counterpart peaked at 1,200 members in 1965.67 At first glance, the latter number seems very small, but it actually represents third place among Slovak-Canadian fratemals (the Canadian Slovak League had over 3,000 members and the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society around 2,000 in that same year). If we were to rank the American Slovak Workers' Society in 1939, it would not even have made tenth place among its countrymen's fraternals . Thus, socialism had a much stronger hold upon Canadian Slovaks than it did among its American cousins. In the final analysis, when establishing fraternal-benefit societies, Canadian Slovaks faced the same dilemmas that other immigrants to North America confronted: would they follow American models, or create distinctly Canadian ones? They ended up doing both, which is a typically Canadian reaction to the problem of ethnic identity in North America. 68 67 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnfckeho spolku v USA" (A History of the Slovak Workers Society in the USA], Zbomlk Fi/ozofickej Fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, historica , //-12 (Bratislava: Comenius University, 1962), 56. 68 For a brilliant discussion of Canada's continuing efforts to forge a national identity see Robert F. Hamey, "So Great a Heritage as Ours" : Immigration and the Survival of the Canadian Polity," Daedalus, 117 (No. 4, 1988), 51-97. � 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 1998, Vol. 36 Description An account of the resource Vol. 36 (No. 66-67), 1998. 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 1998 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 7 Slovak FraternalBenefit Societies in North America: An Overview (1883-1993) M. Mark Stolarik (Conference on The Development and Significance of the Fraternal Movement and Fraternal Organizations Among Immigrants in North and South America and Europe, Maribor, Slovenia, May, 1994) In a book of essays that set out to explore how ethnic groups have used the principles of collectivism to deal with their new life in America, Scott Cummings lamented that "Relatively little has been written about self-help institutions and mutual benefit societies created by immigrant groups." 1 When applied to the Slovaks in North America, this statement still holds true. While several community studies of Slovaks in North America have appeared in recent years, none have compared and contrasted the creation of fraternal-benefit societies among Slovaks in the United States and Canada. 2 This essay will make such an attempt, 1 Scott Cummings, ed., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1980), 5. 2 The principal community studies are M. Mark Stolarik, Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, /880- 1976 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985) and June Granatir Alexander, 8 SLOVAKIA although only in a preliminary fashion, because we still lack professional studies of the many fraternal-benefit societies established by Slovak immigrants to North America over the last 100 years. 3 When Slovaks from the Kingdom of Hungary (and other immigrants as well) began to migrate to North America in search of work in the late 19th century, they quickly discovered that, while the New World had plenty of job opportunities in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries, it did not provide much in the way of social welfare benefits. Thus, if an immigrant fell ill, was injured on the job, or even killed, neither his employer, nor The Immigrant Church and Community: Pittsburgh's Slovak Catholics and Lutherans, 1880-1915 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987). 3 Besides many jubilee-books written by talented amateurs (some of which will be cited later on), three semi-professional histories of Slovak fratemals do exist: Jozef Pauco's 75 rokov Prvej Katolfckej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Years of the First Catholic Slovak Union] (Cleveland : First Catholic Slovak Union , 1965); Anthony X. Sutherland's The Canadian Slovak League: A History, /9321982 (Toronto: Canadian Slovak League, 1984); and R. Vladimir Baumgarten's and Joseph Stefka's The National Slovak Society: JOO Year History, 1890-1990 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1990). Although the latter do provide us with basic information about these societies over time, they are all "in-house" histories aimed at their members and ignore the basic conventions of professional historians, especially the concerns of the new social history. In addition, three articles (or chapters in books) written by professional historians or anthropologists focusing on Slovak fraternals in specific locations also exist. June Alexander has detailed the rise and functions of fraternals in the Pittsburgh area in chapter two "From Self-Help to Community Development: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," of her book cited above, pp.15-27; the psycho-anthropologist Howard F. Stein has analyzed Slovak fraternals in western Pennsylvania, especially in the McKeesport and Duquesne settlements in "An Ethnohistory of Slovak-American Religious and Fraternal Associations: A Study in Cultural Meaning, Group Identity, and Social Institutions," in Slovakia, XXIX (1980-1981) , 63-88; and the author of this paper has provided an over-view of Slovak-American fraternals based upon his study of the Slovak community in Bethlehem in "A Place for Everyone: Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies," in the book edited by Scott Cummings, cited above, pp.130-41. SLOVAKIA 9 any level of government, paid him or his family any form of support or compensation. 4 The Slovaks were not the first to discover this shortcoming in American society. Indeed, as early as the 17th century, Scottish immigrants to America began to form self-help organizations, which later came to be known as fraternal-benefit societies. These were private bodies consisting of immigrants and their descendants who pooled their resources, established a common treasury, and paid relief or compensation to members who had become victims of some misfortune. 5 Contrary to Oscar Handlin's claim that they were products of the American environment, fraternal-benefit societies had roots in Europe dating back to at least the 15th century, and perhaps even earlier. Similarly, craft-guilds, which were not abolished until 1872 in the Kingdom of Hungary, also had a social-welfare component. 6 4 Margaret Byington, Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (Pitt sburgh : The Russell Sage Foundation, 1910. Reprinted by the University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), 161. 5 Gordon Donaldson, "Scots," in Stephan Thernstrom et.al., Harvard Encyclo- pedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1980), 915 . 6 Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that MadetheAmerican People (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1951), 170-71, 176; Al:!beta Gacsova traced the first fraternal-benefit society in Hungary to the silver miners of Slovakia in 1460. See her Boje slovenskeho fudu proti feudalnemu utlaku a vykorist'ovaniu [The Struggle of the Slovak People Against Feudal Oppression and Exploitation] (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1960), 64; Slovak editors discussed both fraternal-benefit societies and craft guilds in Narodnf hlasnik (National Herald , Turc. Sv. Martin), October 31, 1868, p.225 ; January 31, 1869, p.22; November 30, 1871, pp.331-32; and August 31, 1872, pp.242-44; and workers in Slovakia did try to organize fraternal-benefit societies in the 1870's and l 880's, before the massive emigration of Slovaks to the United States began. Cf. Narodnf hlasnik, March 31, 1874, pp.62-3, and Narodnie noviny (National News, Turc. Sv. Martin), February 8, 1881 , p. I. For an analysis of workers' societies in the city of Kosice in eastern Slovakia in the late SLOVAKIA Thus, when central and eastern European migrants came to North America in the late 19th century, they had several models to choose from when they began to establish fraternal-benefit societies. They could copy from their American neighbours the structure of their fraternal-benefit societies, or some of these Slovaks, especially the skilled craftsmen or former miners, could draw upon previous experiences with craft guilds or fraternalbenefit societies in their homelands.7 Whatever their model, Slovak immigrants, who started to appear in the United States in the late 1870's, established around 50 local fraternal-benefit societies by 1890. 8 When one looks closely at these societies, one is bound to notice a tremendous variety in their origins, composition, religious, secular or national orientation. From Stefan Vesely's recent description, and listing of Slovak-American fraternals between 1883 and 1890, I extrapolated the following information: seven of these fraternals included the word "Hungarian" (along with "Slovak") in their titles; 26 used only the word "Slovak" (and not Hungarian) in their official name; 16 were secular-oriented, and 33 were religious. Of the 16 secular ones, two were organized by and for craftsmen. Furthermore, 25 of the fratemals arose in Pennsylvania, 8 in New Jersey, 6 in Ohio, 5 in New York, 3 in Connecticut and 1 each in Illinois and Minnesota. The largest concentration in and around cities was found in the Pittsburgh region 19th century, see Pavel Hapak, "K dejinam robotnfckych spolkov v Ko~iciach v druhej polovici 19. storocia," Nove obzory, 4 (1962), 162-63. 7 Slovaks in Bayonne, New Jersey and in Braddock, Pennsylvania said they learned about fraternal -benefit societies from their German and Irish neighbours. Cf. Ignac Gessay, "Spolky pred organizaciami." [Fraternals Before Organizations] , Narodnf kalendar, 191 I (Pittsburgh), 74-76. For a discussion of fraternal-benefit societies in Slovakia in the late 19th century see my Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870-/918 (New York : AMS Press, 1989), 70-72. 8 Stefan Vesely, "Prve slovenske spolky v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in America], S/ovaci v zahranicf, 4-5 (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1979, 53-55. SLOVAKIA 11 (7), followed by Cleveland (6), New York City (3), Passaic, New Jersey (3) and Bridgeport, Connecticut (3). The largest regional concentration was in eastern Pennsylvania, where 16 of the 50 fraternals sprang up. 9 The above statistical summary very nicely parallels what is widely-known about the Slovak-American community: that approximately half of all Slovak immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, and the rest in the surrounding Northeastern states; that the religious orientation of Slovak immigrants outweighed the secular, and that Slovak nationalism established a quick foothold in America at the expense of pro-Hungarian feeling. 10 Furthermore, when one looks at Slovak fraternals at a local level, as I have done in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one will learn even more about the Slovak community in America. Between 1891 and 1918, the approximately 1,000 Slovaks who settled in the steel town of Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania, established 19 fraternal-benefit societies. Since the men had come first, they created the 10 earliest fraternals, starting in 1891, and their wives followed suit with 9 fraternals of their own (the men initially did not allow women to join their fraternals ). 11 In addition to this division by sex, Slovak fraternals were also established on the basis of religion. Thus, of the 19 fraternals in Bethlehem, 12 were religious, with the Roman Catholics claiming eight, the Lutherans two and the Greek Catholics two as well. These religiously-based fraternals were equally divided by gender. 12 9 Ibid. IO Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Vol. II, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington, D.C., 1922), 984. Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 99; Alexander, Immigrant Church and Community, 132-34; and M. Mark Stolarik, "The Slovak Search for Identity in the United States, 1880-19 I 8," Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism , XX (Nos. 1-2, 1993), 45-55 . I I Stolarik, Growing Up, 34-38. 12 Ibid. 12 SLOVAKIA Seven of the Slovak fraternals in Bethlehem were secularoriented, and they also highlighted both national and regional differences among the Slovaks. Six of these fraternals were ultra-nationalist, and their members hailed predominantly from central and western Slovakia. 13 This major difference among Slovaks in Bethlehem became apparent only in the fraternal records, because the majority of Slovaks in this town came from Eastern Slovakia. 14 Both dialectical, and national feelings, divided the Slovaks in Bethlehem. Furthermore, some of the fraternal records in Bethlehem also revealed class divisions within the Slovak community. The Sts. Cyril and Methodius Society, for instance, which was the first to be founded (in 1891 ), attracted the wealthiest and most successful of the Slovak businessmen in town, and by 1900 it demanded a $6.00 initiation fee from prospective members. Since this represented half a week's wages in the steel mill, only the better-off Slovaks could afford to join this lodge. The rest had to content themselves with less-expensive (and lessprestigious) lodges.1 s While Slovak fraternals mirrored the divisions within the community, they also performed many positive functions. As already mentioned, in return for monthly dues of about $0.50 they provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members, or their survivors. 16 They also provided personal loans, or even mortgages, to members in good standing, if their treasuries were large enough. 17 Furthermore, they taught their members the principles of democracy through their election of officers, and through the procedure of their meetings. 18 Indeed, many Slovak 13 Ibid., 36. 14 Ibid., 23, 28-30, 36. 15 Ibid., 34-5. I 6 Ibid., 38, 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 39. SLOVAKIA 13 politicians started their careers as officers of fraternal-benefit societies, and used them as launching pads for election to city and even state offices. 19 Fratemals also enforced a personal code of behavior, especially if they were founded on religious principles. 20 And, by helping to establish parish churches, by publishing their own newspapers, and often by erecting meeting halls, they helped to create other very important pillars of their ethnic communities. 21 Meanwhile, among the Slovaks in North America, local fratemals began to federate into larger bodies starting in 1890. This movement was launched by the ex-seminarian and leading Slovak nationalist Peter V. Rovnianek ( 1867-1933 ). He dreamed of uniting all Slovak fratemals into a National Slovak Society, which he founded in Pittsburgh on February 15, 1890.22 However, another budding leader of American Slovaks, the Rev. Stefan Furdek ( 1855-1915) dashed Rovnianek's dreams. Furdek, who was pastor of a Czech parish in Cleveland, had witnessed the growing anti-clericalism of the secular Czech Slavic Benevolent Society which had been founded in St. Louis in 1854. Furdek feared that Rovnianek's society would follow a similar path. Therefore, on September 4, 1890, he founded the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America I 9 Ibid., 102-03. 20 Ibid., 39. 21 Ibid., 45-9, 39-40; for the story of Slovak newspapers published by fraternal- benefit societies see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sally M. Miller's The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis and Handbook (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 356. 22 P.V. Rovnianek, Zapisky z.a liva pochovaneho. Z mojho 25 rocneho verejneho ucinkovania na naroda roli dedicnej [Notes of One Buried Alive: My 25 Years of Work on Behalf of the Slovak Nation] (Pittsburgh : National Slovak Society, 1924), 127-30. 14 SLOVAKIA (and later Canada) and formalized at the national level what had already been happening locally. 23 Once the secular-Catholic split was formalized, other groups followed suit. Slovak Lutherans established their Slovak Evangelical Union in Freeland, Pennsylvania in 1893, and the Calvinists likewise created their Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania in 1901.24 Militant Slovak nationalists, meanwhile, formed the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in 1896 in New York City, while their more devout countrymen split off and established the Slovak Roman and Greek Catholic Sokol in Passaic, New Jersey in 1905. 25 Even a tiny group of Slovak socialists established a Slovak Workers' Society in Newark, New Jersey, in 1915. 26 All of these organizations encouraged the local fratemals to federate with their national bodies, and most did so. 23 Ibid., 127; Jan Pankuch, Dejiny Clevelandskfch a Lakewoodskfch Slovakov [A History of Cleveland and Lakewood Slovaks] (Cleveland: Author's publication, I 930), 32; Stefan Furdek, "Katolfcka Slovenska Jednota v Spojenych Statoch Americkych" [The First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States of America], Kalendar Jednota, 1896 (Cleveland), 26-7; for more Information on the Czech Slavic Benevolent Society see Jan Habenicht, Dejiny Cechuv Americkfch [A History of American Czechs] (St. Louis: Hlas Publishing Co., 1910), 36-7, and Thomas Capek, The Cechs (Bohemians) in America (Boston : Houghton Mifflin), 1920, 258 . 24 Stefan Zeman, "Pat'desiat rokov st'achetnej prace slov . evanjelikov v Amerike," in Martin Brozek ed., Zlata kniha Slovenskej Evanje/ickej Jednoty, 1893-/943 [Golden Jubilee of the Slovak Evangelical Union, 1893-1943] (Pittsburgh : Slovenskf hlasnik, 1943), 33-36; Frank Uherk.a, "Kratky prehfad S.K.P. Jednoty" [A Short History of the Slovak Calvin Presbyterian Union], Kalendar pre slovenskfch Kalvfnov, 1927 (Pittsburgh), 37-8. 25 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny (Pittsburgh), July 13, 1896, p.l, and Gusto Kosfk, "Prve desairocie nasej Jednoty" [The First Decade of Our Union], Sbomik Rfmsko a Grecko Katolfckej Telocvitnej Jednoty Sokol, 1916 (Passaic, NJ.), 35-51. 26 Jan Diacik, "Z dejin Slovenskeho Robotnickeho Spolku" [A History of the Slovak Workers' Society], in Jan Vrabel ed., Pamatnik Slovenskeho Robotnfckeho Spolku, 1915-1925 (Chicago, Rovnos( l:udu, 1925), 5. SLOVAKIA 15 Since these national Slovak fratemals were founded by men, and initially most did not admit women into their ranks, Slovak women quickly proceeded to establish their own national organizations. The first to do so were the wives of the men who had founded the National Slovak Society. Urged on by P. V. Rovnianek, these women founded the 'Zivena' Slovak National Women's Benefit Society on July 19, 1891 in New York City. 27 Not to be outdone, the Reverend Stefan Furdek then urged a group of Roman Catholic women in Cleveland to establish the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in 1892. 28 After this Lutheran women established their own Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and the wives of the secular and Catholic Sokols established their own "Wreaths" as adjuncts to the men's national organizations. 29 In addition, Slovaks also established fraternals on a regional basis. For instance, in 1893 Slovak men in eastern Pennsylvania created the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union and a little later their wives organized the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Ladies Union.30 Similarly, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Slovaks founded the Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle in 1896. 31 Similar regional organizations also arose in New York, Passaic, New Jersey, 27 Helen Pn1cazky, "Kratke dejiny I. odboru v New York, N.Y." [A Short Hi story of Branch I in New York], in Pavel Blazek, ed., Pamiitnica k zlatemu jubileju Ziveny, 1891-1941 (Pittsburgh : Slavia Printing Company, 1941), 211. 28 Kenneth Baka, "The First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association," in Joseph C. Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America: A Bicentennial Study (Middletown, PA: Slovak League of America, 1976), 172. 29 Alvin J. Schmidt, Fraternal Organizations (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 343 for the establishment of the Evangelical Slovak Women's Union, and Joseph G. Prufa, ed., Golden Jubilee (1905-1955) Souvenir Book of the Slovak Catholic Sokol (Passaic, NJ : Slovak Catholic Sokol, 1955), for the Sokol Wreaths. 30 Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, July 4, I 896, p. l ; "Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union," in Krajsa et.al., Slovaks in America, 197; and "The Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union, 1898-1976," Ibid., 20 I. 31 "First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle," Ibid., 22 I. 16 SLOVAKIA Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and elsewhere, and many soon also began to recruit members nation-wide.32 If we look at some membership statistics, we will quickly notice that Slovak Catholic fratemals attracted far more members than the secular ones in the United States. For instance, Thomas Capek Jr. did a survey of the principal Slovak national fratemals in 1920 and discovered that twelve such societies had a combined adult membership of 212,241. 33 This was an astonishing number when one considers that the 1920 United States Census counted 619,866 Slovaks in this country. 34 Furthermore, Capek's survey actually under-counted the number of Slovaks enrolled in fraternals because he did not list members of youth divisions. For instance, in 1920 the First Catholic Slovak Union also had 21,860 Youth Division members and the National Slovak Society's Young Folks Circle counted 14,124. 35 Nevertheless, if we break down Capek's adult members into those who belonged to religious fraternals versus those who belonged to secular ones, we discover that 142,946 were members of religious fraternals and only 69,315 belonged to non-denominational ones.36 If we compare the principal Catholic versus secular societies established by Slovaks in the United States over a longer period of time, we will notice an ever-widening gulf between them. Thus, while the National Slovak Society initially enrolled more members than the First Catholic Slovak Union (2,871 versus 864 in 1891), by 1898 the FCSU had overtaken the NSS 32 Thomas Capek, Jr., The Slovaks in America (New York: Czechoslovak Section of America's Making, Inc. , 1921 ), 88-9. 33 Ibid., 89. 34 See above, footnote 10. 35 Paufo, 75 rokov, 158; and Juraj J. Niznansky and Vendelin Platek, compilers, Dejiny a Pamatnica Narodneho Slovenskeho Spolku, 1890-1950 (Pittsburgh: National Slovak Society, 1950), 219. 36 Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88-9. SLOVAKIA 17 (10,547 versus 9,573) and eventually left it far behind. 37 By 1929, when the membership of the National Slovak Society peaked, the latter had 42,646 adult members and 21,437 youth, for a grand total of 64,083, whereas the First Catholic Slovak Union had 102,000 adult and youth members that year. 38 Indeed, after 1929 membership in the NSS began a slow and steady decline to only 30,129 adult members and 7,508 youth in 1949, while the FCSU actually grew to 104,558 members in 1931, declined to 91,719 in 1939 due to the Great Depression, but rebounded after World War II to 95,712 members in 1948, and ultimately to 105,800 members in 1977, when its membership peaked.39 By contrast, membership in the National Slovak Society had fallen to 23,415 in 1975.40 While no-one has yet systematically studied the rise and decline of the major Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in America, I have noticed a surprising trend when briefly comparing men's and women's fratemals. For instance, while Capek reported 49,680 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Union in 1920, and only 28,264 adult members in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union that year,41 by 1985 the women's organization had outstripped the men in both membership and assets. In that year the women's Union had 105,955 members and assets of $94,000,000 versus 95,090 members in the men's Union, and assets of only $51 ,800,000.42 How and why the women overtook the men still needs to be determined. 37 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 2 14; Pauco, 75 rokov, 13, 31. 38 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214, 219; Pauco, 75 rokov, 230. 39 Nifoansky & Platek, Dejiny, 214; Pauco, 75 rokov, 246, 322, 370, and Slovakia, 27 (1977), back cover. 4o Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 156. 4 l Capek, Jr., op.cit., 88. 42 1985 Statistics of Fraternal Benefit Societies, 1986 Edition (Naperville, ILL: The National Fraternal Congress of America, 1986), I I 8-19. 18 SLOVAKIA The story of the establishment of Slovak fraternal-benefit societies in Canada likewise reveals a great deal about the Slovak-Canadian community, and its similarities and differences when compared with the American community. Unlike Slovak immigration to the United States, which proceeded directly from Slovakia to the industrial heartland of the American Northeast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Slovak immigration to Canada before World War I was principally from the United States to the western provinces. American Slovaks were lured to Canada's west either by work to be found in the newly-opened coal mines of Alberta or British Columbia, to construction of spurs of Canada's railroads through the Rocky Mountains, or by cheap and available farmland on the prairies. 43 Since these Slovak pioneers had gone to Canada via the United States, they naturally brought with them ties to SlovakAmerican institutions, including fraternal-benefit societies. From the only complete list of Canadian branches of an American Slovak fraternal in existence, we can clearly see the pattern of Slovak settlement in Canada. The first branch of a SlovakAmerican fraternal arose in the coal-mining town of Ladysmith, British Columbia in 1891. It was Assembly number 52 of the 4 3 Slovak-American newspapers had many reports from these "pioneers" who settled in Canada before World War I. For examples of coal miners who settled in British Columbia and Alberta see Amerikansko-slovenske noviny, January 28, 1902, p.1, Slovak v Amerike (New York), January 12, 1902, p.1, February 11 , 1902, p.l, February 9, 1906, p.3, July 29, 1913, p.7, Narodnie noviny, No. 69 (1902), p.3, Jed nota (Cleveland), August 23, 1905, p.5, October 10, 1906, p.1, April 9, 1909, p.2, November 15, 191 I, p.2, December 20, 1911, p.2, December 4, 1912, p.2, November 26, 1913, p.2; for examples of American Slovaks who settled on Canada's prairies and took up farming see Slovak v Amerike, October 29, 1901, p.3, January 2, 1908, p.2, June 17, 1909, p.2, December 21, 1909, p.4, August 25, 1910, p.2, January 2, 1912, p.3, June 17, 1913, p.6, Jednota, February 22, 1905, p.5, October 15, 1905, p.5, June 27, 1906, p.2, January 8, 1914, p.3 . For the story of a railroad worker who came to British Columbia via the United States in 1910 consult my interview with Andrej Potocky of Thunder Bay, Ontario, June 24, 1977, tapes STO-C-46, 47, 48, 49, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Quebec. SLOVAKIA 19 National Slovak Society, and in subsequent years branches of the NSS also arose in Fernie, British Columbia (1900), in Natal, B.C. (1903), in Coleman, Alberta (1904), in Frank Alberta (1905), in Trail, B.C. (1906), in Canmore, Alberta (1906), in Corbin, B.C. (1909), in Maple Leaf, Ontario (1913) and in Blainnore, Alberta ( 1918). 44 Thus, nine of the ten branches of the NSS established in Canada before the end of World War I were in the two westernmost provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Only after World War I, when the United States started to close its borders to unrestricted immigration, while Canada still accepted cheap laborers, did the pattern of Slovak settlement change. 45 Now Slovaks immigrated directly to Canada via the ports of Quebec and Montreal, and, although the Canadian government wanted them to continue on to the West, most chose to settle in Ontario and Quebec, which formed the industrial heartland of Canada. 46 Thus, branches of the National Slovak Society sprang up in Windsor in 1929 and in 1937; in Montreal in 1931; in Hamilton in 1931 and 1939 and in Timmins in 1932. After World War II more branches arose in Toronto in 1956, and in Montreal that same year; in Welland in 1957, another one in Toronto in 1964, and in Galt in 1965.47 In spite of this growth in branches, membership in the NSS in Canada was unimpres- 44 Baumgarten & Stefka, The National Slovak Society, 251, 264, 266-67, 27071, 275-76, 278. 45 For the story of the Immigration Restriction Acts in the United States see E.P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798-1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press for the Balch Institute, 1981 ), 171-213. 46 For Canada's Immigration Policies during the 1920's see Donald Avery, Reluctant Host: Canada's Response to Immigrant Workers , 1896-1994 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1995), 82-107. 4 7 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 279-82. 20 SLOVAKIA sive at only 320 adults in 1964.48 Indeed, in 1989 the few remaining members of the NSS in Canada were urged by the Head Officers in Pittsburgh to join local branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union because the cost of administering so few members had become prohibitive. 49 While we do not have complete lists of branches of other Slovak-American societies in Canada, we do have partial listings of their locations, and these confirm the above observations. Thus, the first five branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union established in Canada before World War I appeared in Lethbridge, Alberta (1894), Fernie, B.C., Canmore and Coleman, Alberta, and Fort William, Ontario. 50 After the first and second World Wars another 51 branches of the "Jednota" were established principally in Ontario and Quebec, and by 1965 all the Jednota branches combined had 2,988 members, making them by far the largest American-Slovak fraternal-benefit society in Canada. 51 Meanwhile, among other American fraternals established in Canada, the same pattern appears. Thus, two branches of the Slovak Catholic Sokol arose in Canmore and Blairmore, Alberta, before World War I; and one each in Toronto and Montreal after the war. 52 The Slovak Evangelical Union did not move into Canada until after World War I, probably because Slovak Lutherans did not come in any great numbers until that time. However, it did eventually establish twelve branches in Ontario and Quebec, starting in Fort William in 1927, and later in Windsor, 48 Joseph M. Kirschbaum, Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Ethnic Press Association of Ontario, 1967), 182. 49 Baumgarten & Stefka, op.cit., 184. 5o Kirschbaum, op.cit., 184; and Elena Jake~ova, Vysfahovalectvo Slovakov do Kanady (Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1981), 75-6. 5 l Kirschbaum, op.cit., 185. 52 Ibid., 187. SLOVAKIA 21 Timmins, Toronto, Montreal, and elsewhere. 53 The Slovak Workers' Society also established six branches in Canada between 1926 and 1929, principally in Ontario and Quebec. 54 By 1934 various American Slovak fraternal-benefit societies had organized around 100 branches in Canada performing the same functions, and reflecting the same divisions in the Slovak community, as they had had in the United States. 55 Meanwhile, with the arrival of immigrants directly from Slovakia in the 1920's, a movement arose to establish purely Canadian fraternals as well. It started in Montreal in 1924 when the restaurant-owner Frantisek Capkovic decided to create a Slovak fraternal-benefit society. However, some Czechs also wished to join it, and the local Czechoslovak Consul persuaded Capkovic to organize the Czechoslovak Benefit Society, in order to promote the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" among immigrants in Canada. This philosophy received official government sanction in 1918 with the creation of the new Republic of Czechoslovakia upon the ruins of Austria-Hungary. Thus, the new Czechoslovak Consulate in Montreal subsidized the Czechoslovak Benefit Society with a monthly contribution of $60.00. 56 While this Czechoslovak society grew to 1, 135 members in 17 branches across Ontario and Quebec, and even a few in the west by 1931, old-world politics ultimately divided it. Slovak nationalists in both the United States and Canada attacked this society as a tool of the Czechoslovak government. Therefore, in 1931 it split into the First Slovak Benefit Society headquartered 53 Jake§ova, op. cit., 113. 5 4 Ibid., 113-15. 55 This is my estimate, based upon my reading of Kirschbaum, Jake~ova, Baumgarten & Stefka. Kirschbaum under-counted them at only 78 in that year. Cf. Kirschbaum, op.cit., 193. The exact number of branches of Slovak-American fratemals in Canada in that year, and in others, still remains to be determined. 56 Jakdova, op. cit., I 16. 22 SLOVAKIA in Montreal (8 branches) and the old Czechoslovak Benefit Society (9 branches).57 Furthermore, one of the early organizers and supporters of the original Czechoslovak Benefit Society also broke with it Gabriel Kurdel, who had been its secretary in 1926-1927, decided to take up farming near Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1928. However, his organizing instinct spurred him to establish several Slovak Benefit Societies in the West, and also among the precious metals miners in Northern Ontario between 1929 and 1932. These societies eventually federated into the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1946, and became the second-largest purely Canadian fraternal with 38 branches and 2,035 members in 1965. 58 The largest Slovak-Canadian fraternal-benefit society, ironically enough, was a child of an American organization. Nationalist Slovaks in Fort William, Ontario, had established a branch of the Slovak League of America in 1916, and other branches arose soon after the war in Corbin, British Columbia, Flin Flon and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto and Oshawa, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec, and in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. 59 Slovaks in these centers were grateful that a delegate of the Slovak League of America had visited various camps in Canada in which Slovaks, among others, had been interned as "enemy aliens" in 1915 and 1916, and had persuaded the Canadian authorities to release them. 60 Unfortunately for these Canadian members of the Slovak League of America, the latter was not a fraternal-benefit society. It was the cover organization that spoke for most American57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 117-20; Kirschbaum, op. cit., 194-95, 204, 206-09. 59 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198-20 I ; Jakefova, op. cit., 120; Sutherland, op. cit., 24-8. 60 Jednota , June 9, 1915, p.1, June 23 , 1915, p.5, July 14, 1915, p.l , July 21, 1915, p.1, August 11 , 1915, p. l , January 12, 1916, p.5, February 2, 1916, p.1, June 13, 1917, p.6. See also Kirschbaum, op. cit. , 92-3. SLOVAKIA 23 Slovak fratemals, but it had few assets of its own. 61 Thus, after the Great Depression had broken out, members of the Slovak League of America in Canada felt the need to organize a mutualaid society, and, therefore, in December, 1932, in a meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, delegates from Slovak League of America branches in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Corbin, B.C., met and established the Canadian Slovak League, which remained strongly nationalist, but also began to function as a fraternalbenefit society.62 In the next few decades the Canadian Slovak League grew into the largest Slovak organization in Canada, with 55 branches and 3,247 members in 1965. 63 Also, as a reflection of the shifting population of Slovaks in the Dominion, the Canadian Slovak League moved its headquarters first from Winnipeg to Fort William, Ontario, later to Montreal, and finally , to Toronto, where most Slovak-Canadian fraternals are now headquartered. 64 Slovak socialists, meanwhile, also began to shift allegiances. After the Great Depression broke out, Canadian members of the American Slovak Workers' Society were no longer able to pay their dues, and the six branches of the American society withered. 65 However, the Canadian socialists did not abandon the cause. Instead, in 1931 they began to establish "Workers' Education Clubs," along the lines followed by other ethnic groups, principally the Hungarians. In 1934 these clubs joined the Communist Party of Canada, and by 1936 they federated into the 61 For a brief history of the Slovak League of America see Mikula~ Sprinc, ed., Slovenska Liga v Amerike styridsalrocna [Forty Y~ of the Slovak League of America], (Scranton, PA: Obrana Press, 1947). 62 Sutherland, op. cit., 25 . 63 Kirschbaum, op. cit., 198, 204. 64 Jake~ova, op.cit., 120, and Sutherland, op. cit., 70. According to lmrich Stolarik, who was president of the CSL at the time, the League's headquarters was moved to Toronto in 1980, when the League purchased a building for this purpose (telephone conversation with the author, May 6, 1994). 65 Jake~ova, op. cit., 120. 24 SLOVAKIA Slovak Cultural Society. During the Second World War these Slovak socialists finally formed a fraternal Slovak Benefit Society and by 1965 it had grown to 27 branches with 1,200 members, making it the third-largest Slovak-Canadian fraternalbenefit organization at that time. 66 Having surveyed the creation of the principal American and Canadian Slovak fraternal-benefit societies over the last 100 years, we are now in a position to notice their similarities and differences. American Slovak fraternals tended to reflect their earlier origins and were divided by religion, gender, class, regionalism and nationalism. Thus, among American fraternals the religious ones predominated, the men and women established their own organizations, there was some class differentiation both at the local, and at the national level, as there was in regional origins, and the chief political division initially had to do with Slovak nationalism versus loyalty to Hungary. Branches of American fraternals established in Canada tended to reflect these divisions. Canadian Slovak fraternals, by contrast, were founded later and reflected new political and other concerns. The major political divisions among them concerned Slovak identity versus 'Czechoslovakism.' On the other hand, Canadian Slovaks did not establish fraternals based upon gender, nor did they splinter along religious lines. Their much stronger national feeling, arising from their origins in the new Republic of Czechoslovakia, seemed to overcome these potential divisions. On class lines, however, Canadian Slovaks showed a much greater propensity towards division than did American Slovaks. While both groups founded Slovak "workers" organizations, those in Canada had proportionately more members than their cousins in the United States. Thus, in 1939, when the American Slovak Workers' Society peaked at approximately 11,000 members (out of a total of perhaps 400,000 Slovaks organized in 66 Ibid., 121-23, and Kirschbaum, op. cit., 209-12. SLOVAKIA 25 fratemals), its Canadian counterpart peaked at 1,200 members in 1965.67 At first glance, the latter number seems very small, but it actually represents third place among Slovak-Canadian fratemals (the Canadian Slovak League had over 3,000 members and the Canadian Slovak Benefit Society around 2,000 in that same year). If we were to rank the American Slovak Workers' Society in 1939, it would not even have made tenth place among its countrymen's fraternals . Thus, socialism had a much stronger hold upon Canadian Slovaks than it did among its American cousins. In the final analysis, when establishing fraternal-benefit societies, Canadian Slovaks faced the same dilemmas that other immigrants to North America confronted: would they follow American models, or create distinctly Canadian ones? They ended up doing both, which is a typically Canadian reaction to the problem of ethnic identity in North America. 68 67 Milo~ Gosiorovsky, "K hist6rii Slovenskeho robotnfckeho spolku v USA" (A History of the Slovak Workers Society in the USA], Zbomlk Fi/ozofickej Fakulty Univerzity Komenskeho, historica , //-12 (Bratislava: Comenius University, 1962), 56. 68 For a brilliant discussion of Canada's continuing efforts to forge a national identity see Robert F. Hamey, "So Great a Heritage as Ours" : Immigration and the Survival of the Canadian Polity," Daedalus, 117 (No. 4, 1988), 51-97.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview (1883-1993) Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 36 (No. 66-67), 1998 pp. 7-25 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/74e92f3c4011eb55a040b909f3f3f351.pdf d085a6846bc9f744ad30c6fda7fd224c PDF Text Text 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. �SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . �SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . �SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. �SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. �178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. �179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. �181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian �182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. �183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . �184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . �SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. �186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. �SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. �188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t �SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public �SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. �SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. �SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. �SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. �SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. �SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . �196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . �SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. �198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs . � 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. �SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . �SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . �SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. �SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. �178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. �179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . �SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. �181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian �182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. �183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . �184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . �SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. �186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. �SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. �188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t �SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public �SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. �SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. �SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. �SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. �SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. �SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . �196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . �SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. �198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs . � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2003, Vol. 37 Description An account of the resource Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 172 SLOVAKIA DOCUMENTATION: THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL SITUATION IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AS OF MAY, 1995) M. Mark Stolarik (Paper Presented to the Symposium " Economies in Transition: Europe to the Bering Strait, University of Montana, Missoula, May 1, 1995) 1 It is difficult to paint a clear picture of contemporary Slovakia because this newly-independent country is still undergoing rcvo1utionary changes at all levels of society due to the collapse of Communism in 1989. Since there is no model for the Slovaks ( or other states of East Central Europe) to follow in the transition from totalitarian Communism to democratic Capitalism. the current Slovak government is proceeding slowly and cautiously in this direction, amid much criticism. My observations arc based on official and unofficial visits to Slovakia in the last five years, on ' This paper was supposed to have been published as a part of the Proceedings by the organizers of the symposium. Since the Proceedings never saw the light of day. the author clecicled to publish the article in Slovakia because it an:urately reflected the political. economic and cultural situation in 1995 Slovakia. It should be react as a document of its time. SLOVAKIA 173 my reading of a portion of the Slovak and western press, on reports issued by Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and on long discussions with various government officials, who have asked to remain anonymous . The political situation in the Slovak Republic is the most problematic. The Parliament (officially called the National Council of the Slovak Republic) consists of a unicameral legislature of 150 deputies who are elected to a four-year term on the basis of proportional representation. Slovakia has over 50 political parties but only seven of them (or party coalitions) are currently represented in Parliament. In order to run in an election, each new party must first obtain 10,000 certified signatures on a petition, and then must win at least 5% of the votes in order to obtain a seat. Party coalitions must win at least 10% of the vote. The seats are apportioned according to the percentage of votes won by each party .2 The elections held on September 30-October I, 1994, produced no clear winner, as is usual in a proportional representative system. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition consisting of the left-of-center Movement for a Democratic Slovakia led by Vladimir Mcciar, which won 35% of the popular vote. or 61 scats; by the pro-communist Association of Workers of Slovakia led by Jan r.uptak. which won 7.3% of the vote and 13 scats: and the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party led by Jan Slota. which won 5 .4% of the vote and 9 scats in Parliament. This coalition ended up with a grand total of 83 scats, although in April I 99 5 three members of the Association of Workers of Slovakia split with their leader and they reduced the coalition's voting majority 1 For more details on the electoral process in the Slovak Republic sec "The Con- stitution of the Slovak Republic." in Albert P. Blaustein & Gisbert H. Flanz. eds .. Constitution.~ of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Fe1Ty. New York: Oceana Publications. Inc .. 1993). 84-88 . SLOVAKJA 174 to 80 seats. The oppos1t1on consists of the left-wing coalition Common Choice led by Peter Weiss, with 10.4 % of the popular vote or 17 seats; the Coalition of Magyar Parties led by Miklos Ouray, with 10.2% of the vote or 16 seats ; the right-wing Christian Democratic Movement led by Jan Carnog ursky , with I 0 . 1°4, of the votes or 16 seats; and the centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia led by Jozef Moravcik, with 8.6% of the vote or 13 seats.' Current Slovak politics is dominated by one strong leader who seems determined to undercut, by whatever means possible, other political leaders, many of whom are his former friends and associates . Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who is an attorney by training , and who supported the reforms of Alexander Dubcek in the 1960's, was purged from the ruling Communist Party in 1970 , and later became a corporate lawyer near the city of Trencfn . He entered politics in 1990, when the ruling Public Against Violence , the group of intellectuals which took power from the Communists in Slovakia in November of 1989, advertized for the position of Minister of the Interior of the post-communist Slovak Republic . Mr. Meciar won the competition and allegedly used his control over the Interior Ministry to both discover the past sins of his opponents, and to cover up those of his supporters . After the 3 "S lovakia's voters again turn to pugnacio us fom1er PM ." The Globe and Ma il (Toronto). October 3. 1994. The official election results were communicated to all embassies of the Sl ovak Rep ubli c by a "Tlacovy telegram MZY SR pre zahranicnu dipl omatich1 sluzbu SR." on October 3. 1994. of wh ich I have a copy. Fur an analysis of the results see Martin Yotruba's "S lovak News" (mimeogra phed). Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Sept. 27-Oct. 2. 1994. A much later analysis by Michael J. Kopanic. Jr.. including the creation of the coalition. appeared as "The Recent Elections in Slovakia." in Association for th e Study of NMion.1/ities: A nalysis of Current Eve nts. 6 (No.9. May. 1995). 1-3. For the split in the Association of Workers in Slovakia see Narodmi obroda, April 4. 1995 . SLOVAKIA 175 Public Against Violence won the largest percentage of the vote in the June elections of 1990, it selected Mr. Meciar to become Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic , which at that time was still a part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. While in this post, Mr. Meciar allegedly joined with others in slowing or manipulating the process of investigating (" lustracny proces" in Slovak) whether or not high government officials had collaborated with, or served as agents. of the dreaded communist secret p olice. He also increasi ngly argued with the presidium of the Public Against Violence, and its coalition partner, the Christian Demo4 cratic Movement, over government policy . Even though Mr. Meciar is very intelligent, 1s an excellent speaker, has a photographic memory, and radiates charisma wherever he goes, he appears to have what is colloquially known as a "type A" personality. In other words, he feels that he has to be in complete control of any situation, he seldom seeks advice, and is not very tol erant of criticism. He prefers to be surrounded by "yes ' For a brief biography or Mci'iar sec Kto Jc kto na S/ovensku. 199 P ( Ko nzo rci u111 Encyk lopcd ia: Bratislava. 199 I ). I 14- 15: The allegations ;:igainst Meci;:ir were 111adc by his political oppone nts in the Slovak Parlia111cnt's Defense and Security Co111111ittec on November 7. 1991 . cf. ··'Secret Report' Clai111s Meciar KGB Connections:· Foreign Bmadcast ln fonna tion Service (Washington. D.C.. hereafter FBIS). November 13. 1991. p.1 4: and summarized by Jan Obrman ··S lo vak Politician Accused or Secret Police Tics:· R adio Free Europe I R adio Liberty Rese.irch R eport (hereafter R FEIRL R ese.irch R eport ). Apri l 10. 1992 . Sec also ··Meciar Proposes Repeal or Screening Law:· CTK. December 21. I 99 3 . Two highly -placed public servants in the Slovak government. one or whom worked in the Office or the Pri111c Minister for both Mr. Mci': iar. and hi s predecessors. recently repeated these allegations to 111e. Since they fear for their jobs. the se public servants have asked me to keep secret their names. and the circu mstances or our 111cetings. At this time it is impossible to confinn. or disprove. these allegations since the ril es of the fonner secret police. which are in Prague. arc not open to the public . SLOYAKJA 176 men" .5 Since the governing coalition Presidium was also composed of some very strong personalities, who opposed Mr. Meciar's attempts to become Chairman of the Public Against Violence in March of 1991, they decided to remove him from his Prime Ministerial post in April of that year. The Presidium replaced Mr. Meciar with Jan Carnogursky, an attorney and former Catholic dissident during the communist regime, who was also the founder and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Movement. 6 Mr. Meciar, and his most loyal supporters, subsequently withdrew from the Public Against Violence, which later fell apart, and they created the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, which won the largest percentage of the votes in the June, 1992 elections . 7 In the next two years Mr. Meciar reached the height of his glory, but also suffered the humiliation of defeat. It was Mr. Meciar who in the summer of 1992, as Slovak Prime Minister, negotiated with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus the dissolution 5 This observation is based on my reading of the Slovak press. on observing Mr. Mcciar delivering a po litical address in Nitra in August. 1993. on a pri va tc meeting that I had with him in September. 1993. and on several discussions that I had with Mr. Igor Uhrfk. The latte r is a fervent Slovak nationali st who sold his successful industrial-insurance business in New York city in 1992 and returned to Slovakia to ··help o ut" in 1993. He contributed 1,000.000 Slovak crowns to the Slovak National Pa11y. was made vicc-Chainnan of the Party. and later be came a principal advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Slovak govern ment (as a volunteer). After Mr. Meciar's return to power in the fall of 1994. and a split in the Slovak National Party. among other things. Mr. Uhrfk became disgusted with Slovak politics and returned to the United States . " Kto je kto na S/ovensk11 1991 '.'. 190. 7 Jiri Pchc, ··s1ovak Nationalists Agitate for more Autonomy. Oppose Radical Pri vatizatio n." RFEIRL Research R eport. March 20. I 991: '"50,000 rally after Slovak leader fired," New York Times. April 24, I 99 I. A9: For more details sec Robert A. Young. The Breakup of Czechas/avakia (Kingston: Queen 's Uni vcrs ity. Insti tute of Intergovernmental Relati ons. Research Paper #3 2. 1994 ). 5. IO - J6. SLOVAKIA 177 of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, and it was Mr. Meciar who proudly stood at the helm of the newly-independent Slovak Republic on January 1, 1993. Even though Mr. Meciar was not initially a nationalist, he shrewdly perceived that Slovak nationalism was the strongest single force in post-Communist CzechoSlovakia, and by 1992 he and his followers had firmly embraced this movement. 8 Slovak nationalism, however, was not enough to save Mr. Meciar from himself. He suffered his second major political defeat when the Slovak Parliament in February 1993 elected, not the physician Roman Kovac , the preferred candidate of Mr. Meciar's party for President of the Republic, but rather the fom1er Minister of Finance Michal Kovac .9 Much to Mr. Meciar's surprise, the latter refused to become a mere figurehead and instead took his duties as President quite seriously, to the point of attacking Mr. Meciar in the Slovak Parliament for alleged dictatorial tendencies in March of 1994. Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar had lost the confidence of several of his key allies and supporters, including Milan Knazko, his former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jozef Moravcfk, the subsequent Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two Deputy Prime Ministers, including Roman Kovac and I.:udovft Cernak, the latter '"Talks fail: Czechoslovakia dose to breakup. " Ottawa Citizen. June 9. 1992 : "Leaders start negotiations on splitting Czechoslovakia." The Globe and Mail. June 17. 1992: "Who Split Czechoslovakia'?" The New York Times. September 24. 1992. A29: "Parliament approves Czech-Slovak split." The Globe and Mail. November 26. 1992. "Fireworks. Tears and Doubt in Slovakia." The New York Times.January I. 1993. Al4: sec also Sabrina Petra Ramct. "The Reemergence of Slovakia." Nationalities Papers. 22 (No. I. Spring. 1994). I07 - 112 . '' "Havel elected first president of Czech Republic: Slovaks to hold runoff after vote rebuffs Prime Minister's candidate." The Globe and Mail. January 27. I 993 , A6: "Ex-Communist Chosen President of Slovakia." The New York Times. February 16. 1993. A7. 178 SLOVAKIA his coalition partner from the Slovak National Party! The net result was a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in Mr. Meciar and his party, his third political defeat, and his loss of power for a second time. Most of his former allies in the MOS, who abandoned him, joined Jozef Moravcfk's centrist Democratic Union of Slovakia. From March to October of 1994, a left-right coalition headed by Prime Minister Jozef Moravcfk ruled Slovakia. 111 For these reasons, ever since his election victory of 1994, and his subsequent return to power, Mr. Mcciar has tried to topple the President of the Slovak Republic and to destroy the Democratic Union of Slovakia. Between October and December of 1994 Mr. Meciar looked for coalition partners who would join him in his campaign against the President but had to settle for the two coalition partners mentioned above, who assured him of a voting majority in the Parliament, but not enough votes (90) to remove the President. Since he could not muster the votes to remove the President, he decided to try to strip him of some of his legal powers. For example, in April of 1995 Mr. Mcciar prevailed upon the Slovak Parliament to transfer from the President to the Prime Minister the right to appoint the Chief of Slovakia's Security Intelligence Service (the successor to the Secret Policc). 11 1 " .. Broad Coaliti on to govern Slovakia." The Globe and Mail. March 15 . 1994 . For the viewpoints of the two protagonists regarding the reasons for their fal - ling out see --sprava o stave Slovenskej republiky prednesena prezidentom SR Michalom Kovacom v Naroclncj radc SR dna 8.3.1994" and .. Prcjav predscdu vlady Slovcnskej republiky Yladimfra Mcciara na 27. sch6dzi NR SR di\a 11.3. 1994." published in a special issue of Republika (Bratis lava.March. I 9. 1994 ). I 5pp. For a legal interpretation of this struggle sec Spencer Zifcak ...The Battle over Presidential Power in Slovakia," Slovakia. 36 ( 1998). 70-80. For a profile of the Moravcfk government and its policies sec --cTK Profiles New Cabinet Members" in FB/S,March 17. 1994.4- 12 and --Text of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," FBIS. April 25. 1994, 16-30. 11 "Je Lexa v NR SR. v SIS. alebo v Iese?" Sme (Bratislava). April 26. 199 5. 179 SLOVAKIA Meanwhile, Mr. Meciar charged that the Democratic Union of Slovakia had not gathered the necessary 10,000 signatures before the elections of 1994. If he could prove his charge, then the DU members of Parliament would be stripped of their seats and Mr. Meciar would by default have the three-fifths of the votes necessary to remove the President. Unfortunately for Mr. Meciar, the Slovak Constitutional Court, headed by Milan Cic, the first Prime Minister of the post-communist Slovak Republic, and a former friend of Mr. Meciar, upheld the validity of the 10,000 signatures obtained by the DU before the 1994 elections. This did not stop Mr. Meciar from having his 80 supporters in Parliament pass a motion of " no confidence" in the President on May 5th, and in ordering the Slovak police to check on the validity of the l 0,000 signatures by visiting the homes of the signatories, and in the process harassing supporters of the DU. 12 Mr. Mcciar has also had his difficulties with the press . While he was out of office in 1994, the previous coalition government supported full freedom of the press , including radio and televi sion, and appointed boards of directors who were likewise inclined. Very few of these individuals were supporters of Mr. Mcciar. Once he returned to power in December of 1994 (it took him over two months to put together a coalition), Mr. Meciar began to fire the old boards of directors of radio and television (which arc still state-controlled), and to replace them \.Vith his own people. These , in turn , cancelled certain satiric television programs which had made fun of Mr. Meciar. As a result, there have been several mass-demonstrations in Bratislava against Mr. Meciar's alleged attempts to control the mass-media. Therefore, while television and radio commentators have ceased to lampoon 11 Zifcak. op.cit.. p.70; ··overovanie podpisov na harkoch DU je porusenie peticneho prava obcanov." Srne. May 23 . 1995 . SLOVAKIA 180 Mr. Meciar, the print media, which 1s largely privatized , is still very critical of him . 13 The economic situation in Slovakia, meanwhile, is improving. Slovakia did not slide into a deep depression after it became independent, as some Western pundits had predicted . Instead, after some uncertainty in 1993, its economy grew by a spectacular 4.8% in 1994 and its budget deficit was a respectable 3% of GDP. Meanwhile, the Slovak crown , its basic unit of currency, was devalued by only 10% in 1993, it is convertible to hard currencies , and it remains stable. The rate of inflation also dropped from 25% in 1993 to around 11. 7% in 1994. Unemployment, however, remains high -14%. One of the causes of Slovak unemployment is the collapse of its heavy-arms industry, which used to serve the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and its allies world-wide. Converting this arms industry into something more useful remains a major challenge to the government of the Slovak Republic. 13 14 Re uter, December 16. 1994, as reported by Martin Votruba in Slovak News. December 16- 18. 1994; Jiri Pchc, .. Anti-Mcciar Rall y in Bratislava," R FEIRL Reports. Ibid., December 8- 11. In a TA SR report of May 12. 1995. Mr. Mcciar was quoted as saying that the press is free in Slovakia... but all newspapers should admit who owns them. and who pays them." impl ying that the print press in Slovakia is large ly financed by fore igners who arc hosti le to the current governme nt. The CTK on the same date quoted Juraj Veres. editor of N,irod n;i obroda (Bratislava). as agree ing that the Slovak press was still free . but th at ··the government is trying to gain contro l over the dailies:· However. he added th at lately "the go vernment has been backing down ." For Mr. Mci:iar's earlier problems with the press sec Jan Obnuan ...The Slovak Government vers us the Media." RFEIRL Research R eport. February 5. 1993 . 14 For an example of negative reporting o n Slovakia's eco nomic future sec Step- hen Enge lberg, "New Nation. Imperiled Economy." New York Time.~. February 12. 1993. DI; for an admission that the Slovak economy is doing surprisingly well see "How the Slovaks Have Taken Flight." The Globe nncl Mail. December 5, 1994. A JO (reprinted from the Wall Street Jo urnal); and --standard and Poors o Slovensk u." Sme. April 7. 199 5. 181 SLOVAKJA Indeed, converting the whole system from a command economy to a form of private enterprise remain s the major problem for the Slovak government. U ndcr Communism the state nationalized all the industry and the bulk of the land, it controlled all the means of production, it regulated prices, and subsidized housing , transportation and food, and created a complete welfare state with free education from pre-school through university, and free universal health-care. Unfortunately, the state enacted all these changes without the consent of the people, it enforced them through the use of police terror, and it discriminated in favour of members of the Communist Party and children of the workingclass when dispensing economic and cultural benefits. 15 Now that the Communists are no longer in charge, the various governments of Slovakia have tried to transform the economy into a form of private enterprise, as called for in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Since no real models exist on how to do this , n umcrous laws and regulations have been passed to try to bring it about. The first steps were taken in early 1991 when the Parliament of the C1.ech and Slovak Federal Republic passed a law for the restitution of confiscated private property (chiefly land). While some former landowners were delighted to receive their land back, most young people in Slovakia showed no interest in working it. The amount of land seized from individual families by the Communists had been small in the first place, and most young ' ' The literature on this subject is vast. For two co ncise a11iclcs that deal with most of this period sec Robert K. Evanson. ··Regime and Working Class in Czechoslovakia. 1948- 1%8." Soviet Studies. 37 (Nn. 2. 1985 ). 248-68; and by the same author "Political Repressi o n in Czechoslovakia. Slavonic Pi1pcrs. 28 (No. I. 1986). 1-21. 1948- 1984." Canadian 182 SLOVAKJA people have no intention of becoming smallholding • peasants 16 agam . Managers, officials, and many workers on collective and state farms , on the other hand , wish to preserve these institutions. Since collectives and state farms provide their employees with a guaranteed income, regular hours, easy work, and many opportunities for theft, the employees are loath to see such farms disappear. Such employees are among the pillars of support that Mr. Meciar can count on during elections. 17 The various churches of Slovakia, meanwhile, especially the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were singled out for persecution by the Communists, have had much of their confiscated property returned . In l 991-92 the federal government returned most of the buildings that the Communists had seized from religious orders, and in the fall of l 993 Mr. Meciar's government returned most of the buildings that had been confiscated from Church Dioceses. However, most church land that was confiscated and turned into state or collective farms was not returned, largely because of the opposition of the collectives. Thus , the churches continue to rely upon government support for their existence, and '" "Czechoslovakia plans to return property ." Philadelphia 24, I 99 L ..Transfonn:icia pornohospod:irstva Inquirer. February a rcstitucie:· Pr.ic:.i (Bra ti slava). May 31. 1993; "Refonns Alter the Landscape or Czechoslovakia's Fanning ." New Y ork Times, June 4, I 99 L Milan Svec, "Czechoslovakia's Velvet Di vorce." Current Hist ory (November. I 992 ). 377; and discussions with the tw o public servants mentioned above in footnote 3. 17 "Who voted for Whom'1" (a poll conducted by the Slovak Research Office). as reported by Martin Yotruba in Slovak News. 7-9 October. 1994. p.4. The o bservatio ns abo ut state fam1s and collectives were made by the two public servants mentioned above. On many occasions when I visited Slovakia in the era of Communism. I also discussed collectives and state fanns with some of my relatives. who worked at such institutions. They detalied the many kinds of theft possible at state farms and collectives. 183 SLOVAKIA from a North American perspective, this . I8 S h Ip . IS an unhealthy relation- Meanwhile, the federal Parliament also passed the "small privatization" Act of J 990 concerning small business. This Act enabled a few thousand entrepreneurs to borrow money from banks to establish small retail businesses such as travel agencies, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, computer stores, and various skilled trades. These kinds of enterprises are flourishing all over Slovakia. 19 A little later the federal Parliament passed another Act that concerned itself with the privatization of large industries, the socalled "large privatization." This would involve all except the most strategic industries such as atomic energy, natural gas, transportation, the arms industry and so on . However, since the government did not wish its large industries to be bought by foreigners, and since most of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic did not have the wealth tn purchase these industries outright, the government decided to enact a "coupon privati1.ation." By this plan , every citi1.cn over the age of 18 was entitled to buy a privatization coupon for J .000 C1.echoslovak crowns (Kcs), and then invest it in the company of his choice. The " For the story of the persecution of the churches in Slovakia sec Theodoric J. Zubek. The Church of Silence in Slovakia (Whi ting. IN: John J. Lach. 1956). and Michal Lacko. "The Forced Liquidation of the Union of Uzhorocl." Slovak Studies. I (1961). 145-85: for the story of the underground church in Slovakia under Communism sec "Secret Bishop." and for the story of the rebuilding of the Jesuit Order sec " New Oppmtunitics in Slovakia." Company: a magazine o{ the American Jc.m ils. 8 (No. 3. Spring. 1991 ). 2-5. and 9- 11. Details of the resti tution laws passed after 1990 can be found in Sharon Fisher. "Church Restitu tion Law Passed in Slovakia." RFEIRL Rese.1rch Report. November 19. 1993 . '" "Chystiime historicky ziikon: Ekonomicka refonna konecnc dostala tviir." Niirodn,i obroda. September 5. 1990. 13: Svec. op.cit.. 377 . 184 SLOVAKIA number of shares he would receive would depend upon the value of the company. This was the first step in the creation of a stock market in the Republic. The government also decided that this process would be divided into several rounds since it involved so many industries. The first round took place while the CzcchoSlovak Federation still existed ? ' The second round of the coupon privatization was supposed to take place after Slovakia became independent. However, the government of Mr. Mcciar soon discovered that most Slovaks were not investing their coupons directly into the companies for sale, but rather were selling them to investment companies controlled by foreigners . The Meciar government did not want to allow these foreign-owned holding companies to buy up so much of Slovakia's industries, and it postponed this privatization . However, the Moravcik government, which ruled Slovakia between March and October, 1994, allowed this privatization to continue . Then, when Mr. Meciar returned to power in the fall of 1994, he halted the privatization again. At the end of March, 1995 the government of Mr. Meciar decided to allow half of this coupon privatization to proceed, but he reserved the other half for potential Slovak buyers, most of whom arc in fact the managers of these industries . These managers allegedly neglected the upkeep of their factories and, therefore, their value has declined. Thus, if this privatization continues, the managers of these factories stand to make a lot of money once the value of their factories goes up again. Mr. Meciar's enemies have charged that these managers arc in league with Mr. Mcciar, that they arc all former Communists, and that they provide him with financial support. Mr. Meciar's supporters, on the other hand, charge that the proponents of the 1 " "A Divorce that Could Save the Czech Economy," The Wall Street Journal. March 11. 1991 ; Svec. op. cit.. 377 . SLOVAKIA 185 strict coupon privatization are in leag ue with Mr. Moravcik and . financially support the opposition parties. Neutral observers have told me that both sides arc guilty of profiteering from this privatization process , and the greed and corruption involved goes a long way toward s explaining the bitterness of current Slovak politics. Also, because Mr. Meciar reduced the number of businesses to be privati1.ed in half, that is, from an estimated value of 80 billion Sk to 40 billion Sk, the 3.2 million holders of pri vatization coupons in the Slovak Republic witnessed a drop in the value of their coupons from 24,000 Sk to 12,000 Sk by March of 1995. Forty deputies of the Slovak Parliament then approached the Constitutional Court in Kosicc to protest against Law No . 340/ J 994, which had halted the coupon privatization on November 3-4, 1994, a nd the Constitutional Court decided in their favour. It then o rdere d the Slovak Parliament to re-write the law so that it would no t violate individuals' rights to private property as guaranteed by th e Slovak Constitution . Mr.Meciar's reaction was to propose that the privatization coupons be exchanged for government bo nd s, which could be redeemed for 10,000 Sk, or held for their interest, or used to purchase shares in companies. Most opposition deputies denounced this suggestion as ··theft" from the coupon-holders . 21 The average citizen. meanwhile, has had to tighten his belt several notches since the fall of Communism. While the gove rnment still controls the price o f electricity, transportation. fuel and basic " Smc. Apri l 6. 1995: "Privatizacny zakon nie je v s11lade s ustavou SR." TA SR. May 25 . 1995: "V . Meciar o novej kuponovej privatiz,icii ." Smc. June 8. 1995: "Anketa Sme:• Smc. June 8. 1995. Once again . the two public servants. cited above. ex plained the complexity of this iss ue to me. Dr. Juraj Svec. the Recto r of Comenius University in Bratislava. and a member of Parliament for the DU. confinned their analysis when he visited with me o n March 26. 1995. 186 SLOYAKJA foodstuffs, it has decided to provide smaller subsidies for these goods or services and, therefore, it has raised their prices dramatically in the last four years . Thus, while a streetcar ride used to cost a mere one crown, it now costs five ; while gasoline used to cost seven crowns a litre, it now costs nineteen. And, while a liter 22 of milk used to cost two crowns, it now costs twclvc . Wages, of state employees, on the other hand, have not kept up with the rise in prices. While members of the Slovak Parliament voted themselves hefty pay increases in the summer of 1993 (from 10,000 Sk to 25,000 Sk per month), ordinary state employees do not share in this largesse. Indeed, the wage-structure of state employees is still very Communist. Thus , a physician starting his career receives only 4,000 Sk, which is less than the wage of the average truck-driver! As a result, physicians in Slovakia recently demanded a 200% wage increase, and threatened to go on strike if they did not receive it. Teachers and professors are s1m1larly und erpaid , with the former receiving 5,000 Sk and the latter 8,600 Sk. Even though Mr. Mcciar promised during the last election campaign, among other things, to double teachers' salaries , " Interviews with the the two public servan ts cited above. plus my ow n observations on visits to Slovakia in the summers or 1990. 1991. 1992. I ()9J and 1994. In May of 1990 I visi ted Slovak ia as a delegate of the Slovak League of Ame ri ca. wh ich had come on a ••fact -finding" mission. This was an offi cial mis sio n. spo nsored by the governme nt of the Slovak Republic. It was the first official visi t of the Slovak Leag ue since 1938. whe n the first de legati on of th e League brought to Slovakia the original of the Pittsburgh Ag reeme nt. In 1993 I visited Slovakia as the newl y-elected president of the Canadian Slovak League. In this capaci ty I had official di scussio ns with Prime Minister Meciar and with Jan Findra, Chancellor to the President. My visits in I 991. 1992 and 1994 were for scholarly purposes - to participate in historical co nfere nces. SLOVAKIA 187 he has thus far failed to do so. Indeed, Slovak schoolteachers are also threatening to go on strike over this issue. 23 Employees of the growing private enterprises, on the other hand , generally make much more than state employees. For instance, clerks in private banks earn 10,000-15,000 crowns a month. Accountants and computer programmers in private firms make up to 20,000 Sk per month. And attorneys, who were among the first to privatize in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic , arc among the highest-paid professionals in Slovakia. Finally, growing numbers of entrepreneurs have become millionaires many times over. and some of these 'nouveau-riche' flaunt their wealth with expensive western cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. They have provoked increasing resentment among state employees, whose salaries have remained far behind the increase in the cost of consumer goods and scrviccs. 24 The price of housing has also skyrocketed . Under Communism, if one had the right connections, one could obtain a beautiful villa in the hills overlooking Bratislava and the Danube river officially for about 250,000 Kcs (and unofficially, that is, with an additional under-the-table payment of 250.000 Kcs). Now these villas cost anywhere from 2,000,000 to 20,000.000 Sk. Similarly, state and co-op apartments, which usually consist of only three rooms plus a small kitchen and tiny bath, are commanding premium prices. The co-op apartments, where one purchased the 11 Smc. April 6. 1995: " Pricskum ukaza l. zc vysc 70% lckarov jc oc ho tnych vs tupit' dn st rajku." Smc. April 26 . 1995: " Skolstvo dostane 530 mili6nov ." Smc. May 14. 1995 : "Ultimatum lckarnv na zvyscnic platov o 200% vyprsalo. strajkovat' sa asi ncbudc." Sme. May 15. 1995 : ··Pricmern,i mzda v skolstve nad'alcj ncjasna." Smc. June 8. 1995: and discussions with the two public servants cited above. " Discussions with the two public servants cited above. plus personal observations from past visits to Slovakia. 188 SLOVAKIA right to live for 30,000 Kcs under Communism , can now be bought by the renters for 50,000 Sk, and can then be re-sold for anywhere between 750,000 to 1,000,000 Sk 1 Former state-ow ned apartments, meanwhile, which until recently could not be purchased were often sub-leased to others for very hig h rents. The process of their sale will soon approximate what happened with the co-op apartments. The state, meanwhile, has lost interest in providing additional ho using for the people. Various entcrpreneurs have taken over this task, and the newly-built apartments generall y sell for around 1,000,000 Sk, which is far beyond what the average Slovak can a ffo rd. 25 Health care, meanwhile, is also in a state o f transition . Before 1989, health care was universal and free. However, one received quality care only if one was either a high functionary of the Communist Party, which had its own special clinics and hospitals , with modern , western , equipment; or, if one bribed one's physician and nurse with extra money or gifts. And, exotic western drugs were usuall y not available, except to the privileged few . Many American and Canadian Slovaks remember well the pl ain tive letters that they used to receive from their unfortunate relatives in Slovakia under Communism, and how these relatives sent prescriptions for Western-made drugs, along with the addresses of pharmacies in Switzerland , which when paid in hard 21 currencies, were willing to fill these orders for them . ' 15 Ibid. 1 Milada Vachudova and Sharon Fisher. "' Health Care Crisis : The Czech and '' Slovak Republics ." RFEIRL Research Report. October 8. 1993. 44-46: and dis c ussio ns wi th friends and relatives on visits to Slovakia in 1968. 1970. 1983 and 1988 . Our fami ly in Canada used to regularly receive requests fo r western drugs. and we filled these requests th rough a willing phannacist in Switze rland . Dr. Do broslav Valik of Bry n Mawr. Pe nnsy lvani a. to ld me in Octo ber of 1992 of having tried to establish a Dental Clinic in Bratislava right after the "'Ve lve t SLOVAKIA 189 In an effort to save money, the Slovak government is trying to privatize parts of the health-care system, but at a very slow pace. Pharmacies have all been privatized and one can now buy whatever drugs one needs. However, the state pays only for routine drugs, and not always for the full amount. The more exotic drugs, which arc now readily available, must be paid for by the patient. Dentists are also privatizing as quickly as they can, with about one-third currently being self-s upporting and ex pensive . Most physicians, however, have not yet taken the plunge and arc unlikel y to do so. Because of their poor salaries , most M.D.'s in Slovakia cannot afford to purchase the expensive equipment necessary to open an office or clinic, and they also cannot afford private liability insurance. As long as they continue to work for state-run hospitals, they do not need liability insurance, and, thu s, they continue to be state employees . And, because they continue to be underpaid , many demand extra payments or gifts if they are to provide quality care. Meanwhile, most Slovaks oppose the privatization of their health care. They want it to remain universal and free . Thus, the Mcciar government is moving slowly and cautiously in trying to reform the health-care systcm. 27 The educational system of Slovakia is also undergo ing change. Shortly after the Communists sci1.cd power the y a bolished all religious schools and put education at the service or the state. The whole system from pre-school throug h university was then statefunded and controlled. Marxism was taught as the philosophy or Revo luti o n.. of 1989. Much to his amazement. his friends from the VPN showed him the clinic for funner me mbers of the Commu nist Pa11y in Bratislava. It had all the latest western equipment one could imagine. unlike clin ics for the general public . 17 Yaduchova & Fisher. op. cit.. 48-49. a nd discussions servants cited above . with the two public SLOVAKIA 190 the state, and all teachers had to conform or face expulsion . Higher • education was free but operated under a quota system whereby in the process of admission children o f the working-class were favoured over those of the middle or upper classes . The latter then resorted to bribery to get their children into institutions of higher learning. Meanwhile , to their credit, the Communists also established several new universities , including the full-service Safarik University in Kos ice and the College of Transportation in Zilina, among others, to satisfy the demands of an increasingly industrialized society .2x After the downfall of Communism, state-support for cd ucation continued , but not its ideological requirements . Most universities held new elections for rectors and deans , and the professors and students threw out the communist administrators . However, because most of the communist professors have tenure, the uni versities cannot get rid of them. It will take another generation before these Marxist professors reach retirement age, and arc finally replaced by a new generation of professors . And even the new generation will bo hard to find, because the wages paid to professors arc so low. Meanwhile. the quota system that favored students of working-class origins has been replaced by a 4uota " Ladi slav G resfk. --vyc hova rokoch 1956 - 1960 ." vy,o kos ko lskej inte ligencie na Sl ove nsku v Historicky i'a.rnri.~. 31 ( No .6 . 198) ). 8') 1-91 O: A 111011 Hrnko & Jozef Zatkuliak," Uni vcrzita Ko me nskc ho na rozhranf piitiles iatyc h a sestHesialyc h rokov ." Hi.~toricky t'a .r npis. 32 (No.4. I 984 ). 59J-(1 19: pe rso na l o bservati o ns fro n1 past visi ts to Slovakia. di scussio ns w ith the two pub I ic servants cited abo ve. and di sc ussio n with Rudolf Korec. Recto r of Safarik U ni versity. May. 1990. On a visit to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 I asked one of my co usins what he was studying. He replied .. Philosophy ." When I in4uired a bo ut the kind o f philosophy . he replied "'Marxism-Lcnini sm 1" His mo ther. meanw hil e . w ho was a sc hoolteac her. used to go to church in a vill age o ut s id e o f the to wn in whi ch she lived. because if she had been seen atlendin g c hurc h services in her home to wn . she would have lost her job. SLOVAKIA 191 based on grades . Even though Slovakia today has 14 institutions of higher learning, including brand-new universities in Trnava and Banska Bystrica, it still enrolls only 18% of high sc hool grad uatcs, which is very low when compared to Western Europe or North America, which attract between 30% and 50%. Meanwhile , the state has permitted the re-establishment of religious sc hools funded by the government. However, their number remains small beca use forty years of Communism thoroughly discredited religious education , and most employees of the Ministry of Education arc still opposed to their expansion .2'> Whether or not the government decides to in vest more m higher education remains to be seen. Recent attempts to introduce tuition to cover 20% of the cost of their education have met fierc e resistance from the students. Meanwhile, the quality of university education in Slovakia is not very high, large ly because the teaching staff was cut off from the West for over 40 years , and also because universities stressed education rather than researc h. Tha t is why all the Slovak universities arc hurridly signing agreements with universities all over the Western world that provide for scholarly exchanges o f staff and students . However. it is difficult to attract top Western scholars to teach at Slovak uni versities when they can expect salaries of only $300.00 per month . Onl y true idealists have thu s far volunteered to teac h at Slovak unive rsities under such conditions. 10 ' " Disrnssion with Rudolf Korec. Rector or Safarik University in Kosice. May. 1990: discussion wi th Dean Ladislav Pauliny. Farn lty of A11s. Co menius U ni ve rsity. May. 1994: discussio n with Juraj Svec. Rec tor of Comcni us Univers it y. March 26. 1995 : and discu ssions with the two public servants cited above. '" Discussion with Juraj Svec. op.cit.. and " Pod l'a prof. M. Urbana. dost:.\vaj11 vysokc skoly v SR iba tretinu financii v porovnani s vyspelymi st:.\tmi." TA SR. May 26. 1995. SLOVAKIA 192 Slovak culture, meanwhile, is also undergoing a radical transformation. Under Communism all cultural activities were state-financed and controlled, and all cultural output was for the sake of promoting Marxism. A Slovak Academy of Sciences, as well as Unions of writers and creative artists were founded in the early l 950's, and they operated under five-year plans . Compliant historians, writers, and creative artists not only became state employees with respectable salaries, but they also received such perks as the use of confiscated castles for meetings and vacations, and statesubsidized clubs that served good food at very low prices . As long as they toed the Party line, their books were published or their paintings and illustrations were bought by mu se ums or publishing houses, and no-one worried, for instance, about how many copies of a book were actually sold, since the government subsidized everything. On the other hand , historians , writers and creative artists could only praise Communism and denounce Capitalism. Certain key personages in Slovak history, such as the Rev. Andrej Hlinka, founder and leader of the Slovak People's Party in the first third of the twentieth century, either became "non-persons" in official publications, or else were denounced as reactionary clcrico-fascists . The past was deliberately distorted to serve the communist futurc. Those intellectuals who refused to go along with this system were persecuted by being allowed to work only at menial labour, and those who dared to openly oppose this Marxist control over culture ended up in jail. 11 .II Julius Mesaros. " Retlexie O piitaesiatych a sestl:lcsiatych rokoch." f-lis/orick f casopis. 39 (Nos. 4-5. 199 I ). 379-88: Richard Marsina. "S lovensk.i historiografia I 945- I 990." f-li storickf brnpi5. 39 (Nos .4-5. I 99 I). 370-79: and discussions with Slovak historians and writers during my visits to Slovakia between 1968 and 1994. SLOVAKJA 193 After the collapse of Communism, most Slovak intellectuals threw off the shackles of Marxism and started to create freely, as in other countries. Freedom, however, came with a price - declining government support. The bloated Slovak Academy of Sciences (SA V) has been reduced from 7,000 members in 1989 to 3,000 in 1995. While some people have been advocating its total abolition, others have come to its defense. In recent days , certain members of Mr. Meciar's government have even advocated that the Academy be retained in its present form , and that it continue to do basic research as before, while leaving university professors to do the teaching. This Soviet model runs contrary to western traditions, whereby university professors do both research and teaching, and government-supported research is kept to a minimum. Rectors of Slovakia's universities wish to adopt the western model and arc currently negotiating with the Meciar government to try to reach a compromise on this very touchy . \1 question. Slovakia's writers. meanwhile, have had to learn to fend for themselves. Some have become entrepreneurs in the publishing industry , which has shrunk in size and has become more selective in what it accepts for publication , based upon its market potential; others have entered politics and the diplomatic service, giving these professions an unusual (in North America, at least) intellectual llair; and a third group is now dependent upon government grants to subsidize its publications. Needless to say, the compc- 11 ·-z prejavu predsedu SA V Branislava Lichardusa na slavnostnom zhromaz- denf k 40. vyrociu SAY'". Spdvy sluvcnskcj akademic vied. 30 (No. I. 1994). 35; discussion with Dr. Juraj Svec. Rector of Comenius University. March 26. I 995; and discussion with Dr. Branislav Lichardus. president of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to the United States, April 22. 1995. in Washington. D.C. SLOVAKIA 194 tition for such grants is very fierce, with only the best writers receiving support. No wonder that Slovak writers jealously g uard their perks and get very indignant when reminded that the government will not for long let them keep their castle at Budmerice, especially if some wealthy westerner offers to buy it for a large sum of money .D Slovak writers also face fierce competition from western writers. Bookstores are full of novels by westerners, especially Americans such as Stephen King (in translation), and only outstanding Slovak novels now have any chance of commercial success. This also applies to children's books , especially those published by the Walt Disney Corporation. Traditional Slovak children 's books, illustrated by Slovak graphic artists, now have to compete for the hearts and minds of Slovak children with Walt Disney characters such as Bambi and Mowgli speaking in Slovak! Unfortunately, Slovak writers also have to compete with the whole world of pornography, which is also a specialty of the West. Newspaper Kiosks in Bratislava feature as many naked women on magazine covers as one can see in Western Europe . This is another kind of price that one pays for freedom. 34 The Slovak media is also undergoing rapid change. The Slovak film industry (Koliba studios), which used to produce ten JJ Di sc ussions with the two public servants cited above. When I visited Slova- kia in the summer of 1992. I tonnented writer l.'.ubos Jurik with the suggestion th at he would soon lose his summer retreat at Budmcricc castle whe n some .. ri c h Arab sheik would offer $50.000,000 for it. " Jurik . who now works as the official spokesman fo r Dr. Ivan Gasparovic, the Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. became indignant at my suggestion. Meanwhile. the writer Anton Hykisch now serves as Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Canada. 14 Personal observati ons based upo n my visits to Slovakia in 1990. 199 1, 1992. 1993 , 1994. The semi -monthl y KniinJ revue (Bratislava). now regularly features reviews of books published in the major western lan guages. SLOVAKIA 195 fairly high-quality feature films per year with government subsidies in the past, now struggles to produce one a year. This industry, too, has to compete with the West, especially with Hollywood, and no country has yet succeeded in doing this. Thus, if the Slovak government wishes its film industry to continue to exist, it will have to continue to subsidize it. 35 Slovak television , meanwhile, is in the throes of a great controversy. Only two Slovak television stations exist at the moment , and both arc government-funded and controlled . As mentioned above, Mr. Meciar recently dismissed the Boards of Directors of both stations and replaced them with his own people, and many intellectuals have accused him of trying to control the electronic media. These intellectuals seem to have forgotten the folk-saying .. he who pays the piper, calls the tune. " The only solution that I sec to this dilemma is for Slovak entrepreneurs to establish private television stations, either in Slovakia. or, if necessary, in neighbouring Austria or the Czech lands, which will compete for the hearts and minds of their audiences. the same way that private television stations <lo in the West. Meanwhile. cheap films and programs from all over the world, either dubbed or licensed in Slovakia, now dominate the air-wavcs. 11 ' The Slovak print media, by contrast. 1s vibrant and free . Under Communism all media, whether print or electronic. had to " Ce lestine Bohlen . .. East Europe's Cultural Life. Once a Refu ge. Now Ec lipsed:· New York Ti Illes. November 13. 1990. A I. A 12: discussions public servants cited above: personal observations with the based upon my visits t o Slovakia . '" Sec above. footnote 12. for the dismissal of the directors of Slo vak radio and televisio n. Interestingly enough. on April 22. 1995. the first private cable net work began to broadcast in Slo vakia. It is called ··Vasa tcl c vfzia" (Your Televi sion ). or VTV. and at the moment covers only the Bratisl ava area. although it soon hopes to expand across the co untry. CL Slllc. April 24. 1995 . 196 SLOVAKIA parrot the Party line. In order to discover what was really gomg on, people had to learn to "read between the lines." Clever journalists often sent subtle signals to their readers by, for instance, not mentioning some prominent Party functionaries in a story, which meant that they were falling into disfavour, or else by lavishing praise upon them, which meant that they were about to be promoted . Not any more. Slovakia has about a dozen nationwide independent dailies , and only one - Slovenska republika supports the Meciar government. The rest are generally critical of the government, with Narodna obroda being the most objective , while Sme, which is edited by former members of the Public Against Violence, is the most critical. Unfortunately, the government still controls the supply and price of newsprint, and recently threatened, through taxes , to raise the price by I00% if the criticism of Mr. Meciar did not stop. Ten independent dailies responded by issuing newspapers with blank front pages, and the government backed off. Nevertheless, this game of "chicken" between Mr. Meciar, and Slovakia's independent press continues .~7 In spite of all the difficulties it faces, Slovakia is well on its way towards democratic Capitalism. Mr. Meciar's "Type 'A' ·'personality notwithstanding, Slovakia is a functioning democracy with a democratically-elected Parliament and President. And by signing a historic treaty with Hungary on March 19th. in which he promised that Slovakia would guarantee the cultural and JJ For the implications of the switd1 from a government-controlled press tu one that is free see Owen V. Johnson. '"Half Slave - Half Free: The Crisis of the Russian and East European Press," AAASS Newsletter. 33 (March. 1993 ). I. 4. The opinion regarding the objectivity of various Slovak newspapers is mine. For details regarding the recent struggle between Mr. Mcciar and the Slovak press see "Slovak Press Special," Slovak News (U . of Pittsburgh), March 3-5. 1995. For the reaction of America's most important daily to this struggle sec ··Slovakia Takes a Wrong Tum," New York Times. March 7. 1995. A 18 . SLOVAKIA 197 linguistic rights of its Hungarian citizens, Mr. Meciar showed that he is capable of compromise, · and he can, if he is so inclined, behave as a pan-European politician. The Members of Parliament, and government Ministers, however, still have to learn the political culture of democracy--to treat each other with respect, and to serve the people, not just their own interests. This will take time, however, and we should be patient while it does. After all, some of our own politicians need to learn the same lesson .38 It should be apparent, therefore, that the most difficult part of the transition from Communism to Capitalism is in the realm of individual versus collective rights. After the overthrow of the Communists in 1989 most Slovaks were delighted to recover their individual rights, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom to travel to the West, and so on. However, with the increase in the cost of living that has occurred in the last four years, these rights have lost some of their lustre. Instead, many people are growing increasingly restive about their collective rights, that is, to free and universal health care, to free education, and to a whole host or previously free social programs which Communism inaugurated. It was Mr. Meciar's promises in the last elections to guarantee some of these social programs that, along with his strong nationalism. brought him the largest number of votes. How he will manage to retain these expensive social programs, and at the same time reform the economy and make it more market-oriented, remains to be seen. Indeed. many western countries share Mr. " For a grudging acknowledgement that Slovakia is a functioning democracy sec "2-Ycar-Old Slovakia Toddling Toward Democracy." New York Times. March I 9. 1995. AJ. For the treaty with Hungary see Sharon Fisher "Slovakia and Hungary Sign Bilateral Treaty.'' OMRI. Inc .. as cited in Slovak News. March 19. 1995. 198 SLOVAKIA Meciar's dilemma - how to promote capitalist growth while subsidizing expensive social programs .  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Political, Economic, and Cultural Situation in the Slovak Republic (As of May, 1995) Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 37 (No. 68-69), 2003 pp. 172-198 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d925da0d8a7832d0462546dec79e89fb.pdf f1f8f259cd81edb019364cc519241de2 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 7 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. �8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- �SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. �SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). �SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). �12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. �SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East �14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. �SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 �16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. �SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 �18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 �SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. �20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. �SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . �22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. �SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. �24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. �SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. �26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. �SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. �28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. �SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 �30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° �SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. �32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February �SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 �34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. �SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper. � SLOVAKIA 7 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. �8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- �SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. �SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). �SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). �12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. �SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East �14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. �SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 �16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. �SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 �18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 �SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. �20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. �SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . �22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. �SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. �24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. �SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. �26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. �SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. �28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. �SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 �30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° �SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. �32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February �SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 �34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. �SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 2007, Vol. 39 Description An account of the resource Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Slovak League of America Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 7 THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND THE CANADIAN SLOVAK LEAGUE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE NATION, 1907-1992 M. Mark Stolarik 1 In the 20th century the American and Canadian Slovak Leagues pl ayed a major role in the struggle for the self-determination of the Slovak nation. Founded by immi grants who so ught a better li ve lyhood in the New World , the Slovak League of America played a leading ro le in the creation of Czecho-S lovakia during the Great War. In the inter-war years , the Slovak League of America, joined by its Canadian offshoot, bombard ed the central government in Prag ue with demands to grant the Slovaks in the newly-created state their promised autonom y. When the Slovaks achi eved autonomy in the fa ll of 1938, both Leagues rejoiced. When the Autonomous Diet procl aimed Slovak independence in March of 1939, both Leagues were caught by surpri se, but, after so me hesitation , they supported it. However, because Slovakia was allied with Nazi Germany , both Leagues had to te mper their support after Canada entered the war against Germany in September of 1939 and the U nited States followed sui t in December of 1941. After the war had ended , however, both the American and the Canadian Slovak Leagues demanded a plebiscite on the future of their countrymen in Europe. Having fai led to achieve thi s goal, both Leag ues, whi ch were buttressed by recently-arrived political emigres after 1945, decl ared their support for a new Slovak liberatio n movement which was first led by the Slovak National Council Abroad and, from 1970 on by the Slovak World 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Emigration to the Engli sh Speaking world," Catho lic University of Rufo mberok, Slovakia, May 19, 2006. 8 SLOVAKIA Congress. After the Communist government gave up its monopol y of power in 1989, both Leagues sent fact-finding delegation s to Czechoslovakia and both supported the movement for Slova k independence, which became a reality in 1993. Since then , they have continued to help their countrymen to consolidate their independence. Between 1870 and 19 14 approx imate ly half a million Slovaks left their homeland in the Kingdom of Hungary and settled in North America in search of work. Once there, they established three pillars of their new communities- fraternal-benefit societies, parish churches and a newspaper press. Largely of peasant stock from eastern Slovaki a, they sought better wages in the coal mines, steel mills and oil refineries of the American Northeast and Midwest (Connec ti cut , New York, New Jersey, Pennsy lvania, Ohio, Indiana and lllinois). 2 The early arriva ls quickly di scovered that the United State s provided vi1tually no social services. Therefore, these immigrants establi shed their own fratern al-benefit societies which, from monthly membership dues, provided accident, illness or death benefits to their members or families , as well as a pl ace to socialize. By 1890 over fifty such fraternals existed and they then began to federate into nation al organizations such as the National Slovak Society , headquartered in Pittsburgh and the First Catholic Slovak Union, with its headquarters in Cleveland . Since the men initially excluded women from their organizations, Slovak women established the Zivena Beneficial Society in New York in 1891 and Catholic women established the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland in 1892. Lutherans established their own Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893 and Calvini sts their Slovak Cal vin Presbyterian Union in 1902. Even the tiny group of socialists estab li shed their own Slovak Workers Society in 1916. By 1920 American Slovaks had enrolled over 200,000 members in these, and other, fraternal-benefit societies. 3 2 For more details on the process of Slovak migration and resettlement in the United States see my Immigration and Urbanization: Th e Slovak Experience, 1870- 191 8 (New York: AMS Press, I 989), I-7 1. 3 For the story of Slovak fratern al-benefit soc ieties in the United States see my "A Place fo r Everyo ne: Slovak Fratern al-Benefi t Societies," in Scott Cummings, ed ., Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise (Port Washington, NY : Kennikat Press, 1980, 130-41 and "Slovak Fraternal-Benefit Societies in North America: An Overview ( 1883- 1993), in Matjaz Klemenc ic ed. , Etnicni fra- SLOVAKIA 9 Besides the need for social benefits , Slovak immigrants also yearned for religious services in their own language. The fraternalbenefit societies led the way in establishing pari sh churches , in recruiting their priests and in supporting (or not supporting) them. Slovak Roman Catholics established 241 parishes, Lutherans 68 , Calvinists 9 and Greek Catholics (mixed parishes of Rusins and Slovaks) 155 by 1930.4 At least half of the Roman Catholic parishes also established parochial schools which taught their children to read, write and sing in Slovak, while all other subjects were taught in English. The Roman Catholics also established several religious orders to teach their children, as well as Benedictine High School for boys in Cleveland and Danville Academy for girls in Danville, Pen. 5 nsy Ivama. Finally, most of the immigrants from Slovakia yearned for news from their homeland and were also curious about conditions in the New World. Therefore, a small number of intellectuals, who had followed them from Slovakia, established a very vigorous newspaper press. Starting with a mere Bulletin in 1885, American Slovaks developed a full-service press that consisted of dailies, weeklies and monthlies , and that varied in orientation from nationalist to Magyarone, from secular to religious, from socialist to capitalist. By 1914 the combined circulation of the Slovak-American press was over 150,000, which was four times the circulation of the Slovak-langu- terna/izem v priseljenskich deie/ach/Ethnic Fratemalism in Immigra nt Countries (Maribor: University of Maribor, 1996), 147-59. 4 For the process of the creation of parishes, see my Growing Up on the South Side: Three Generations of Slovaks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I 880- 1976 (Lewsiburg: Bucknell Uni vers ity Press, 1985), 44-62; for the number of parishes of various denominations see Filip Hrobak, comp., and ed. , Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union , 1955), 3 I- I65; George Dolak, A History of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, /902-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 189-206; Jan Body & John Adam , comp. and ed .. History of the Slovak Zion Synod LCA (Pittsburgh: Zion Synod, 1976), 199-200; Kalendar pre slovenskych Kalvfnov, 1927 (P ittsburgh), 97- 147; and Paul R. Magocs i, Our People: CarpathoRusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toron to: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984), 14. 5 Hrobak, Parishes and institutions, 169-82. SLOVAKIA . Hungary. 6 age press m As they were building the pillars of the ir new co mmunities in America, Slovak immigrants did not fo rget their homeland . Indi vidual immigrants sent several hundred million doll ars to support their fa milies in Slovakia in the period 1870-1914. In addition , Slovak fraternal-benefit societies and their leaders rai sed fund s for the Slovak National Museum, for Slovak schools and churches in Hungary, they paid for and published in the ir Almanacs articles written by Slovak inte llectuals, and they established schol arship fund s to support Slovak high-school students in Bohe mi a and Moravia. Most important of all , they fi nancially supported Slovak candidates to the Hungarian Parli ament and rejo iced when, for the first time in hi story, seven nati onall y-conscious Slovaks were elected in 1906.7 Meanwhile, since the 1867 "Compromi se," whereby the ruling Habsburgs of Austri a and the Magyars of Hungary agreed to divide the empire into the Dual Monarchy of Au stri a-Hungary, the Magyars set out to forcibl y assimilate all the non-M agyar nationalities in Hungary. 8 American Slovak leaders were aware of thi s poli cy of "Magyari zation" and joined their counterparts in Slova ki a in trying to combat it. To thi s end American Slovaks, reacting to urgings from Slovak leaders in Europe, organized a " national congress" to be held in Cleveland on May 26, 1907 . On that day over l0,000 countrymen fro m across America packed into Greys Armory and established the Slovak Leag ue of Ameri ca, whi ch would be the cover organization fo r all nationall y-conscious Slovak organizations in the United States. Thi s sa me congress also e lected the Rev. Stefa n Furdek of Cleveland (originally from Trstena, Orava county), fo under of the First Catholic Slovak Union, as its president and Peter V. Rovnianek of Pittsburgh (originally fro m Doln y Hricov, Trencfn county), foun 6 For an over-view see my "The Slovak-American Press," in Sall y M. Miller ed. , The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical A nalysis and Handbook (Westport, CT: Gree nwood Press, 1987), 354-68 ; fo r the circul ation of the Slovak-Ameri can press in 19 14 see my " Slovak Nati onalism in the USA as Refl ected in th e Slovak-American Press, 1885- 1918 ," Canadian Review of Studies in Na tionalism, 3 1 (Nos. 1-2, 2004) , 65-76. 7 Stolarik, Immigration and Urbanization, 185-205 . 8 The best desc ripti on of " Magyarization" is still Scotus Viator (R.W. Seton-Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908 ; reprinted by Howard Ferti g, New York, 1972). SLOVAKIA 11 der of the National Slovak Society , as its first vice-president, as well as the presidents of all the other fraternals as vice-presidents. The League published its formal program of autonomy for the Slovaks in Hungary in September of 1914, just as the world was entering into the first of two world wars that would plague the 20th century. 9 While the League 's official program was autonomy for its countrymen in the Kingdom of Hungary , a small group of Slovaks dissented and called for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the liberation of their people. These di ssidents were large ly organized in the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , which had been established in New Jersey in 1896, and which adopted the program of the Czech professsor of philosophy T.G. Masaryk. ' 0 The latter had fled hi s homeland in the fall of 1914 and had started to organize a movement to liberate the linguistically-related Czechs and Slovaks from Au stria-Hungary and to create a new state on its ruin s. Masaryk was assisted in hi s quest by one of hi s form er students, the Paris-based Slovak astronomer, Milan R. Stefanik. Later, Masaryk was joined by another of hi s students, the sociologist Edvard Benes. This trio organized itself into a "Czech Committee" and hoped to persuade the western Allies, if they were victorious over the Central Powers, to dismember AustriaHungary and to allow the Czechs and Slovaks to establish their own state. 11 While Masaryk was an elected member of the Austrian Parliament, and in touch with hi s Czech colleagues, who approved of his plans, he had no mandate from the Slovaks in Hungary to include 9 Fo r the creation of the Slovak League see Jednota (C leveland), May 29, 1907; ~udove noviny (Ska lica), Jun e 4, 1907; Jan Pank uch, Dejiny Clevelandskych a Lakewoodskych Slovakov (C leveland: Jan Pankuch, 1930), 71-3 ; and Kon stantin Cul en, Dejiny Slovakov v A merike, JI (Bratislava: Slovenska Liga, 1942), 11 3-24 ; for the program of autonomy see " Memorandum Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike vydane menom americkyc h Slovakov," in Dr. Yacovsky [Milan Ivanka], Slovaci a Madari: Politicko-historicka uvaha (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of America, I 9 14), 10 I-7. 10 For the ac ti vities of the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol see Milan Getting, A merickf Slovaci a vyvin ceskoslovenskej myslienky v rokoch 19 14-1 9 /8 (Perth Amboy, NJ: Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol , 1933) 11 Masaryk and Benes left us the ir memoirs: T.G . Masaryk, The Making of a State: Memories and Observations, 19 14-1 918 (London: Frederick A. Stokes, 1927; Edu ard Benes, Souvenirs de g uerre et de revolution (1914-1918), 2 Vols. (Paris: E. Lero ux , 1928). Stefanik left no memoirs but Jan Jurfcek wrote a sy mpathetic biography: M.R. Stefanik: t ivotopisny nacrt (Brati slava: Mlade !eta, 1968). 12 SLOVAKIA them in the proposed state. Therefore, Masaryk sought such a mandate from American Slovak immigrants, most of whom were not yet citizens of the United States, but whose leaders had been in close touch with Slovak leaders in Hungary before the war, and who had a mandate from them to speak on behalf of the Slovak nation . 12 As a result, Masaryk urged his Czech colleagues in the United States to seek out the Slovaks and try to persuade them to join in his liberation movement. American Czechs did so and on October 22, 1915 the Bohemian National Alliance, which was the cover organization of most American Czechs, and the Slovak League of America met and concluded the Cleveland Agreement, which was named after the city in which it was signed. In this Agreement, the two sides pledged to work for the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the creation of a new, federal state consisting "of the Czech and Slovak nations," with "complete national autonomy for Slovakia, with its own Diet, its own state administration, complete cultural freedom .. ..its own financial and political administration," and "with Slovak as the state language ." The Slovak League insisted upon these points because it knew that the Czechs would outnumber the Slovaks in the new state by three-to-one and the League did not want the Czechs to dominate the Slovaks as had the Magyars in Hungary. 13 Had the two sides respected the Cleveland Agreement, the liberation movement might have worked smoothly and led to a harmonious future for the Czechs and Slovaks. Unfortunately, T.G. Masaryk did not believe in the existence of separate Czech and Slovak nations. Perhaps because he was of mixed Slovak (father) and Czech (mother) origin, he believed that the Czechs and Slovaks 12 On August 6, 1906, political leaders in Slovakia sent their counterparts in the USA a letter in which they proposed to share the leadership of the Slovak natio n with them. The letter was published in lmrich Mazar, Dejiny Binghamtonskych Slovakov za dobu styridsat' rokov, I 879-19 I 9 (Bingha mton : Branch I04 of the Slovak League of America, 1919), 2 1-22 . The Czechs recog nized th at Slovak leaders in the USA were authorized to speak on behalf of the Slovaks in Hungary in an editorial that appeared in The Bohemian Review (Chicago), March, 19 18, p.47 . 13 Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 23 , 1915 , p.7 ; Jednota (M iddl etow n, PA ), November 24, 1915, p.4; Narodne noviny (Pittsburgh), November 25, 19 15, p.5 ; the original was published in Dokumenty slovenskej nardonej identity a statnosti, I (Bratislava: Narodne literarne centrum, 1998), 445-7; an English translation can be found in my "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of Czecho-S lovakia, 1914-1918," Slovak Studies, VIII (Rome, I 968), p.55. SLOVAKIA 13 formed one "Czechoslovak" nation and merely spoke two dialects of the same language. Therefore, when he arrived in the United States in the spring of 1918 to seek the recognition of the American government for the liberation movement and was shown the Cleveland Agreement, he proclaimed it "out of date" and proceeded to negotiate a new one with the Slovaks. On May 31st, 1918 Masaryk in Pittsburgh negotiated a weaker agreement with American Slovaks. According to thi s new "Pittsburgh Agreement," the two sides approved a "political program to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent state of Czech and Slovak lands," in which " Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts." Furthermore, "S lovak will be the official language in the school s, in offices and public life generally." And the "Czecho-Slovak state will be a republic and its Constitution will be a democratic one." Noticeably absent from this Agreement were the phrases "federal state" and "complete national autonomy for Slovakia," and there was no mention of the "Czech and Slovak nations," as there had been in the Cleveland Agreement. 14 Members of the Slovak League of America, led by its president Albert Mamatey of Pittsburgh (originall y from Klastor pod Znievom in Turiec county), signed the Pittsburgh Agreement because by then the liberation movement, led by Masaryk, was in high gear. The newly-formed Czechoslovak Legions in Russia revolted against the Bolsheviks and seized control over the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. These Legions had been organized from prisoners-of-war by Masaryk and Stefanik, and their seizure of the railroad greatly aided the Allied war effort, because they prevented hundreds of thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war from returning to fight on the western front. 15 In addition, si nce Masaryk himself had 14 Jednota, June 5, 191 8, p.5; N:irodne noviny, June 6, 1918 , p.5; Jozef Hu sek, "Prehl'ad vaznejsfch udalostf v hi storii I. Kat. Slovenskej Jednoty, Jednota Katolfcky Kalend:ir, 1931, (Middletown, PA), pp.58-9. Victor S. Mamatey pointed ou t that the date of the Pittsburgh Agreement was May 3 1, 191 8, not May 30 as the calligrapher erroneously wrote it. Cf "Este raz o Pittsburgskej dohode," Premeny (Flushing, NY), 20 (No.3 , 1983), 39. For the full text of the Pittsburgh Agreement see Dokumenty, QJ2&i.t. , 485-6 and for an English translation see my The Role of, QJ2,....ci_t., 56. 15 Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1918, p.5; New York Times, June 29, 1918, p.3 ; for a detailed di sc ussion of the Czechoslovak Leg ion see J.F.N. Bradley , "The Allies and the Czech Revolt aga inst the Bol sheviks in 191 8," Slavonic and East 14 SLOVAKIA drafted and signed the Pittsburgh Agreement, along with the Bohemian National Alliance and the Union of Czech Catholics, American Slovak leaders felt confident that Masaryk would honor it. Skeptics, such as Jozef Hu sek, editor of Jednota (originall y from Okolicne, Liptov county), the official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, the largest Slovak fraternal-benefit society in America, did not tru st Masaryk. lt was Husek who forced Masary k into drafting the Pittsburgh Agreement, and it was Husek who insisted that he sign a calligraphed copy of it on November 14, I 918 , the very day that the newly-created Czecho-Slovak government in Prague e lected Masaryk President of the Republic. After Masaryk signed it a second time, American Slovaks were sati sfied and hoped for the best for their people in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic, which was proclaimed by a gathering of Czec h deputies of the former Austrian Parli ament in Prague on October 28 , 191 8, just as the defeated Austria-Hungary was collapsing. 16 Unfortunately for the future of Czecho-Slovakia, the promi ses made to American Slovaks by T.G. Masary k in the Pittsburgh Agreement were not carried out. Once he had returned in triumph to the newl y-created Republic in Dece mber of 1918 , Masaryk promptl y forgot about the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Czec h deputies in Prague , meanwhile, formed themselves into a "Czechoslovak government" on November 14th and later appointed a Czech-dominated "Constitutional Committee" to draft a Constitution for the new Republic. 17 Hearing of these events, the Slovak League of America sent a five-person delegation to Czecho-Slovakia in the spring of 1919, to remind Masaryk of hi s promises and to demand that the Pittsburgh Agreement be included in the proposed Constitution . Upon their return to the United States, the Executive Board of the Slovak League passed a resolution at its quarterly meeting on October 24, 1919, Europea n Review, 43 (No. I OI , 1965), 175-92 . The lack of the word "S lovak" in Bradley ' s title testifi es to the pro-Czech bias of western hi storian s during the ex istence of Czechoslovakia. 16 Husek, " Prehl'ad," op.cit. , 58-9 ; Joze f Husek, " Pittsburghska Dohoda," Jednota Katolfcky K al endar, 1933, 11 I. 17 For more on these proceedings see Vaclav L. Benes , " Czechoslovak Democracy and Its Problems, 1918-1920," in Victor S. Mamatey & Radomir Lu za, eds. , A History of the Czechoslovak Republic. 19 18- 1948 (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973), 53-6. SLOVAKIA 15 calling for the incorporation of the Pittsburgh Agreement into the proposed Czecho-Slovak Constitution. 18 Indeed, at the last meeting of the Czecho-Slovak Nation al Council in America, which had been founded in 1917 to coordinate the work of the Leag ue and of the Bohemian National Alliance, the Slovak delegates asked their Czech colleagues to pass a similar resolution, and the latter gladly complied 19 on November 7, 1919. Thus, American Czechs recogni zed the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement while the Constitutional Committee did not. Masaryk, on the other hand , when asked by Prime Mini ster Vl astimil Tu s:cir in January of 1920 to comment on the validity of the Pittsburgh Agreement, brushed it aside as " one of many pre-revolutionary program s made beyond the boundaries. It has its hi storical value." 20 As a result, in March of 1920 the Constitutional Committee drafted , and the Prague Parliament adopted , a very centrali st Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic , which sy mboli ca ll y dropped the hyphen from its name , and proclaimed that " the Czechoslovak Republic is a unified, not a federative state ," that its official language was the "Czechoslovak language" (even thou gh no such lang uage existed) , and Slovakia did not receive its own administration, its own Diet and its own courts, nor did Slovak become the official language of administration, as promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement? In the inter-war period , after some hesitatio n, the Slovak League of America continued to demand the home-rule promi sed the Slovaks by T.G. Masaryk. Albert Mamatey, the president of the League, visited Slovakia with a copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement in the winter of 19 I 9-1920 and was reass ured by Mil an Hodfa, one of the leaders of the Czec hoslovak Agrarian Party, that the Slovaks had nothing to worry about. Indeed , in September of 1920 Mamatey was rewarded for hi s wartime services on behalf of Slovakia by being ap- 18 19 Jednota, October 29, I 9 I 9. p. l The Czechoslovak Review [Formerly the Bohemian Review], December, 1919, p. 394. T.G. Masaryk to Y lastimil Tu sar, February 5. I920 , as published in The Slovaks 20 and the Pittsburgh Pact (Chicago : Slovak Catholic Federation, 1934), p.34. Jii'i Hoetzl and V. Joachim ( Introd uction by) , The Constitution of the Czechoslo vak Republic (Prague: Ed ition de la Soc iete de I'effort de la T checoslovaqu ie. 1920), pp. I 2, 47 . 21 16 SLOVAKIA pointed the Czechoslo vak Consul in Pittsburgh. 22 He was succeeded as president of the League by hi s colleague Ivan Bielek, the former editor of the American Narodn e noviny, offici al organ of the National Slovak Society.23 Jan A. Kocur, a pre-war immigrant from 24 Turzovka, meanwhile, became the League ' s secretary. Under thi s new leadership the 14th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, PA on June 28-29, 1922, sent a Memorandum to the National Assembly in Prague in which it demanded that the Pittsburgh Agreement be made a part of the Czechoslovak Constitution .25 Meanwhil e, after some prodding by Jozef Husek, editor of Jednota, as well as by the leadership of the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, the 15th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Binghamton , New York on May 27-29, 1924, rejected the philosophy of "Czechoslovakism" as practiced by the Prague government and once again demanded that the provi sions of the Pittsburgh Agreem ent be carried out. 26 In addition , the Slovak League now openl y supported the Slovak People 's Party, led by the Reverend Andrej Hlinka, because that party had adopted the program of the Pittsburgh Agreement. Indeed , in 1926 the Slovak League made Hlinka an honorary member. 27 Interestingly enough, the League was so committed to the Pittsburgh Agreement th at, when the Slovak People ' s Party ag reed to join the center-right Czechoslovak coalition government in 1927-29, the League denounced this step! 28 On the other hand , it heartily approved of the People ' s Party 's withdrawal from the coalition after the October 1929 trial and conviction for treason of Yojtech Tuka, editor of Slo vak, the People 's Party ' s official organ .29 Furthermore, in 1928, on the l 0th anniver22 Joze f Paufo, 75. Rok ov Prvej K atolfckej Slovenskej Jednory (Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1965), 160. For a short biograph y of A lbert M amatey see Joze f Paufo, Slovensk f priekopn fci v A merike (Cleveland: First Cath olic Slovak Union, 1972), 269-75. 23 For a short biograph y of Ivan Bielek see Paufo , Slovenskf priekopnfci, p. 25-28. 24 For hi s biography see ilii.d.. , 229. 25 M emorandum Slovenskej Ligy v A merike upravene na vladu a Narodne Shromai denie Cesko-Sl ovenskej Republiky v zaujme vte/enia Pittsburghskej Dohody do ustavy C.-S. Republiky (Pittsburgh: Slovak League of A meri ca, 1922). 26 " Z XV. Kongresu Slovenskej Ligy v A merike." Jednota, June 4, 1924, pp. 1-2, 4. 27 Paufo, 75 roko v, 21 I. 28 lb.id... 223 . 29 " Prehlas od Ivana Bieleka,'· Jednota, October 23 , 1929, p.4. SLOVAKIA 17 sary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, the League rejected a special commendation from the Czechoslovak government for its role in the liberation of the country.30 Thereafter the League continued to publish and send memoranda to the Czecho-Slovak government, as it had in the l 920's, demanding that it grant the Slovaks the home-rule that Masaryk had promised in the Pittsburgh Agreement. 3 1 During the 1930's the Slovak League and the People ' s Party closely cooperated for the benefit of both sides. At its 19th Congress held in Cleveland on November 19-20, 1934, the assembled delegates elected the American-born Chicago medical doctor Peter P. Hletko as their president and he and his executive board invited the nationalist cultural organization Matica slovenska to send a delegation of scholars and leaders to help American Slovaks to maintain their national identity. The Matica complied in 1935-1936 by sending its director, the writer J.C. Hronsky, the publicist Konstantin Culen, the art historian Jozef Cincfk, and the photographer Karel Plicka. They visited 98 of the largest Slovak-American communities, presented lectures, slides and films about Slovakia, and donated four large libraries to the Slovak communities of New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago. This delegation also gathered a wealth of published and manuscript materials pertaining to the history of American Slovaks , which are now stored in the Slovak National Library.32 The People ' s Party, which was the main supporter of the Matica slovenska, reciprocated in 1938 when it invited the Slovak League to send a delegation to the mother country in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Pittsburgh Agreement. The 20th congress of the League, held in Pittsburgh on April 28-29, 1938, elected a six-person delegation, which included Peter P. Hletko and Jozef Husek, to travel to Slovakia, and to bring with it the original of 30 "Kongres Slovenskej Ligy," Jednota, June 6, 1928, p. l. See, for example the, fo llow ing: Prehlas Slovenskej Ligy v Amerike upraveny na vsetkych politickych cinitelbv Cesko-Slovenskej Republiky (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1925); V zaujme pra vdy ! (Pittsburgh: P. Jamriska & Co., 1930); and An Autonomi st [Peter P. Hletko], Slovakia's Plea for Autonomy (Middletown, PA: Slovak Literary Society, I 935). 32 J.C. Hronsky described the Matica's trip and its achieve ments in Cesta slovenskou Amerikou: Cestopisne crty z r. 1935-36. v dvoch dieloch (Turc. Sv. Martin : Matica slovenska, 1940). 31 18 SLOVAKIA the Pittsburgh Agreement. The delegation went via Poland, in order to first visit the Rev. Andrej Hlinka in Rufomberok, and only then did it proceed to Bratislava and Prague. In Bratislava on June 5th the Slovak League delegation appeared on the balcony of the Slovak National Theater on Hviezdoslav Square, along with Andrej Hlinka and other notables of the People 's Party. Peter P. Hletko then triumphantly held up the original of the Pittsburgh Agreement, to the cheers of over 100,000 people.33 Finally, on October 6, 1938, after the infamous Munich Agreement weakened Czechoslovakia and president Edvard Benes resigned his office and fled to the west, the Slovak People 's Party, with the support of the Agrarian and National Parties and the approval of Prague, proclaimed the autonomy of Slovakia and formed a six-man government headed by Dr. Jozef Tiso. He had succeeded Andrej Hlinka as party leader after the latter' s death on August 16th. The Prague Parliament formally approved Slovak autonomy on November 22nd and re-named the Republic as Czecho-Slovakia, to reflect thi s new reality. Needless to say, the Slovak League of America was overjoyed to see that, after 20 years of strugg le, the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement were finally carried out. 34 While the Slovak League was satisfied with the outcome of its efforts on behalf of the Pittsburgh Agreement, Adolph Hitler was not. The German Chancellor was determined to destroy Czecho-Slovakia and to incorporate Bohemia-Moravia into his "Third Reich." Therefore, he had his agents get in touch with the most radical individuals in the People 's Party, who were led by the recently-releasedfrom-prison Vojtech Tuka, and urged them to seek complete Slovak independence. Tuka and his followers began to plot against CzechoSlovakia and the Prague government reacted by declaring martial law on March 11th, by di ssolving the recently-elected Slovak Diet, 33 Hlas l'udu (Toronto), May 27, 1938, pp.l-2 , June 7, 1938, pp.1-4 ; Slovak v Kan ade (Montreal ), June 2, 1938, p. l; Osadne hlasy (Chicago), June 24, 1938, pp.12; Narodne noviny, Jul y 6, 1938, p.5. Photos of the delegation in Poland and in Slovakia can be found in J.M . Kirschbaum, Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe (New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1960), between pp.264-265. 34 New Yorksky dennfk (New York) , October 9, 1938 , p.1; Kato/icky Sokol (Passaic, NJ) , October 12, 1938, p.l; Narodne no viny, October 12, 1938, p.l; Osadne h/asy, October 14, 1938 , p.l and October 21 , 1938, pp. 1&3 ; Jednota, November 2, 1938, p.3 SLOVAKIA 19 and by arresting over 200 suspected "plotters" against the Republic. Meanwhile, Hitler's agents summoned the recently-dismissed Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to Berlin on March 13th and gave him an ultimatum: either proclaim independence or watch Slovakia be partitioned by Poland and Hungary. Tiso returned to Bratislava on March 14th, he persuaded President Emil Hacha to reconvene the Slovak Diet, and after Tiso passed on to the Diet Hitler's message, the Diet unanimously declared Slovak independence. Since Czecho-Slovakia no longer existed, Hitler ordered the German army to occupy BohemiaMoravia and turn it into a German " Protectorate." He also recognized the independence of the Slovak Republic, but forced it into a German alliance and put it under German protection. 35 When news of the declaration of Slovak Independence reached American Slovaks, they were at first puzzled and subsequently split into two camps-those who supported Slovak independence and those who did not. This split had first surfaced right after World War I, when certain American Slovaks chose to support the new, centralized Czechoslovak Republic, while others did not. Generally speaking, most Slovak Protestant societies in the USA, as well as those individuals organized in the militantly secular Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (founded in 1896) supported the new state because they agreed with its official philosophy of "Czechoslovakism," that is, that the Czechs and Slovaks formed one nation but spoke two dialects of the "Czechoslovak" language. 36 The majority of American Slovaks, who were Roman Catholics, and were represented by the First Catholic Slovak Union and the Slovak Catholic Federation, among others, did not. Between 1919 and 1924 the pro-Czechoslovak group controlled the Slovak League. 37 After 1924 the Slovak nationalists regained control over the League, and continue to do so. Therefore, the Protestants and the Sokols (as well as Slovak Communi sts), rejected the independent Slovak Republic and hoped that 35 The best description of this period in Czecho-Slovakia ' s hi story is by Theodor Prochazka, The Second Republic: Th e Disintegration of post-Munich Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 198 1); for an alternative view see Frantisek Ynuk, " Slovakia' s Six Eventfu l Months," Slovak Studies, 4 ( 1964), 7- I 64. 36 Milan Getting best represented thi s group and described their act ivities in his Americki Slovaci, ~ 37 " Z XV . Kongresu Slovenskej Li gy v Amerike," Q)hci.t. 20 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia could be resurrected.38 To this end they supported ex-president Edvard Benes's new liberation movement during World War 11. 39 The leadership of the Slovak League, largely representing the majority Roman Catholics, on the other hand, supported the new state. Indeed, Jozef Husek, who was elected president of the League at its 21 st Congress in Cleveland on October 14th, 1938, form all y requested president Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States on April 24, 1939 to grant the Slovak Republic diplomatic recognition.40 Shortly thereafter the Slovak League was heartened by a message ("Posolstvo") sent by Prime Minister Jozef Tiso to American and Canadian Slovaks on May 23rd of 1939. Here Tiso explained in 38 A group of Slovak Protestants (Lutherans, Calvini sts and Congregationalists), led by the Baptist preac her A. P. Slabey, met in Duquesne, PA on May 30th, 1938 and denounced the Hletko- led delegati on of the Slovak League to Slovakja that spring. Cf. Narodne noviny, June 8, 1938 , p.3; In the fall Jan Pankuch, a Lutheran and fo rmer mem ber of the Delegati on, regretted the granting of autonomy to Slovakia. Cf. Hla s (C leveland), October 13, I 938, p. l ; after the Slovak Diet declared independence on Marc h 14th , 1939 . the Lutheran-dominated Nati onal Slovak Society denounced this act. Cf. Narodne noviny, March 15, 1939, p. l , as did the secul arist and Sokol-do minated New Yorksky dennik , March 15, 1939, p. l. Slovak communists also de nounced both Slovak auto no my and independence. Cf. I', udovy dennik (Chicago), October 7, 1938, p. l ; October 8, 1938, p. I; March I6, 1939, p. l 39 Those American Slovaks who opposed Slovak indepe ndence and wished to see Czecho-Slovakja res urrected after th e war initiall y organi zed the mselves into th e Slovak Nati onal Council of America. However, they soon split into fac tions th at either supported ex-president Benes or else Dr. Milan Hodfa or Dr. Stefan Osusky, both of whom had fl ed to the West after the fa ll of France in June of 1940, and both of whom broke with Benes over the future of a res urrected Czecho-S lovakia. While Be nes wanted a return to the cent ra lized pre-M un ich Czechoslovakia, Hodfa and Osusky wished to return to a federated Czecho-S lovilia. Cf. Letters of Jan Dend'ur, Secretary of the Slovak National Council to Vlad imir Hurban, ex-Ambassador of Czechos lovakia in Washington, Papers of Jan Dend'ur, Box I , File A-S , Balch Institute at th e Histori cal Society of Penn sy lvania, Philade lphia; those who supported Benes joined the Czechoslovak Nati onal Co un cil of America and we re led by the Lutheran Rev . Jaros lav Pelikan, Sr. of Chicago. Cf. New York sky dennik, Dece mber 11 , 1941 , p. I. For a descri ption of the Benes-led liberation move ment see Ed uard Taborsky, " Politics in Exile, 1939- 1945 ," in Mamatey & Lufa , A History , QP..ci.1. , 322-42. 40 Letter of Jozef Husek to Frank lin Delano Roosevelt, April 24, 1939, publ ished in Correspondence in re Slovakia and the Declaration of the Aim and Principles of the Slo vak League of A merica (Middletown? Slovak League of America, 1940?), 1718. Husek sent a similar letter to Secretary of State Corde ll Hull on August 4, 1939, ilii.d., 19-20. SLOVAKIA 21 great detail how and why the Slovak Republic came into being and he asked American and Canadian Slovaks to support it. 4 1 As a result, the 22nd Congress of the Slovak League, which was held on November 14-15 in Cleveland, and which re-elected Husek as its president, passed a resolution in which it fully supported the independent Slovak Republic. Furthermore, it called upon the United States government to grant Slovakia diplomatic recognition, and it deplored ex-president Edvard Benes's American speaking tour, in which he called for the restoration of pre-war Czechoslovakia.42 In the fo llowing October, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a IS-person delegation of the Slovak League led by Husek and Hletko during which they pledged their loyalty to the USA . They considered thi s meeting to be a moral victory, even though FDR refu sed to recognize the Slovak Republic. 43 On the other hand, because of attacks launched upon the Slovak League by the supporters of Edvard Benes, Husek and the Slovak League were investigated by the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities. Thereafter they were under FBI surveillance. 44 Since the United States entered the Second World War on the side of the Allies on December 7, 1941 , and since Prime Mini ster Vojtech Tuka of Slovakia foolishly declared war upon the United States shortly there41 Tiso was responding to a letter sent to him by Andrej Potocky, Supreme Secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, askin g for an ex planation as to why the Slovak Diet had declared independence. Cf. And rej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Tiso's reply, of June 2, 1939, with a copy of the " Posolstvo," in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Co ll ection, Box 576, fo lder 2, 1939, Slovak Archives, University of Ottawa, Archi ves and Spec ia l Collections, and in the Andrej Potocky Papers, box 282 , folder 4, I 939, lhid. Jozef Husek translated and published it as " Dr. Joseph Tiso to the Slovaks in America," in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2,.Q!., 716. This " Posolstvo" was originall y published in Slovak in several pro-independence newspapers in the USA and Canada. Cf. S lovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Jul y 2 1, and July 31, 1939, p.3 . 42 Jednota, Novem ber 29, 1939, p. 3; H/as Judu, November 18 and 21 , p. I. 43 Jedno ta, October 30, 1940, p. I, November 6, 1940, p.2; Slo venske bratstvo, November I, 1940, p.2. 44 Hlas Judu , October 24, 1939 , p. l ; see also Jozef Husek's letters to Martin Dies, Chairman , Dies House Committee, October 6, 1939 and October 28, 1939, in Correspondence in re Slovakia, QJ2..ci.t. , 23-4. In the summer of 1970 I visited with Dr. Peter P. Hletko in Chi cago and he confi rmed that the FBI had him and Husek under survei llance throughout the war, a lthough Hletko struck up a friendship with those watching him . 22 SLOVAKIA after, the Slovak League had to become more circumspect m its pronouncements. It now pledged absolute loyalty to the United States, although it continued to passively support the Slovak Republic. 45 However, the United States Office of War Information arranged a meeting of all Slovak-American organizations in Pittsburgh on September 14, 1942, and urged them to sign a declaration in which they repudiated the Slovak Republic and pledged their loyalty to the United States and its Allies. 46 By December a dejected Jozef Husek resigned as president of the League.47 He was eventually replaced by the more cautious Msgr. Frantisek Du bosh of Lakewood, Ohio, at the 23rd Congress of the League held in Pittsburgh on February 25-26, 1943. 48 Since the Slovak League could no longer openly support Slovak independence, it had to lower its expectations. At its 23rd Congress it had to develop a new program for Slovakia and, at the same time, deal with the issue of accepting or rejecting two former hi gh-ranking Slovaks in the pre-war Czechoslovak government and bureaucracy who had come to America. One was the former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, Milan Hodz.a, and the other was the former Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Stefan Osusky. Both had broken with Edvard Benes after the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza now recognized the Slovaks as a distinct nation but favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia within a Central European Federation . Osu sky also recognized the Slovaks as an independent nation and favored the resurrection of a federated Czecho-Slovakia as stipul ated in the Cleveland Agreement of 1915 , which he had helped to draft. After much debate, the League rejected both Hodza and 45 Osadne h/asy, December 19, 194 1, p.2; Jednota , January 7, 1942 , p.8. Pavel Jamriska, the vice-president of the L eague, pledged that " American Slovaks never betrayed and never w ill betray the Slovak nation and Slovakia." Cf. Jednota, January 2 1, 1942, p.4. Jozef Husek president of the League, added that " Slovakia should retain its freedom ," in spite of the war. Jednota, February 25, 1942, p.4. 46 Jednota, September 23, 1942, p. l and October 14, 1942, p.2. Thi s " Resolution " was reprinted in Martin Kvetko and Miroslav J. Licko 's edited Zbornik tivah a osobnych spomienok o S/ovenskom narodnom povstanf (Toronto: Stala konferencia slovenskych demokratickych exu lantov, 1976), pp. 396-7 w ithout any explanation. 47 I.:udo ve zvesti (Toronto), December 12, 1942, p. I and January 16, 1943, p.5. 48 Kanadsky Slovak (Montrea l), March 11 , 1943, p. I ; I.:udove zves ti, March 20 , 1943 , p.5. SLOVAKIA 23 Osusky as former collaborators of the first Czechoslovak Republic and it returned to its pre-war program of "self-determination" for the Slovaks in the future. 49 When the Slovak National Uprising against the Germans broke out at the end of August, 1944, American Slovaks were once again divided. After some hesitation, the 26th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh on October 18-19, 1944, and most American Catholic organizations , rejected the leadership of the newlyformed Slovak National Council as too "Czechoslovak" and Communi st. 50 Most American Lutherans, National Sokols and Communi sts, on the other hand, cheered and recognized the leadership of the SNC. 51 To complicate matters even more, the People' s Party journali st Peter Prfdavok, who had initially rejected the Slovak Republic and had fled to France and Great Britain in 1939, al so broke with Edvard Benes and in 1943 establi shed a Slovak National Council in London . He immediately contacted the Slovak League of America and , after the 1944 uprising in Slovakia, counseled the Slovak League not to recognize the Slovak National Council in Slovakia. 52 The League did not do so until it heard of the promulgation of the Kosice Programme of April 5, 1945 , which recognized the Slovaks as a di stinct nation and which al so recognized the Slovak National Council as the government of Slovakia. Thi s was a major concession by representatives of Edvard Benes 's victorious government-in-exile, which by then had returned to Slovak ("Czechoslovak") territory on 49 Cudove z vesti, March 20, 1943 and Kanadsky Slovak, March 25 , 1943, p.4. After Osusky broke with Benes he publi shed a series of pamphlets in whi ch he denounced the latter: Pravda vfthzf 1 (Pohlhd do zrkadla druheho odboj a) (London : The Continental Publishers, 1942); Benes and Slovakia (Middletown, PA : First Catholi c Slovak Union, 1943) ; Triedenie duchov nastalo (L ondon : The Continental Publishers, 1943) ; Hodza ' s position was best reported in K anadsky Slovak, M ay 28, 1942, pp. 7 & 10. For Hodza ' s acti vities in the USA see Michal Mudry, Milan Hodi a v Amerike (Chicago: Geringer Press, 1949). For more on Benes's opponents during World War II see Jan Kuklfk and Jan Nemecek, Prati Beneso vi! Ceska a slovenska protibeneso vska opozice v Londy ne /939-1 945 (Praha: Karolinum , 2004). 50 Kanadsky Slovak, November 9, 1944, p.4; Jednota, N ovember 15, 1944, p.2. 51 Cudove zvesti, September 23 , 1944, pp. I & 4. 52 Slovenske bratst vo, M ay 24, 1940, p.2; Slo vensky priekopnfk, November 27, 1942, pp. I & 4; ~udove zvesti, M arch 18, 1944, p.5 ; Jednota, April 16, 1945, p.5; for a short biograph y of Prfdavok see Literarny almanach Slovaka v A merike, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 209- 10. 24 SLOVAKIA the heel s of the Red Army, and which by now included the Communist leader Klement Gottwald. 53 However, this "Washington Declaration" of April 6, 1945 by the Executive of the Slovak League of America was immediately denounced by Jozef Husek and Peter P. Hletko.54 Furthermore, the 27th Congress of the Slovak League, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October of 1945 also repudiated it. Instead, the Congress reaffirmed the right of the Slovaks in Europe to self-determination. This Congress, which elected the Amercanborn attorney Peter P. Yurchak as its president, also announced a new fund-rai sing campaign to help rebuild post-war Slovakia, as well as to help thousands of political refugees who had fled the resurrected post-war Czechoslovakia.55 Meanwhile, the Slovak League had also sent a three-person delegation to the San Francisco meeting of the newly-founded United Nations from April 25th to June 21st. It was led by the Rev. Jan J. Lach of Whiting, Indiana, in the company of the poet, the Rev . Milos Mlynarovic, and the young Americanborn attorney Edward J. Behuncfk. The League had hoped that its delegation could speak on behalf of the Slovak nation but Jan Masaryk, son of the former president of Czechoslovakia, registered himself as a Slovak (whic h he was not) and, in hi s capacity as Czechoslovakia's new Foreign Minister, claimed that the Slovaks were well-represented at the United Nations, and therefore, did not need the services of the League. Lach was given only the status of an observer and could not participate in the debates about the future of Europe. 56 Meanwhile, Slovaks who had emigrated to Canada also took an interest in the fate of their countrymen. Since the United States Congress had passed three Immigration Acts in the l 920's, which severely restricted further migration from east-central and southern Europe to the United States, about 40,000 Slovaks moved to Canada in search of work in the l 920's and 1930's. Even though the government of Canada wanted them to settle on farms on the Prairies, they 53 For the text of the Kosice Program see "Kosicky vlad ny program," in Dokumenty, II (1998), 407-8 . 54 Osadne hlasy, April 20, 1945 , p.4 and June I, 1945, p.2, June 30, I 945, p.2 ; Kanadsky Slovak, June 14, 1945, p.5. 55 Osadne hlasy, October 26, 1945, p. l ; Kanadsky Slovak, November I, 1945. 56 Jednota , May 23, I 945 , p. l; Osadne hlasy, May 25, 1945, p.4; I'.udove zvesti, June 9, 1945, p.4, and Jul y 2 1, 1945 , p.2. SLOVAKIA 25 largely headed to the metropolitan areas of Winnipeg, Fort William, Montreal and Toronto. There, they quickly copied their American countrymen and established fraternal-benefit societies, parishes and newspapers. Indeed, they originally joined American-Slovak organizations, subsc ribed to their newspapers and were served by SlovakAmerican priests and mini sters. 57 However, when the Great Depression broke out in 1929, SlovakCanadians di scovered that they had to look out for themselves. For instance, when the Slovak League of America announced that it was raising funds to provide food and clothing for its members who were in dire straits, Canadian members of the Slovak League , who had organized fifteen branches in Canada, applied for thi s " relief. " They were shocked when Jan A. Kocur, the Leag ue 's Secretary , replied that American Slovaks had only enough resources to help themselves, and could not afford to help Slovaks in Canada. 58 Therefore, led by Andrej Kucera of Winnipeg (ori ginall y from Radosovce, in Bratislava county) representatives of three Canadian branches of the Slovak League of America met in Winnipeg in 1932 and organized the Slovak League of Canada which, when it was officially incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1934, had its name changed to the Canadian Slovak League. Meanwhile, in order to help its countrymen to survive the Great Depression, leaders of the Canadian Slovak League organized it into a fratern al-benefit society, as well as a nationalist organization. 59 The national orientation of the Canadian Slovak League mirrored that of its American parent. Thus, in November of 1933 the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League sent president T . G. Masa57 For a brief history of the Slovaks in Canada see the entry by Elena Jakesova and M. Mark Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada 's Peoples, ed. By Paul R. Magocsi (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1999), 11 68-79. For a longer treatment see J. M. Kirschbaum , Slovaks in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Eth ni c Press Association of Ontario, 1967). 58 See the correspondence between Kucera and Kocur in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, Lmrich Stolarik Collection, Box 575, fo lder 7, 1928- 1934, Slovak Archives in the Archives and Special Collections, Uni versity of Ottawa and Kucera 's article on the 10th an ni versary of the fo unding of the CSL, Kanadsky Slovak, December 17, 1942, pp. 1-2. For a fuller description see " Pociatky a rozvoj Kanadskej Slovenskej Ligy ," in lmrich Stolarik ed. , Kanadska Slovenska Liga: 35 rocna: Historicky nacrt (19321967) (Toronto: Kanadska Slovenska Liga, 1967), 18-20. 59 Ibid. 2 1-26. 26 SLOVAKIA ryk of Czechoslovakia a reso lution demanding that the Pittsburgh Agreement be incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic.6() Indeed, in 1935 the two Leagues sent a joint appeal to all voters in Slovaki a to support only those political parties that recognized the Pittsburgh Agreement. 61 After Slovakia achieved its autonomy in the fall of 1938, the Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, welcomed this autonomy and congratulated Dr. Jozef Tiso, its first Prime Minister. 62 After the Slovak Diet proclaimed the independence of Slovakia on March 14th, 1939, Canadian Slovaks, like their American cousins, were initially caught off guard and divided over the issue. To clarify matters, Andrej Potocky (w ho hailed from Sedliacka Dubova, Orava county) , the secretary of the Canadian Slovak League, addressed a letter to Dr. Jozef Tiso and asked him for an explanation. Tiso replied in May in his already-mentioned "Posolstvo" and both Leagues published it in newspapers that supported their politics. 63 Thereafter, both Leagues supported the independent Slovak Republic as much as they could. The Canadian Slovak League, like its American counterpart, also rejected Edvard Benes's World War II liberation movement, as well as Milan Hodfa' s plans for a Central European federation. 64 It seriously considered sending a delegate to the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations in 1945 , but could not afford to do so. 65 Meanwhile, delegates to the 28th Congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Detroit on October 29-30th, 1946 and to the 7th Convention of the Canadian Slovak League held in neighboring Windsor on October 28-30th of the same year, iss ued a joint resolution wherein they rejected the resurrected post-war Cze60 See the "Ustredn a sprava Slov . Ligy v Kanade: Rezolucia" , dated November 6, 1933, Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. 61 Kucera to Kocur, March 30, 1935, ibid 62 Centra l Assembly of the Canadian Slovak Leag ue to Dr. Jozef Tiso, January 2 1, 1939, i..b.id... 63 Andrej Potocky to Jozef Tiso, April 20, 1939 and Jozef Tiso to Andrej Potocky, June 2, 1939 plus the ' Posolstvo" dated May 23, 1939 in ilii..d. See also Slovenske bratstvo, Jul y 21 , 1939, p.3 and Jul y 28 , 1939, p.3. 64 S lovenske bratstvo, August 4, 1939 , p.4 ; March 15, 1940, p. I; Kanadsky Slovak, August 6, 1942, p.2 and December 9, 1943 , p.2 65 Letter of Msgr. F.J. Dubosh, president of the Slovak league of Ameri ca to Jan Ivan of the Canadian Slovak League, March 25 , 1945 , papers of Andrej Kucera, QJlii1. SLOVAKIA 27 choslovakia and instead declared their support for the re-establishment of an independent Slovak Republic. 66 This political stand by both Leagues was reinforced by the arrival of post-war political refugees from Slovakia. Several thou sand supporters of the independent Slovak Republic, consisting of government officials, bureaucrats, soldiers and intellectuals fled the advancing Red Army in the winter and spring of 1945 and settled in Upper Austria and, eventually, in the defeated Germany. From there they sent appea ls to both Slovak Leagues for financial and other assistance. The two Leagues responded by sending them material goods, by arranging for surplus Red Cross packages to be distributed among them and, most importantly, by persuading the International Refugee Organization to recognize them as refugees and to help them emigrate out of war-torn Europe.67 One of the Slovak League of America's first successes was the appointment of Dr. Jozef Kirsc hbaum as its official delegate to the IRO in September of 1947.68 Kirschbaum had been the Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Switzerland for most of the 66 Indeed , the Canadian Slovak League had also deplored the April 6, 1945 "Washington Resolution" of the Slovak League of America. CF. Andrej Kucera to Msgr. F. Dubosh, October 12, 1945, Papers of Andrej Ku cera, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Box 572, file 1945 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slov;:ik, November 16, 1946, p.2 and January 2, 1947, p.3. 67 See the " Memorandum" drafted by the writer Milo Urban to the Slovak League of America dated May 30 , 1945, as publi shed on its 20th an ni versary in K anadsky Slovak, May 29, 1965, p. 2 and September 4, 1965, p.3; see also Osadne hlasy, Jul y 6, 1945, p.2, Apri l 4, 1947, p.l and April 11 , 1947, p.2; see also Kanadsky Slovak, Jul y 12, 1945, p.2. A preliminary li st of these refugees in Austria was compiled by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Switzerland and se nt to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague because the Czechoslovak government wished to " repatriate" some of them. Cf. Slove nsky narodn y arc hfv, PY , beop.- lll dov. , 1945, 6. Sept. , 1945, Ministerstvo zahrani cnfch veci. Praha, 26079/11-2/45 . No-one has yet written a schol arl y acco unt of this phenomenon as it pertains to the Slovaks. However. l:ubomfr Gleiman , one of these refugees, has penned hi s reminiscences in a manuscript entitled "Out of thi s Century ' s Mae lstro m: A Pilgrim 's Story of Disse nt and Surviva l," (Cary , NC: 200 I ). A co py of this manuscript, as well as his father' s diaries from 1944 to 1954, on whi ch the manuscript is partly based, can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library, University of Ottawa, Canada. For a general description of the plight of post-war refugees see Mark Wyman , DP: Europe 's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Philadelphia: The Balch Institute Press, 1989). 68 Kanadsky Slovak, May 27, 1948, p.2 and June I 0, 1948, p. l. 28 SLOVAKIA war. Since he had acti vely supported the creation of the Slovak Republic , he refu sed to return to post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, he worked vigorou sly with both Slovak Leagues to arrange for the emigration of hundreds of Slovaks to the USA and Canada, once these countries opened their borders to post-war refugees in 1947 and 1948. 69 As the refugees began to arrive in the United States and Canada, they quickly joined the two Slovak Leag ues and reinforced their commitment to Slovak independence. The first to come to the USA was the poet, the Rev . Mikul as Sprinc. He arrived in Jul y of 1946, settled in Cleveland, and immediate ly informed the executive of the Slovak League of what had actually transpired during the existence of the Slovak Republic.70 That is why the Slovak League, at its 28th Congress in Detroit called for a plebiscite to be held in Slovakia to decide its future and it also appealed for a fair trial for Dr. Jozef Tiso. 7 1 The latter had evacuated to Austria with the Slovak government in the dying days of the war but was turned over to Czechoslovak authorities by the victorious American Army. 72 Meanwhile, the historian Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky arrived in the USA at the end of 1947 and he also joined the Slovak League. Indeed, after Jan A. Kocu r died , Hrusovsky was elected the Secretary of the League at its 30th Congress in Chicago in March of 1948. On September 15, 1952, largely on hi s initiative, the Slovak Institute was established at the Slovak Benedictine Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio, 73 and Hrusovsky became its first director. In 1950 Dr. Jozef Pauco gained admittance to the USA. Thi s former editor of the dail y Slovak, official organ of the Slovak Peo- 69 Author interview with J.M. Kirschbaum, November 7, 1998.He recorded his political views and activities in Nas boj o sam ostatnost' Slovenska (C leveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted and updated by the Matica slovenska, 2000). 70 Paufo , 75. Rokov QJU;lL 353; Sprinc described his trip to the USA in K slobodnym pobreiiam (Scranton, PA : Obrana Press, 1949). 71 See footnote 65 . 72 For Tiso' s activities during and after World War II , as penned by hi s forme r personal secretary, see Karo l Murin, Spomienky a svedectvo (Hami lton,Ontario: Zahranicna Matica slovenska, 1987). 73 Kanadsky Slovak, October 30, 1947 , pp.1 -2, November 6, 1947 , pp.I & 7, March 17, I949, p. 1. For a short biograph y see " Dr. Frantisek Hrusovsky ," in Literarny Almanach Slovaka v Amerik e, 1967 (Middletown, PA), 16 1-2. SLOVAKIA 29 pie' s Party , initially found employment as assistant editor of the weekly fraternal Jednota , which was published in Middletown, PA. In 1958 he became editor and in 1964 also publisher of the weekly Slovak v Amerike, the oldest Slovak newspaper in America. In 1962 Pauco was elected Secretary of the Slovak League of America, a 74 post which he held until his death in 1975. Finally, in 1952 Dr. Jozef A. Mikus came to the USA. This former Slovak Charge d ' Affaires in Spain fled his homeland after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He initi ally lived in Paris but after four years he moved to Washington , D.C. For the first five years of his life in the USA he was employed by the Slovak League as its Press Secretary. After that he taught at various American colleges until his retirement. He also remained active within the Slovak League and the Slovak World Congress. 75 While a few post-war Slovak refugees managed to gain entry into the United States after the war, the majority headed for Canada, because the latter opened its doors to refugees first. Among the most important to arrive in 1949 were Dr. Karol Murin, the former personal secretary of president Jozef Tiso, Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum (mentioned earlier) and the publicist and historian Konstantin Culen. 76 In 1950 Karol Sidor, former Slovak Ambassador to the Vatican, and the most prominent of all the emigres, made his way to Montreal. 77 All of them immediately joined the Canadian Slovak League and Culen even became editor of its weekly Kanadsky Slovak from 1952 to 74 Ibid. , 200-2. Kanadsky Slovak, May 18, 1950, p.2. Ibid., 188-9. Kanadsky Slovak, January 24, 1952, p.5 and June 21 , 1952, p.7. The complete life of Jozef Mikus can be reconstructed in "The Jozef Mikus Fonds" located in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa. 76 Kanadsky S lovak, February 10, 1949, p. I; £udove zvesti, March 12. 1949, p.4, February 25, 1950, p.4. For biographies of Murin and Cu len see Literarny almanach S/ovaka v Amerike, / 967 (Middletown, PA), 129-30 and 194-95. 77 Andrej Kucera to Andrej Potocky, Apri l 6, 1950, Papers of A. Kucera, lmrich Stolarik Collec tion. Box 576, fo lder 7. 1950, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Morisset Library , University of Ottawa; Kanadsky Slovak, April 20, 1950, p.5; letter of Karol Sidor to lmrich Stolarik, January 12, 1951 , Joseph Stasko Fonds, Slovenska narodna rada v zahranicf, Box 30, Series II , File 4, Subfile 4.1 , Folder 22, ARCS 92-3 , Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, Mori sset Library, University of Ottawa. For more on Sidor see Literamy almanach I 967, 2212. 75 30 SLOVAKIA 1956. Needless to say, these emigres strengthened the League's commitment to promoting Slovak independence. Indeed, they and their American counterparts started to celebrate the anniversary of Slovak independence (Marc h 14th) as early as 1947.78 Both of the Slovak Leagues, meanwhile, denounced the execution of Dr. Jozef Tiso after he was found gui lty of treason by the Communist-dominated National Court in Bratislava in April of 1947. 79 After the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948, a new wave of political refugees fled to the West. This was a mixture of Slovaks who favored independence and those who did not. Those refugees who had fled to the west after 1945 seized the initiative and re-established the Slovak National Council Abroad in the fall of 1948 and elected Karol Sidor as its president and Peter Pridavok of London as its secretary. 80 Those who wished Czechoslovakia to continue, but were opposed to its communist government, organized themselves into the Council for a Free Czechoslovakia, led by Dr. Jozef Lettrich , the former Chairman of the postwar Democratic Party in Slovakia. 81 Both Slovak Leagues rejected Lettrich and his followers as early as 1946 and instead supported the Slovak National Council Abroad .82 Indeed, both Slovak Leagues had previously also rejected the more radical Slovak Action Committee, founded in Rome in 1946 by Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky, the first Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic .83 Rivalries between the leaders of the Slovak National Council Abroad and that of the Slovak Action Committee seeped into both Leagues and caused much in- 78 Osadne hlasy, March 14, 1947, p.l ; Kanadsky Slovak, April JO and 17, 1954, pp.2-4. 79 Osadne hlasy, April 25 , 1947, pp. I & 2; Kanadsky Slovak, May 8, 1947, p.l, October 30, 1947, pp. 1-2 and November 6, 1947, pp. I & 7; for the reminiscences of the chief prosecutor and the chief defense attorney at thi s trial see Proces s dr. 1. Tisom (Bratislava: Tatra Press, 1990). 8 Kanadsky Slovak, June 24, 1948 , p.3 , December I6, 1948 , p. I and December 30, 1948, p.3 ; Kirschbaum , Nas boj, QJ1.&iL (2000) , 370- 1. 81 Spetko, "Slovenska exi lova," QJ1.&iL 247-8. 82 Kanadsky Slovak, April 11 , 1946, p.5; Ferdinand Durcansky to Andrej Kucera, September 8, 1949, in Papers of A. Kucera, Correspondence with Refugees in Europe, Box 572, lmrich Stolarik Fonds, Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 83 Durcansky, Ibid. For more on Durcansky see Literarny almanach 1967 , 137-9. ° SLOVAKIA 31 fighting among both in the 1950's. 84 The matter was finally settled in 1960 when the two sides decided to merge into the Slovak Liberation Council, with two co-chairmen: Dr. Jozef Kirschbaum in Toronto (Sidor had died in 1953) and Dr. Ferdinand Durcansky in Munich. 85 Meanwhile, in 1962, Dr. Peter P. Hletko, once again became president of the Slovak League of America, which had undergone some turbulent times. Hletko had succeeded Filip A. Hrobak, editor of Jednota , who had become president in 1950 . The American-born Hrobak was an activist, who had established the Slovak League 's Information Office in Washington in 1952, as well as the Englishlanguage periodical Slovakia in 1950 to champion the independence of his cousins overseas. Meanwhile, Hrobak also had to referee an intense rivalry that broke out between various factions in the League, a rivalry that resulted in the di smissal of Konstantfn Culen from the directorship of the Slovak institute in Cleveland (he had come down from Canada in 1956 and was made director of the Institute shortly after the death of Hrusovsky in the same year) and his banishment from Slovak-American life. 86 Hletko, who had largely been responsible for Culen's dismissal, congratulated the Canadian Slovak League on its 30th anniversary and remarked that it had become " more active" than the Slovak League of America. 87 He may have had in mind the fact that, on March 16th, 1953 (strategically close to the 14th anniversary of Slovak independence on March 14th), the First 84 See the letter of A. Ku cera to Jozef Siksa dated March 20, 1950 as well as the circ ul ar letter of Ferdinand Durcansky dated February 9, 1951, an undated letter from early 195 1, as well as letters from Michael Yargovic , president of the First Catholic Union , dated February 19, 1951 and Fi lip A. Hrobak, president of the Slovak League of America, dated February 20. 1951 , in the Papers of A. Kucera, Qlhci..!.; see also Kanadsky Slovak, January 17, 1952, p.3 and February 14, 1952, p.2, and November 5, 1955, p.2. See also l',udove zves ti. February I, 1958, p.6, and March I, 1958, p.4. 85 Kanadsky Slovak, October 11 , 1958, p.1 , March 2 1, 1959, p.1 , June 4, 1960, p.1 and June 18, 1960, p. I ; l',udove zvesti, September I, 1960, p.6 86 Kanadsky Slovak, June 8, 1950, p.1 , June 2 1, 1952, p.7 , June 27, 1959, p.1 ; I.:udove zvesti, June 17, 1950, p.2 ; for Konstantin Cu len's problems with Hletko and other American Slovak leaders see hi s V zajatf fa losnych legiend od nenavistneho srdca, 11 Vols. (Mim ieographed, New York, 1961). Frantisek Ynuk, in his Z ivotopis Konstantfna Culena (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1984), 190-93 also touched on this problem. 87 Kanadsky Slovak, December 15 , 1962, p. I. Filip A. Hrobak, a few years earlier, had expressed simi lar sentiments ; cf. Kanadsky S lovak, July 18, 1959, p. I. 32 SLOVAKIA District Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League had organized a gala banquet at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Leag ue. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, four cabi net ministers and 25 mem bers of the Canadian Parliament attended! 88 Thi s diplomati c "coup" by the Canadian Slovak League was not matched by its American counterpart. The most the Slovak League of America was able to accomplish on the diplomatic front in the l 950's was to arrange a meeting with officials of Radio Free Europe in 1953 and wi th Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in October of 1956. 89 Nothing came of these meetings. Peter P. Hletko also noticed that the Canadian Slovak League was both younger than its parent organization and had more youthful members. In thi s respect he may have been thinking of Stephen B. Roman, who had come to Oshawa, Canada from Velky Ruskov, Slovakia as a 16 year-old in 1937. Through a seri es of shrewd investments in the 1940's and 1950's, Roman had become a multi-millionaire in Canada's uranium industry. Roman was an active member of the Canadi an Slovak League who had lobbied for the early adm ittance of Slovak post-war political refugees, and who supported the movement for Slovak independence.90 As a devout Greek Catholi c, in 1963 Roman took a leading role in the 1100th anniversary celebrations of the arri val of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Slovak territory, he contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Rome in that same year, he was a lay observer to the Second Vatican Council (l 962-1965) and he successfull y lobbied the Vatican to appoint a Slovak Greek Catholic bishop in Canada ( 1965), as well as to create a Slovak Greek Catholic Eparchy (diocese) in Toronto in 1980. 9 1 88 The most comprehensive treatment of th is banquet can be found in " Historicky banket Kanad. Slov. Ligy v Ottawe," in lmrich Stolarik ed., Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35 rocna (Toronto: Canad ian Slovak League, 1967), 268-75. 89 Kanadsk f Slovak, Jul y 18, 1953, p.4 and November 10, 1956, p.5. 90 Slovenske bratstvo (Montreal), Apri l 25 , 1941 , p.3 ; Kanadskf Slovak, April 16, 1943, p.10, December 16, 1943, p.7, May 24, 1945 , p.5, October 4, 1945, September 3, 1955 , p.5, October 20, 1956, p.5, October 19, 1957 , p.3. For a sympathetic biography of Roman see Peter C. Newman, Th e Canadian Establishment, I (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, I975), 269-72. 91 Kanadskf Slovak, November 25 , 1961 , p.2 , Jul y 6, 1963 , p.l, October 3, 1964, p.l, October 17, 1964, p. l , January 9, 196 1, p.l , January 3, 198 1, p. I and February SLOVAKIA 33 Roman ' s greatest achievement, however, was to establish the Slovak World Congress. Even though he had been a member of the Canadian Slovak League since the early 1940's, Roman lamented the fact that Slovaks in the Western world were divided into so many different organizations.92 He first attempted to bring together the Canadian Slovak League and its rival Canadian Slovak Benefit Society in 1969 but failed .93 Then , angered by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , Roman decided to approach various individuals and organizations to issue an appeal to all Slovak organizations the world over to unite in the struggle to overthrow Communism in the homeland and to seek self-determination for the Slovak nation. The appeal was signed by the presidents of the Slovak League of America, the Canadian Slovak League, the National Slovak Society, Stephen B. Roman , three bishops and an abbot. As a result, in July of 1970 representatives of dozen s of Slovak organizations the world over, including the Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League, met in New York City and created the Slovak World Congress.94 For the next twenty years the Slovak World Congress, led by Stephen B. Roman, worked to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over. It held meetings in many of the major cities of the world, including Toronto, New York, Washington, Chicago, Munich and Rome; it sponsored scholarly conferences which published their proceedings; it organized Slovak world youth festival s and it published a monthly Bulletin. The two Slovak Leagues participated in most of these ventures. 95 Indeed , the two Slovak Leagues, at first independently, and later working within the Slovak World Congress, successfully lobbied the Vatican to create an independent archbis- 21, 198 1, p. I. Kanadsky Slovak, January 4, 1945, p. 3. 93 Kanadsky S lovak, Septe mber 20 , 1969 , p. I. Nove mber 15, 1969, p. I, June 6, 1970, p. l. 94 Kanadsky S lovak, March 2 1, 1970. p.l , June 26, 197 1, p. l , Jul y 4, 1970, p. l , Jul y 11 , 1970, p. l. 95 The first ten years of the Congress were described by J.M. Kirschbaum in Desa t' rokov cinnosti SKS (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981 ); a short summary was written by Dusan T6th, the Sec retary-General of the Congress from 1971 to 1990 in Kanadsky Slovak , September 10, 2005, p.4. T here is not yet a scholarl y history of the entire period of the Congress's ex istence. 92 34 SLOVAKIA hopric and church province in Slovakia. Their dream came true in 1977 , although the communist government blocked the appointment of an archbishop until 1988. 96 Thi s was a sy mbolic victory for the two Leagues and the Slovak World Congress because it gave Slovakia its own church jurisdiction, which implied that the Slovaks could also have their own state. Unfortunately for all concerned, Stephen B. Roman died in 1988, just one year before Czechoslovakia threw off its communist rulers.97 With its patron gone, the Slovak World Congress slowly withered away. The two Slovak Leagues, on the other hand , sprang into action. The Canadian Slovak League sent a delegation to Slovakia in February of 1990, to urge Slovak leaders to seek either more homerule or else complete independence. 98 The Slovak League of America likewise sent a delegation in May of 1990 for the same purpose.99 Both Slovak Leagues started a fund-raising campaign for various Slovak causes, and both rejoiced when Slovakia became independent in 1993. 100 Since then both Leagues have cooperated with the various Slovak governments to spread the good name of the Slovaks the world over and to help Slovakia in its transition from a communist dictatorship to a democratic and capitalist society. It should be apparent, therefore, that the Slovak League of America, and the Canadian Slovak League, remained dedicated to Slovak self-determination throughout the 20th century. During World War I 96 See, for instance, the Memorandum of the Central Assembly of the Canadian Slovak League to the Vati can requesting a Church Province and an Archbi shop for Slovaki a, Kanadsky Slovak, September 25, 1965, p. l . J. M. Kirschbaum had firs t suggested thi s move in 1959, Ibid. , and Peter Mulik, " Usilie o zriaden ie slovenskej cirkev nej provincie od roku 1939 a jej vyvoj po sucasnost:" in Mulik ed., Katolfcka cirkev a Slovaci: Us ilie Slovakov o samostatnti cirkevnti provinciu (Brati slava: Bernolakova spolocnost: 1997), 68. 97 See the special iss ue of the monthly Maria (Toronto), May, 1988 for many eulogies concerning the life and achievements of Stephen B. Roman. 98 Smer (Bratislava), February 15, 1990 and Praca (Brati slava), February 16, 1990. See also Rudolf Schu ster's Ultim atum (Bratislava, 1996), pp.101 -2 and the photo section between pages 96 and 97. 99 Slovak v Amerike, June, 1990. I happened to be a member of this del egation. We traveled all over Slovakia, met with governme nt officials, journalists and students and urged them to seek more self-determ ination or independence. See al so Schuster's Ultimatum, op. cit. , 224-5. 100 Kanadsky Slovak, January 2, 1993 ; Slovak v Amerike, January issue, 1993. SLOVAKIA 35 the Slovak League of America spoke on behalf of its brethren in Slovakia when the latter could not do so. Since T. G. Masaryk had no mandate from Slovaks in Hungary to create a new state consisting of Czechs and Slovaks, the Slovak League of America gave him that mandate in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Agreements. Since Masaryk and hi s followers did not respect the promises that they had made guaranteeing Slovaks home-rule in Czechoslovakia, both the Slovak Leag ue of America, and its Canadian offshoot, the Canadian Slovak League, demanded home-rule for the Slovaks in the inter-war period. When Slovakia unexpectedly became independent in 1939, both Leagues, after some hesitation, supported thi s independence. After Czechoslovakia was restored by the victorious Allies, both Slovak Leagues supported a return to Slovak independence, especiall y after the arrival in North America of several thou sa nd political refu gees . During the communist era (1948-1989) both Leagues denounced the communi st regime that ruled over their overseas cousins and they co ntinued to demand Slovak independence. After the Communists gave up their power in 1989, both Leagues urged the Slovaks to either demand more home-rule or else complete independence from the Czechs. When Slovakia finally became independent on January 1, 1993 , both Leagues rejoiced and pledged to help it grow and prosper.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation, 1907-1992 Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 39 (No. 72-73), 2007 pp. 7-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/5daeb5886d2db173574ea0230273ca70.pdf 811db6938405321f6af578fbb5e18ef3 PDF Text Text SLOV AKIA-2015 87 MY ROCKY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MATICA SLOVENSKA. DURING THE SECOND ERA OF COMMUNISM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1970-1989: A PERSONAL MEMOIR M. Mark Stolarik When I first visited Slovakia in the summer of 1968, I established friendly contacts with the Matica slovenska in Martin . 1 Never did I dream that, a short while later, one of its employees would publicly attack me. This happened because the political situation in Czechoslovakia changed as a result of the Warsaw Pact invasion of August, 1968. The so-called "Prague Spring," led by the Slovak reformer Alexander Dubcek, who wished to transform Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," was crushed under the weight of Warsaw Pact tanks. Less than a year later, Dubcek was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia by the turncoat Gustav Husak, who proceeded to "normalize" the state. What started out as a year of high hopes turned into one of great disappointment. 2 Even though I was born in Slovakia in 1943, my parents decided to evacuate the whole family into Austria before the Russian front came through in January of 1945 . I did not return to my home town of Martin until July of 1968. 3 Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the National Library, which then belonged to the Matica slovenska, 1 A shorter, Slovak version of this article first appeared as "Matica slovenska pod dohl'adom Statnej bezpecnosti," in Matica slovenska v narodnych dejinach, ed. by Imrich Sedlak (Martin : Matica slovenska, 2013), 174-78. I initially described this trip in greater detail as "My Memories of Slovakia under Communism (S ummer of 1968)," in Narodny kalendar CVII (Pittsburgh, 1999), 96-99 . 2 For the latest scholarship on the " Prague Spring" see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Stolarik (Mundelein, IL: Bolchazi-Carducci, 2010). For the period of "normalization" in Slovakia see Norbert Kmet' and Juraj Marusiak, comp., S/ovensko a reiim normalizacii (Presov: Michal Vasko, 2002). 3 1 described my family's Odyssey, as well as Slovak emigration in general, in Where is my Home? Slovak Emigration to North America (1870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). �88 SLOV AKIA-2015 heartily welcomed me. He was delighted that, after so many years of being cut off from the West, he could once again establish contacts with Slovaks in the West. 4 I had come to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 as a Ph.D. student from the University of Minnesota in order to study the villaie origins of Slovak emigration to North America in the 19 th and 20 centuries. I had already studied the parish records of various Slovak communities in the United States and Canada and wished to link them with those in Slovakia. At the same time, I had started to collect archival materials for the newly-established Immigrant Archives at the University of Minnesota. When I finished my research in Slovakia in September of 1968, I promised Telgarsky, that I would begin to send duplicate archival and library materials concerning Slovaks in the USA and Canada to the Slovak National Library in return for the SNL sending me the latest publications of historians in Slovakia. 5 After I finished my doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, I was employed by several professional institutions but never lost contact with the Matica slovenska. At first I was employed by the Cleveland State University as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor (1972-76), then as an Historical Researcher at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa (1977-78), then as President and CEO of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia (1979-91) and finally as Professor and Chairholder of the only Chair in Slovak History and Culture in the Western World at the University of Ottawa (1992 to the present). During all of these years I continued my program of exchange with the Matica slovenska. I wish that I could say that our relations were always good, but it was not to be. While I worked at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, I took the initiative to establish a new scholarly organization. In 1975 a Czechoslovak History Conference had been founded by a group of historians in the United States. 6 From my study of Czech and Slovak history, I knew that, as always, Slovak history, and Slovak scholars, 4 When I returned to the USA, it occurred to me that Jozef Telgarsky was the author of my favorite children's book - Zirafa [The Giraffe] (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1946). While we were refugees in Austria from 1945-1950, my mother often read me sections of this book. I still have it and cherish it. 5 JozefTelgarsky to Marian Stolarik, May 13, 1969, NK 289 20/69-St. See Appendix 1, page 97. 6The history of this organization can be found in its Czechoslovak History Ne wsletter, founded in 1979. �SLOV AKIA-2015 89 would play "second fiddle" in such an organization. Therefore, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Washington, D.C. in October of 1977, I persuaded half a dozen scholars in the USA and Canada to create our own Slovak Studies Association. Since I took the initiative in founding this organization, I was elected its first Secretary-Treasurer and Newsletter Editor. I then contacted as many scholars as I knew had an interest in Slovak studies and invited them to join. By 1983 our ranks had grown to 120 members. Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies accepted us as an affiliated organization and the officers and I organized regular sessions of the Slovak Studies Association at the annual meetings of the AAASS. 7 As Newsletter Editor, I also informed our members of recent scholarly developments in Slovakia, as well as of the activities and publications of our members. Meanwhile, in 1968 the Matica slovenska began to publish a semi-weekly newspaper entitled Maticne citanie and put me on its mailing list. 8 At the beginning this newspaper reflected a good dose of Slovak nationalism and on its masthead carried a stylized Slovak national emblem, which had been banned by the Communists. 9 However, under the weight of Gustav Husak's, "normalization" campaign, in 1973 the Slovak emblem disappeared from the Matica's letterhead and in 1978 the Maticne citanie folded . It was then replaced by the glossy monthly Slovensko. At the same time, Jozef Telgarsky no longer corresponded with me. Instead, two hard-line Communists, at first Jaroslav Celko and later Stefan Krivus, both Directors of the Matica, continued the correspondence. The masthead of their letters no longer carried the Slovak emblem; it was replaced by the letters MS , for the Matica slovenska. 10 It was clear from these changes that the Matica was being purged . Nevertheless, I kept exchanging materials with the Matica and hoped for the best. 7 The history of the Slovak Studies Association can be found in the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association, published since October, 1977. Recently the AAASS changed its name to the American Association for Slavic and Eurasian Studies. 8 A complete run of this newspaper can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 9 See the first issue of Maticne citanie dated October 28, 1968, Appendix 2, pages 98-99. 10 See the letters of Jaroslav Celko, dated March 27, 1973 and Stefan Krivus, dated October 23, 1974 to Mark Stolarik, Appendices 3, page 100, and App 4, page 10 I. �90 SLOV AKIA-2015 Unfortunately, in the 1980's my relations with the Matica slovenska took a tum for the worse. The first sign that something was amiss came in 1980 when the "Oddelenie pre zahranicnych Slovakov" (the Department for Slovaks Abroad) of the Matica slovenska sponsored an international scholarly conference on "Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete" (Emigration and the Life of Countrymen Abroad) and published the papers.11 Even though I had met and befriended Jan Siracky, the Director, and Frantisek Bielek, one of their researchers in 1968 when the Department was established in Bratislava, and they knew that I specialized in the history of the immigration of Slovaks to North America, they did not invite me to this conference. Instead, they invited my good friend and colleague Thomas D. Marzik (originally Mrazik), an Associate Professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. A scholar of Central Europe, Marzik specialized on T.G. Masaryk and the Slovakophile Czech Karel Kalal. He had done no archival research on Slovak immigration. Nevertheless, the conference organizers asked him to present a paper on "The State of American Scholarly Research on Slovak Emigration and on American Slovaks," which he read in English, since he could not speak Slovak. He must have taken the conference organizers by surprise when he asserted, among other things, that "M. Mark Stolarik is currently the most productive scholar concerning the history American Slovaks," and then added, "currently, he is the Executive Director of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia... .In this capacity, he can be very helpful in encouraging further research on American Slovaks." 12 When I received a copy of the Proceedings of this conference, I no longer regretted not having been invited. As I leafed through the book, I noticed that the conference had been opened by Viliam Salgovic, at that time the Chairman of the Slovak National Council, but formerly the Deputy Minister of the Interior in 1968, who betrayed his colleagues in the "Prague Spring" by collaborating with the invading Warsaw Pact forces . It turns out that Salgovic had been an agent of the Soviet KGB and was one of the most hated individu11 Vyst'ahova/ectvo a iivot krajanov vo svete. K storocnici masoveho vyst'ahova/ectva s/ovenskeho /'udu do zamoria. Zbornik prispevkov k vedeckej konferencii. Zost. Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky a Claude Balaz (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1982). 12 Ibid., 131-32. The compilers arranged for Marzik's article to be translated into Slovak. �SLOVAKIA-2015 91 als in Slovakia. 13 Furthermore, the conference organizers also invited the retired grade-school teacher and communist activist Helen Vrabel-Saunders of Los Angeles and the Canadian Slovak communist activist Jan Rumisek to present papers on the Slovak communities in their respective countries. 14 These individuals reflected poorly on the scholarly level of this conference. When Marzik returned to Philadelphia and described the conference to me, he mocked the presentations of these so-called "experts." However, when the Proceedings arrived in the mail in 1982, I mocked Marzik for the company he had kept. The second bad sign from Czechoslovakia came in 1982. At that time my wife and I had decided that, even though the Matica did not invite me to its scholarly conference, we would visit our native Slovakia on our own. As was required at that time, we applied for a visitor 's visa to Czechoslovakia, but, much to our surprise, the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington denied our application, without any explanation. 15 When we had visited Czechoslovakia in the summers of 1968 and 1970, we had acquired visas without any difficulty. The third bad sign occurred in 1983 when, to my great surprise, a certain writer for the Matica's monthly Slovensko, began to attack me. Even though he signed his articles as Milos Biel, he was, in fact, Miroslav Andreansky, a collaborator of the STB (State Security), who edited the Cudzojazicnu prilohu (Foreign-Language Supplement) of Slovensko. 16 In the 1970's, using the cover name Tacovsky, he had served a spy for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in West Germany. 17 13 For Salgovic's welcoming remarks see Ibid., 12-16. For his role in the "Prague Spring" see William Shawcross, Dubcek (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970), 154. Soon after the Communists relinquished power during the "Velvet Revolution" in I 989, Salgovic committed suicide. 14 For their papers see Vyst'ahova/ectvo, 270-87 and 340-42. 15 Chief of the Visa Section (unreadable signature), Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to Mark Stolarik, June 4, 1982 (in author's personal papers) . 16 Dr. Tomas Klubert, an employee of the Ustav pamdti naroda (The Nation 's Memory Institute) of the Slovak Republic, in a reply to my query dated September 3, 2010, confirmed that Andreansky was indeed a collaborator of the STB. His cover name was "Korunka." Unfortunately, his file was shredded on October 8t11, 1988. 17 See the article"Co na to pan Prokes?" published in the monthly Svedectvo: Casopis politickych vdznov na Slovensku, I, no. 4 (April 1992), page 18. �92 SLOV AKIA-2015 Andreansky/Biel had learned about the Slovak Studies Association from Thomas D. Marzik. The Matica slovenska had invited the latter to another international conference in Martin on July 5-7, 1983, on the occasion of the Matica's 120th anniversary. Knowing that the Matica had once again failed to invite Stolarik to this conference, Marzik urged it to establish formal relations with the Slovak Studies Association and also to invite "more American experts" to future conferences.18 Andreansky/Biel replied to Marzik's appeal in the Foreign Language Supplement of the August issue of Slovensko. In an article entitled "?Slovak Studies Association?" Andreansky/Biel wrote: "Direct contact with such leading personalities in the SSA as Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, M. Mark Stolarik and Renee Mikus, because of their hostility [towards the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic] are, at the moment, impossible." 19 This reply was laughable, because neither Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, nor Renee Mikus, held any office in the SSA! I suspect that Stan Kirschbaum was on the "black list" of Czechoslovak authorities because he was the son of Jozef Kirschbaum, who at that time was one of the Executive VicePresidents of the Slovak World Congress and Renee Mikus was married to Jozef Mikus, who also held a high office in the SWC. Indeed, both the elderly Kirschbaum and his colleague Mikus were former diplomats in the service of the first Slovak Republic (1939-1945) as well as members of the Slovak People 's Party, and, as such, supporters of Slovak independence. 20 Thus, they were anathema to the Husak regime. Andreansky/Biel probably did not like Mark Stolarik because he was the son of Imrich Stolarik, also a former member of the Slovak People's Party and, therefore a "separatist" who often wrote articles advocating Slovak independence in the weekly 18 Thomas D. Marzik, "K problematike Slovensko-americkych akademickych vzt'ahov," in Zahranicni S/ovaci a narodne kulturne dedictvo: Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho seminara k 120. vyrociu zaloienia Matice s/ovenskej, compiled by Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1984), 10109. Once again, the Matica arranged to translate Marzik' s article into Slovak. 19 Slovensko, 8 (August, 1983), Foreign Language Supplement. See Appendix 5, gage 102. °For the history of the first ten years of the Slovak World Congress, see Desat' rokov cinnosti SKS, comp . by JozefM. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981). For the struggle for Slovak independence, see J. M . Kirschbaum, Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovensko (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted by the Matica slovenska, Martin, 2000). �SLOVAKIA-2015 93 Kanadsky Slovak. For this reason Andreansky/Biel wrote to Mark Stolarik on November 14, 1983 and asked the latter to repudiate an article written by his father in Kanadsky Slovak on September 24, 1983, which had criticized the August issue of Slovensko.2 1 Andreansky/Biel even promised to publish Stolarik' s reply in the next issue of Slovensko! Instead, Mark Stolarik wrote to Andreansky/Biel as follows : "I will not polemicize with you . Your job is to create propaganda. Mine is to write history. In this instance, I will have the last word." 22 Andreansky/Biel ' s letter showed that, at that time he had more power in the Matica slovenska than its president, the "Narodny umelec" (national artist) and writer Vladimir Mi nae, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. After having read Andrensky/Biel's attack upon me in Slovensko, I complained to Mi nae in a letter dated September 3, 1983 .23 In his reply of October 4, 1983, Minac wrote the following: "I am sorry about what happened in the periodical Slovensko . I have no direct control over the editorial content of the magazine, but, as much as I can, I will try to prevent such future misunderstandings." 24 Meanwhile, Victor S. Mamatey, considered the "dean" of Czech and Slovak historians in the United States, also reacted to the machinations of the Matica slovenska. In the Slovak monthly Horizont, published by emigres in Switzerland, he wrote the following: Slovaks abroad need cultural contacts with their homeland and Slovakia needs contacts with Slovaks abroad . Unfortunately, at the moment such contacts are weak and inadequate. The Matica and the entire regime need to understand that not they, but Slovaks abroad have the right to decide who will represent them at conferences and who will properly interpret their needs. 25 Vladimir Minac could not have been sincere in his reply to Mark Stolarik's complaint because, as indicated above, Andreansky/Biel wrote me again on November 141\ Furthermore, in 1988, during the 21 Milos Biel to Mark Stolarik, November 14, 1983 . See Appendix 6, page 103 . See also Appendix 7, page I 04, for the article in Kanadsky Slowik, September 24, 1983 . 22 Mark Stolarik to Milos Biel, November 29, 1983. See Appendix 8, page 105 . 23 Mark Stolarik to Vladimir Mimic, September 3, 1983 . See Appendix 9, pages 106 and 107. 24 Vladimir Minac to Mark Stolarik, October 4, 1983 . See Appendix 10, page 108. 25 Horizon/ (Zurich), September-October, 1983. �94 SLOV AKIA-2015 era of "Glasnost" and "Perestrojka," as promoted in the Soviet Union and its satellites by General Secretary Mikhail Goobachev in the late 1980's,2.6 I was finally invited to attend another Matica conference in Bratislava. There I met Vladimir Mimic at a Matica-sponsored reception at Bratislava Castle. After the opening ceremonies ended, a tipsy Mimic approached me and asked in a voice reeking of wine "ci vas otec stale serie do toho Kanadskeho Slovaka?" (Is your father still crapping into Kanadsky Slovak?) .27 This vulgar question revealed what was really bothering Minac (and Andreansky/Biel): that my father was freely advocating independence for Slovakia in Kanadsky Slovak. Another reason why Andreansky/Biel attacked me in Slovensko is that I revealed the truth about how it was published. When Tom Marzik returned from the second Matica conference in 1983, he promptly informed me that Slovensko was published in two versions : one for domestic consumption and one for Slovaks abroad. Only the foreign version contained a "Foreign Language Supplement," which carried news about the activities of Slovaks in the wider world. I informed the readers of the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association of these two versions in the June, I 984 issue.28 In its August 22 nd issue, the largest-circulation Slovak-American newspaper, the Jednota, official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, congratulated me for having provided this information. It pointed out that the Matica slovenska was sending Slovensko for free to Slovaks all over the world, and they had no idea that it was published in two versions.29 This information so infuriated Andreansky/Biel that he reacted with a full-page response in the January, 1985 issue of Slovensko. The jist of his response was that the publishers of Slovensko did not have enough paper to offer the "Foreign Language Supplement" to domestic readers.30 The best reaction to this absurd excuse came from Juraj Virsik, editor of the Slovak-Australian Monitor. In an article beginning with the Slovak proverb "Trafena hus zagaga," (A Struck Goose 26 For the Gorbachev era see Angus Roxburgh, The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin (London : BBC Books, 1991). 27 1 described this episode in greater detail under the pseudonym Leo Carpenter in "Looking for Mr. Glasnost in Today ' s Czechoslovakia," in the monthly Crisis: A Journal of Lay Catholic Opinion, 7, no. 7 (July-August, 1989), 33-39. 28 "Slovensko for Two Audiences," SSA Newsletter, 8, no. 1 (June, 1984), p. 13. 29 Jednota (Middletown, PA), August 22, 1984. 30 Slovensko, 1 (1985), "Cudzojazycna priloha.," Appendix 11 , pages 109 and 110. �SLOVAKIA-2015 95 will Squawk), Virsik provocatively suggested that, if Slovakia indeed suffered from a shortage of paper, it could easily turn to the Bulletin of the Slovak World Congress, published in Canada, which had an abundance of newsprint, and the Bulletin would willingly publish any news that the Matica might send it. 31 Andreansky-Biel did not react to Virsik's article. Finally, in 1988, probably as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which also penetrated into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the Matica slovenska invited Mark Stolarik to another of its scholarly conferences, this time to be held in Bratislava on July 46. When I arrived in Bratislava and met with Frantisek Bielik, whom I had not seen since 1970, I asked him who was Miloslav Andreansky/Milos Biel? A surprised Bielik answered, "Don't you know?" "No, I don ' t," I replied. "But, you must know, he continued ." "No I don ' t, I answered." He was still afraid to openly tell me. I then asked where was Andreansky/Biel? Bielik answered, "in Martin." Perhaps Andreansky/ Biel did not attend the conference for fear that I would confront him . As a result, I never met him. After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia, I inquired about his whereabouts and discovered that Andreansky/ Biel had left the Matica and was living in Vrutky, a small railroad town north of Martin. He had apparently joined the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party and was its representative in that town. Since I had met and befriended Jozef Prokes, one of the founders of the Slovak National Party, when he had visited Canada in 1992, I wrote to Prokes and asked him how it was that a former collaborator of the STB was now working for the Slovak National Party?32 Prokes did not answer my letter. Meanwhile, many interesting individuals attended the Bratislava conference. After I presented my paper on the declining use of the Slovak language in the United States, 33 an elderly gentleman ap31 Slovak-Australian Monitor (March, 1985). See Appendix 12, page 111. Mark Stolarik to Jozef Prokes, August 27, 1992 (author's archive). When I visited the Matica at another conference in February of 2013, and once again inquired about the whereabouts of Andreansky/Biel, the older employees, who had known him, sheepishly answered that a few years earlier he had passed away. 33 "A Historical Perspective on the Declining Use of the Slovak Language in the United States of America," in Zahranicni Slowici a materinsky jazyk. Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho symposia k 125. vyrociu zaloienia Matice slovenskej, " comp. by Frantisek Bielik and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1990), I 7277. 32 �96 SLOVAKIA-2015 proached me. He was Dr. Belo Polla, an employee of the Matica in the l 940's, who had been purged and later found himself working for the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra, approached me. He was delighted that, in my presentation, I had mentioned his former colleagues at the Matica such as its director J.C. Hronsky and the publicist Konstantin Culen, as well as the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky and the journalist Jozef Pauco. He added that those names had been "taboo" in Czechoslovakia in the previous years. He was also delighted that emigres such as the linguist I:ubomir Durovic of Sweden and the political scientist Milan Durica of Italy were able to participate in the conference. Such was the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which would eventually lead to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe during the summer and fall of 1989.34 After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in November of 1989, the situation in the Matica slovenska immediately improved. The "old guard" either retired or was fired and the new leaders of the Matica immediately re-established friendly contacts with Slovaks in the West. There were no longer any attacks in the monthly Slovensko against me or any other members of the Slovak Studies Association. Indeed, in 1991 the Matica signed a formal agreement between the University of Ottawa and itself in which it pledged to supply the newly-established Chair in Slovak History and Culture all the books that it needed in order to properly function .35 As a result, in January, 1992, the Chair received hundreds of recently-published books from the Matica and this program of exchange continues to this day. Thus, since 1989 the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa and the Matica slovenska (and its National Library, which split off in 2000), continue to have good relations. 36 34 For the "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia see Jozef Zatkuliak et. al., Nove mber '89: Medznik vo vyvoji slovenskej spolocnosti a jeho medzinarodny kontext (Bratislava: Historicky ustav SA V vo vydavatel'stve Prodama, 2009). 35 Agreement between the Matica slovenska in Martin and the University of Ottawa (Chair in Slovak History and Culture), signed by Marcel Hamelin, Rector, University of Ottawa, September 4, 1991 and Imrich Sedlak, Director, Matica slovenska, November 18, 1991 (author's archive). 36 The National Library of Slovakia split off from the Matica slovenska on July 1, 2000. E-mail from Maria Kurhajcova to Mark Stolarik, July 21, 2000 (author's archive). �SLOV AKIA-2015 97 APPENDIX 1 L C V C: N S K A ,'J • )S1;'ELK A A AOU RE P UHLth Y M A ls1:TIN. Mudrol"lova ,e . 3:i. t e lefOn 2348. 2347 , 2340, :it34Q , 3 197 University of Minnesota, College of Liberal ArtsDepartment of History, Mr. M. St O l 8 r i k M_i_n_n_e_a_e_o_l_i_s Minnesota 55455 - US A v•l i l:111 :rn.a.6k,y1:a, o d,'\.-. 30.III.1969 Na" :an•~k.:i r:r:""maja 1969 l>'K .t.'7 20/69-St Voe Vazen:f pan Stolarik, Na VaA list z 30. marca 1969, ktory ate p!sali Dr . Sir ackemu , oznamujeme V!lm, l!e mikrofillll.Y lfosopisov "Obzor" a "Dom a 1!kol'l" sa ul! r-obia a koncom ~ Vam ich po!!leme. Obzor od roku 1863 do roku 1905 /41 ro~n!kov/ a Dom a Akola od roku 1885 do roku 1897 /13 ro~nikov/. Z ~asopisu Dom a §kola Vam zasielame 4 ro~n!lcy ~ascpisu, kedze mame viac exemplarov. Dufame, l!e Vam to vyhovie. PokiaY ide o pletenie, snhlasime a tym, aby ate nam poslsli mikrofil111.Y: Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, Slovak v Amerike, Jednota a Narodne noviny, pretol!e ni~ v uplnosti nemAme. MOzete nam tiel! oznami t, kde v USA sa tieto ~asopisy na.cMdzaju v uplnosti. Sme radi, ze ste sa ohlasili a ponukame Vam aj dal§iu spolupracu. Ochotne Vam yoaleme zo Slovenska vAetko, ~o potrebujete z novej literatucy a mOze prist do uvahy aj star§ia literatllra, pretoze mame dost dubletov. Boli by sme radi, keby sa na University of Minnesota vybudovalo slu§ne oddelenie slovenskej historickej /alebo inej, podYa potreby/ literatllry. Te§ime ea ns spolupracu s Vsmi a srde~ne Vas pozdravujeme .J ,;R I 1} /lflftl,,\ riadi teY ,N&J-.~nej ' knHnice Ma ti,ce i-'~ lovenske j Dr. J. 'Telgarslcy ~ List bol vrateny, dl\a 27. VI.1969! neznemy �~ \ 1 ~, ' j •t . 1 t ► rr-• .-.... 1..-.••........~-, }:,.\,,_" ·, 1 .. -~·\·.t Propa1atd i!lslo ~"i'darr ... -- J} •~\i ~ · ,, ... .,i\ 1-, ~.c 1·1 •• -~ '; ::;, ' {:,:~ ."1'. •%·"'" ,, __ ~~. • -~ \l ' if ::, ,_ l.;.t.•~~·~ ! ,, '... . · f }If n•Yhno1U 1141- • n« lrult6ru v61:»c, l kullt\rn, ,1:1tvrat ma• .:.zmi. ~~:,,,d:.n.tuh~':!~:.!P~I~,,f ~6,an11 T~PI opqitl~ -,:a b ~ I ,tart JJlllOd' f:111V1tov1J price, • luqttry, lap ako J,)q-lSWCn61µt ~tDltela. lkO ntitro)a. 1, aOC(&llatlc);QIZ\ n•dt-ln,U •Yte' Jebb dobr<d. tradld u, rw n11 t'.'!: =:r.u~~:mi:"!4~• 9!:-=~~::;~ •:~;VJ~~, J• to ~~•~~,b(~~~•v:d;:,,:i=!t~1 = I ~ ron9J1 1l4rodMt, U1f6rr, na prOdeate dn1f ill'1Mtt d.lliliom• fta,ahl1 • napokon l • llltwtdfctou D6~J\:-:a~·":iii!:;,:*..:r::r.' ~~~=·~l: :~~~ • _,,1 ' OT,VA·RAM.E\J,i:\i- ~l, T MeM ~• ''f'iW'• Hu If VfcW..o p,~ ftf'1 chr4'f"M ,q .t~ •.rl#ttf• ~awo po~o, .Jl«)fjatqj ~J\lt~ tUl&V, pred'Htn4lt# 4 mu 6-u,,:Ericuc/1'«/l ~' I ~ ltc&1ic ~,ut OfH'.:UjN Mprifie' ,o. N-.i6~ ho ~,=~~~.;::; ,1,ottt P"lhl¥• 100/•j ,uutl o ptttflduoei• •"' tu4tlto«I t4t, •••,-. :i:siltf~i!'"~:~ ntl11pr())flrtotnf; ,,aop; ml tltlm~Hftw k,. Off llocl 11 opak. ·'Ct potort r>0ff t•Jto irdnU &it =:::r:~~,,. bot, Cn. tr~ dt•"" ·no.:iptllf~ hdllj 01'D~QBIE ~-., l · .& -· ·1 ..•t<,., ~~ ,:.•m ·~t.·~c .j '!Ii~. h l'udslwstt,,. ,,: .. ---- N0,V;£ · l ·- . ,' . -__:_ - ...,.. t l . --= U P I , .-,/J ~ ~ ••~___..,...:..,.. ~- 0'i.~~, Uv~pk ,1,, 'l VY_D(,..VA, MATICA SLOVENS"f V M ' "';~ ~·z., N ~ 0 z --= --= tr! > I (ll .... N 0 < > e:> 0 t""' r:,, '° = �SLOV AKIA-2015 99 APPENDIX2 Za prava ,slo,enciny okrecov dfla e. 10. 19et •yledaJ• •• taJto bttl. nojbo dr.tmla prlaclp Ttato Lueencl praeanf YO . .reJaal runkctl arladiC fu.akcla •lc•prHldan · OceftuJema. te \I 10vls.l ta • tuakclu prdbo pod • •l•bo • 6ra.de., Polladnky tederActou nOho At , aa s1ov,a1 .. a.by Maduo•, .. by ktor6 •IUJ, predHdu ktortl k 50. vtroCJu CSR to ■ t• ta:■Jllf atllf ( •I .. aJoobsahoull podobae aka H • tame, iloat4ve H na progt H ■at"fdl 1Jrol6cb) po mad'■ r• •tnhu itlan6bo dko ■ a ■ awrbuJ• ob1■ daova.al• t-■ kel• •kJ~ •Y d01taU afton.a1 -ped- •I othb postavenla nar noltl. Konltatujema v1ek , kl••· mJ ■ lalra • tt6taaho tajoaud• ~.1K• •,~~:r:1.!:~~~n~;f.~U• na Jkodu vecl n,hrh IA.k1 VycbHsa•• a dotereJlfch Ila. n·ebol vopred pred uvere) ufml trpkfcb ak6Hao1U Slo4. Poprl hlatorlclry a•HI• · L S6b1Hfm■ so He ■lm ti. Y6kov • tobto A•em.Ja. Ul ,Ill.a- nlm 1Dterne konzultovanf I. ala pokl ■ dime ae newy- a fcb a6nocb 'Slovenaki ••· l.rajlla daada • d!ollasyt■ oa- organlUlcleml N•rod. tro1 haulnA doplal( ho b ■ ltalo • rodnl rad• a Cnll:6 ••rodal ti H prett SlovUom aeutf• Term.Io vereJn•J dlskusle rad• l nalogld:y podra lafch n ■ fm, I ■ ..• CSSR .. •16 eet15. 10. 198& Ja prfllJ kri Hl■ tat, la ◄ 6 povlnDf nlln a a 1lonntlaa tlob11 ro•· ■ •now Cl1tno1 dd CSSR. na to, abJ n mohll nlekt dla( po matfanlrf, t,yt tda 116taych )HJ' · vlld• Sloveaalr■ I 1oclallatlc■ oprh ■ ycb kGY ... naJasn~ mlesla n•vrhu nl dvojJ ■ aytaf. Kedle ahtb 6 kel republllry, wllda Cukaj 1CuU.be stllooa • t!I. ◄ IZ u - 11te vysvttllt u kompetl ■oclall•llclr■ J rapubllkJ ( Ire• nych mletaach. Tfmto kooltatonalm .. be • 1 ■ -te dltoaa poulluf lraz■ J• nblC ■ ltl•k aa n6 • IH potwrdzoj■ skul0Cao1f, alto oflcl61ae n6ny \Nirodnfl Predodetkfw Ide o f rodaosU • •m•,.. odllirodttio.-aala lllllllle a■ lo Dripecl• nhrhu zJikona, ktorf hov ktod objektl-ue Je1h,1je, I• rada Sloun•kel ■oc lall1Ucltal fllruje, taUe H m6h delltotlt Jnykml lt6taJcb ora• · rapubllky ■ Nlrodn6 rada 0 prhach prlslu!n"lkov 101 na vzdelanlt nArodnostt n6tlalr) takfto u •Jb16tlt eo repullll• aoclell1llclcaJ CeskaJ ••• 11 tdll•• • •alowneloa, svoJom jnyku a O poutJv SlovUov nlj ■ kf dkon • alto M to koolt ■ taje •I • ti. kf. tohto Juyka v styku • Qr, pt.. takfmto nflllakom vf· S. Uplalnlt • celo,n dkoae I ■hrhu flttHnlho dkona. ml bei akfihOkotvek da lll( 'tittlDJml 1 ■ s1kmJ led■ ai ■ d o fader•Udcll CSSR 1.hatlu, alov ■- ■-cbri.D1, je ta N!l'1ne urCenla. Sme toho nboru, aebe1petanstwo, l• Slodcl tH1kJ nirodaosU jlf6cich • -te •letlry n•tanonnl• tfk•· f6ce u arlad'ovnla federil • , oa tomto 6aemf, ktorf an•• , prho na vrdelenle u m, essa.. die aleb11 aa oeneutl■ per konkrettzovaf na ,1upel\ l Z. NHrbuJean ■, ahy .. prl nycb orahoY, lch komp■ l ■a· ly 1 ,oeesne u mall staJ mad'anlry, aiel1111.h u nebu pliant atuu n ■ l■ I republlky, cl• • unlu lch organh:lcl• vlt podmlenky, za akfch m a prhomocl n mHu menlt dO mGcf doma vo •ereJ011j 1polo•nflt fC&1ko· poulf• ■ l t:l ■ aostl uplatolt, ala bud6 Slonn1kol ; to plall ■ I o pl· Iba oa Uklad• d'allfcb 61ln• 00 uladovaf !koly vyUle ako Uklad.n~ho typu. 1 w,-ranlll •J bez-treala6mu IJ~ prfshalnfbo prfdantbo ofch 1'ko110-... n ■I mH ■ f be1ko-1lovell&kf: Cu• U. I( ni't'rhu 6atua6bo al - kauovaalu. Stovky raaol6CII lsto u1 ~ v 1omto nivrhu t ko .. lonnsk, republlka, t:H• Ilona • a6rodao,tlacb : be konlm:itlzovat, akfm SJ • ,talnoat[. lrtori polltlckfm • 11'taJ• l!laltafom • or1• · sobom sa mA uplatnlt 'l>ti pod.J. ko-alon- ■ lrf lltc • menttnovfch n8.rodnostf %iada111e, ■ bJ H • ■ hrbu ao• SloY6cl • toblo 6.nmla ,.;~:.~D•;::111,~:.:~b\ed::-:.~ VJ'PU&tll ,ad, v kloro ■ •• vlastoibo Jazy poutfvaole po1lelaJ6.. d •«llml ,.,Ntl!afm J•I•• arladlt funkci• pradH- bo•or1, la atrodao1II m•l6 v st_yFu s dradml. n;~:.,.~:- .. undHt bod lllu • podpn ...du, lrllrri by .,prho poalfnf nol Juyk • Tleto ltyllzicle n8.\'rhu .a dkooa VJ"••ch, aHaka •• obudaouU alternaU••• dradnom 1tyku". auje u poutl-..ote • mad'artl • s1avn6ho zakona sQ v roz1 Uthapcom C•sbJ aoc:la.Uatlc· re •J s akentm program1 rato pr•vo by utml pre ■J t• laayko• ltltnych "'· kll r1pub1Jky aJtbo Slo•en • Ov KSS. lebo n4vrb z6ko Slodkov lijliclcb • 1111lela· rodnoaU) • lllradnom ,tylta. ebJ eoclall•tiek•I repu•UlrJ, 511 nez.mleftuJe o povtnno v alJku H nojlml prad•t• · 1lovao1ko•m ■ dar1kfch prltom tty aa afrodn6 nsli· a:fcb n6rodnostof vllarml ,. pollllckfch • ltit• prtslu~nrkov peoie v tfchlo fankdich oblutlach malo nfml ••· aby s ! pomocou t mentin, • nirod m.lH:u uycb orgjnocb priualv6 d6tledkJ. Praklicky atrltdalo podf• funktnfch znaloatJ. osvoJo,'all v~erko t 081 u poull-...C not IHJk. No by soemol6ou1o Slodkom r obdobt. ,:iemolao _ doko ■ ca dko - hatstvo ees kej II slovens• • ttm prlsplev kulrGry .aoru _ n6Uf Slodko• uClf k -\ldjomn6mu s1>0z.ntvar ■a po mad'llhk.) , aby M•cf•rl ,. ■lyku • aJml mohli upl•t · • spolutll1u nirodov • r ubaapeCe11A rodno1H v CSSR . dfJoaom alt Konlunu1eme. ta Slov6cl prflu. Moho tu mlmocbo• IOChtO oblbtlach, kde stl dom upuoralC na krlkfno odchodd poataY■nie Slod • n61 v memlln e, mohll by doataf podra do1erejleJ p1 lrov • Mad'araku, ktort• u xe • poclporou dstavn6ho , • podobnfch prhacb a ■ I 1- ■ kona ' do 11tuAcle, ktora ,, k .o1 .. t nnmia. mo dbsledkoch Tole 1tale •t ■ aoviako ■ a- neentch aaaff. ta by •m• boll proll vlHf k odn6rodf'iovaolu p prfiv a,.ro4aostf, aluJnfkov llitotvorn6bo n.61 :a■ ru~a■ la •I• aem&hme a6bl•alf I poi- da, prfpad ne k lcb 1lteku kodzonnlm Slodkov, lclol"f tfc bto iUemf ■ IovensUbo o , by malo by1 dO.lellltom ale• roda. -. kforjtb _prt• urul!e ■ fch ••- • .J)rginy, lriorf ad nlnter tovan6 na pTlpr,\'e Qstevn .rodaostiHn .,. predlolenom bo zalcooa, by mall uvUlf. ahrbu d•tndbo dkona. by nebolo vbodn6 ,,yhlheci .. tobto Ukona Casove navl * Pracovalcl Matice slovenskej ut na ust1nov11n1e zAkoaa ate · ho odlol federallrAcll. v Martine dt'Ja 8. 10. 196'1 vyslovlU k vl4dnemu ntvrhu • ltylldcle dOsledneftle pr • prekonzultowaf • myallef o postavent nirod• Ukon■ nostl v C:SSR Ueto prlpo• vtetkfcb zlotktch N• rodn ho tronru. mleoky: Publtktcle nivrhu astavntMatt e• slovenska ako c ho Ulkooa -vyvolalo n1Jml v lon4rodn.6 ustanovl.Zeft al p mlestnycb odboroch Matice ldada u morllnu povtnno 1lovenskt1J 01 futnom Sloven- ur,ozornlf na tao.to probl61 sku a.naent ohlaa. Vframe ut •I preto, lebo se 01 ru sa to l)teJavtlo •I ·n, porade v teJto vttel obraceJO tlensl ■ Joie/ Smrhoikj L /Ulo 196& no ndolteoc v Uortln~. m1111tn~bo ~~~1~~. oraanlz.tde 1 cel61 predstavltefov v Mahci ,tovenskeJ, ,nwe:I odpoot.4111 no aktwtlne: otdik~. l'I~"~"'" " ,.............. - .. .. - ~ Foto: A. V. H•id• (Vrouo sprduca MS 4r. Jd,t Mart4k.J Jaqko,adaf '"•• tudowft• lt6ta SAV prlJal k abrbu dkOH O flNf•nlldcH .CS51 ■ atnba filtHatbo dkDDI • ■ trodaC¥,tlacb 1taoo•lako, _. ktorAllo ')'llertme. �SLOVAKIA-2015 100 APPENDIX3 , MATICA SLOVENSK A 1863 1973 NOS!Tlr.RA IADtl IIPl11tlltY The Cleveland Stete University DepArtment of History - College of Arts et Sciences Mr . Marien St olarik C 1 e_v_e_l_ a_n_d_, Ohio 44115 U.S. A. VU li,t anatlty Vee: 10 d6a 26/II/73 Na la I natlta 4-63/1157/35 4/73 - St Martin 27. marca 1973 Vaieny pan Stolarik, ~akuje me za Va§ list, ktory nam umoihuje nadvi azat medzinarodny vymenny styk s The Cleveland State University , Department of History , Cleveland, Ohio prostrednictvom Va§ej pOaobnosti na tejto univerzi te. Avizovam1 publikaciu sme este zatial' ned ostali, nakol'ko doru~enie zasielky trva v priemere tri mesiace. Matice slovenska, Martin s radostou pr!jme predpletne na ~asopis v ramci vymeny "The International Migration Review", ako aj vybavenie na§ich objednavok ns publikacie, ktore Vam budeme postupne, taktiez v remci vymeny posiela t, Vyme nn~ rekepitulacie si budeme viest individuelne na zaklade Va si ch zasielok s cenemi a prip ! §eme v prospech Va§ho vymenneho konte , ako aj z naAej strany zasielane potvrdenky s uvedenim cien pre Va§u evidenciu. Zatial' sme Varn po slali 9 publikacii z oblasti historie su~~snej produkcie podl'a Va§ej po~iadavky dha 15.III,1973 a dal'sie publikacie , tykajuce sa tejto obla sti Vam postupne po~leme, Dufame , te s tymto postu~om budete s uhlbsit a roz s!ri sa fond o slovacika na Va§ej univerzite, ako aj f ond Matice slovenskej s publika ciami , o ktore bud eme ziadat na zaklsde excerpt z Cumulative Book Index s zoznamov vydani j ednotlivych vydavatel'ov. Tymto by sme pokladali dohodu z nasej strany za uzavretu a prosime Vas o pisomny suhlas, Te§ime sa na Va §u odpoved ~ sme / s pozdravom ~ -=- Prof.dr.Ing . Jarosl ov .~ELKO , CSc, / Spravco Matice slovenskej v,b .. •i" Stuchlikova Tclt:r6n 2Sf6, 2547, 2548, 25+9, 5197 Oalekopi1 0755:SI 0)6 5 2Martin, Mud ro6ova M �SLOVAKIA-2015 101 APPENDIX4 , MATICA SLOVENSKA NOSIT£t K A RADU RIP U B LIKY Kr. Ph. D. KarU.n Stol6rii: The Cleveland State Univereity CLEVELAND, Ohio 44115 U SA V' j Ii SI I.oa t ")' zo d na Ma r tin Nala znal': K a 5-63 /1JtlJ/Ff l14-U Vee: 23.10.1974 ~ai:)lje■ e Vma Ba list a vr,ten,y ponui:ovy zozJ:lUl. Poaielee Vo !iadan4 knihy a! na tri tituly, i:tor4 eu •! rocobra• n41 1. Ju!n4 Slovenako 2. Ratkoil1 Pra■ ene k dejinmn Vel'kej Koravy 3e Sedla1 Preilovek4 kolegium v elovenekych dejin,ch Dll:fame, !e oetatn4 knihy dostanete ~o najekar av poriadku. ~akujeme Vu aj za aaaopia "Ethnicity•. Sudame ve:rmi r~ di, ked ho pre n,a objean,te. S pozdravo■ / ~f~ Stefan Krivuil spr,vca Matice slovenakej Vy b ovujec Ulbr ichtov, Kiria Tcler6n 2346, 2347, 2548, 2349, 3197 Oalek.opi1 0753,1 0'652 Mar tin, Mu d r ufi ova 35 �102 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIXS a Cudzojazycnci priloha Sefredali:to, Stefan Hovlo r. Zosto vi l M iloslo v And re6nsky Vydalo Mati ce slo.,en 1k6 v Ma rti ne. Tlotili TSNP, z6 v< Neogrofla , Martin, CSSR v m6Ji 1983. fllowcnal:o a 1983 roku u ma konat' 14. d: 17. okt6bra vo Washing• tone, na budud rok v Kansas City). Madzl elenml SSA je I nlalcorko vyznamnych 7 SLOVAK STUDIES ASSOCIATION 7 Tato apoloalosf ui 120 vedec:kych p.-.covnikov s1ov..-.. p6vodu a priatefov slovenekef vedy, lwttury • umenla nielen z USA• Kanady, ale I z cfalilch lblitov ..,_ zlskava prootrednfo. tvom The Balch lnstitut vo Phlladelphll, USA, od Matice olovaMkef, Slovenakej akademle vied a cfalilch . - k y c h kultumych inititudl e.aoplsy, zbomlky a knlhy. VosvoJom ,,Newsletter", ktory ut po 8 rolcov vyd6va dvakrU do roka, oboznamuje avofich Benov • prostrednk:tvom nlch I sV9tOvu vect.cku verejnosf • knlhaml ■ zbomflcml a upozoffluje na zaujfm■Ye ~Hinley v tasoplsoch. Okrem toho Jnfonnuje •J o knihKfl a - - V 6uopi9och O Slovikoch, a alovenakef problematlke, ktore vytll v cudzlne. Bohutlar napriek evidentnaJ snahe po objekttvnom, nezaujatom rwferovanf prmu len pravlida zimer uprlamlf pozomosf na publlkacle a ttanky a obuhom niilmu lblitu a zrladenlu naprlatersky orlentovanych. SSA mi •I vl■-u edialu l!lnnosf preva!ne V apolupr6cl - ao Slovanakjm Ustavom v Clevelande, oriento-v■ nU nepri■tal'slry voa n,m. Zatlar eo predaada a elenovla vyboru sa vprlebehu rokov - pokier am■ to mall mofnost ■ ledovat menlli, trvalU pozldu ta)omnfka a pokladnlka od r. 1978 mi M . Marl< Stolarik. ktory je aj Ndalctorom .,Newsletter" . SSA je lnltttucionlilnym aenom American Assoclation for Advenc:ement of Slavic Studies • aktivne aa zututiluje na Jej nirodnych konvandich (toho kn)anakych vadeckych p.-.covnlkov, lctori ma)u s Matlcou alovenskou dobre kontalcty. Medzl inyml Mrs. Nonna Rudlnski, Gerald J . Sabo, June Alexander, John Berta, Saly Staruch, Tom Marzik • d'alif z USA.. prof. Peter Petro a Yvonne Grabowski z Kanady ako I J . M. Rydlo zo avajaarska a dalil. AJctfvna Bnn~ tychto k spoluprild • Maticou lllovenskou na kuttumom poff ochotnych llanov SSA, vytvira perapektivu, le v buducnostf aa bude m6ct' celkom aeri6zne uva!ovaf I o konkretnej prlamej apoluprid Matice alovenekej ao Slovak Studies Anoclatlon v oblastl propagicle vyaledkov alovanokef vacly, kultury • umenla vo . - .. Zatlar, • vyhradou propagide nim naprlat.rokej litera• tury, pozltlvna hodnotima snahu SSA oboznamovat svetoW vededc:U vsejnost o nallch uspechoch v oblutl vedy, literatury • umanla. Priame kontalctyvtak vzhradom na neprlat.rsky postoj preclovtetkym takych vplyvnych oaobnostf v SSA ako SU Stanislav J . IOrachbaum, M. Mark Stolarik ■ Renee Mikus, nie SU v SUbsnoatl mOZ"'. Je to aamozrejme na ikodu vecf, ktor.6 nim je opolol!ni: propagidl slovan■kaj vacly. lfteratury a umenla na svatovom f6rw. MILOS BIEL �SLOV AKIA-2015 103 APPENDIX6 VYD/..VA MA.TICA SLOVlNSK/.. no&luil'b bdu repubUky MARTIN 14. Dovembra 1983. VAS LIST ZNA<'!KY Valent pe p~. lla.rlc K. Stolarik The i!lalch lMtit~te 18 S., 1th Street ZO Di'IA N~A ZNA<'!KA Philadelphia, Pa. 19106 VYBAVUJE Kiloll Bie]l. VEC: Vll!eny pain pro:f'e aorl V pr:!10118 Vllm zasielam :f'otokopiu a aajho l!lilnlcu, a SSA v nallom l!aeopiae Slovenako l!.6/83 a :f'otokopiu replilcy z Kanadak4ho Sloviika l!.37, rot. 42 z 24.9.1983, hoci J>Nldpoklaau, !e ich ob11ah d poznate. Ak oba l!llllllcy poromllte a apoaeaiete ei na to1 l!o ate nap1aali predaedovi Matice alovenalcej DIU'o 111119lcovi Vlatia!rovi Kinal!ovi i na jeho odpoved, bude Vu zre,im4, !e Vu Va6i priatelia z Kanadak4ho SlovlUca (Vall otec??) poalcytli aedvadiu alu!bu. Ol!akav.,._, !a ea nad oboma l!lllnkud zllJIIYalite, najd nad ich doaahoa v elovenalalj varejnoati za hranicaai, zaujaete jednoznaln4 a pravde zodpovedaj uce etanoviako a po!iadate redalcciu Kanadak4ho Sloviika o opravu. Ky v Slovensku ame tie! oohotn1 Valle atanoviako publikova~. �SLOVAKIA-2015 104 APPENDIX 7 kor..ne s mojfm prt,dpllllnym . Zarove~ pr1p•J11m MO na 23 dolarov, t. J. 20 11ko predplatne 11 3 na podporu. Zarovel\ m1pr11vde , ktor4 oko!0 nM 11li:1(l _ _______ _ ne. No to si pocnete s eecno- _ ........_,,.;,;._..;..,.....;...,._,,.. slovakm i a podobnymi pobhi- nerobl dobru slufbu medzl sh,denymi oveckami? . venskyml vyst'ahovalcaml na amerlckom konllnente. To by . sl mall uvedomll' af II, ktorl 1:: chcli hfadaf spolupracu so I~sJovenskym exllom v slobod- r-----------------------7 , Mm citatelia opiitovne Vas chceme poprosit', aby ste si prezreli zaznam pri Vasej adrese. Ak mate este stale na konci dvojku (2). tak Vase predplatne vyprsalo. Nedavno sme poslali cfalsfch vyse sto (100) iiadosti o vyrovnanie si predplatneho. Prosfme aj tych, ktori maju na konci trojku (3) a mesiac ai po okt6ber, nech si laskavo vyrovnaju predplatne, lebo im sa uz t' · k c ·1 UI' h • a •d k 1ez s on_ '. o a . c1 1e nam pr cu a vy a_v Y na znamky t1ez. riakureme Varn za porozum~nie Admin1strac1a K . S. I nom svete. I Je zfavne, fe reflm na SloI vensku podnlk6 11 bude podI' nlkaf kroky, aby potupoval sloI venskych ntlrodovcov v exlle a 1' aby podryvallch f"dnotu a akll- J I vltu " 11 kafdom poN. Bolo by ., pod nalu d0stofnosl', aby sme 115 komunlstlckyml ldeol6gml debatovall II vledll s nlml dla16gy. Tym bysme Im roblll sluf- -------------------------• - bu, uzn6vall lch za parlnerov, s kloryml stofl ZII lo sedl ..t' ZII USA a pollllkov sa nezaobera. PIie vedecke prtlce O sloven• skom vyst'ahov,.1lectve do USA _-_·-- •-=;-- ' ~ 11 fe uzntivanou uutorltou medzl amerlckyml hlstorlkml II vedeckyml lnAlllliclaml Podra Andrnansk~ho-Blela Pod tltulom .Ohlasy" uverejnl,. ~ b._g.rof. Sto"rlka,.Je.Jt lo ,.Slovensko'", klore mt! byt' f ·srov ~Sludle._!. kulllirno-spolotenskym s _~ c 18 11 0 ,. 11 b y t 8 t •0 mesatnlkom a je vydavane Ma- ";iiofot!nosr mor.t'a reprezentollcou slovenskou v Turtlan- ,vat' Slovakov medzl amerlckyskom Svlltom Marline, vo svo- ml hlstorlkml a v Slavic Stujom tlsle z flila 1983 naslrane6 dies Association 8 teda Slov,icl utok na Msgr. F. Fugu , ktory je n e b O II p O ne ch an I p O d slovenskym narodovcom a patronatom ,.Czechoslovak predsedom Zahranltnef Mall- Studies Assoclnllon'". Ide O tisce slovenskej, ktora nle je mar- te vedeckli spolotnosl" hlstoxlsllcka ako hi na Slovensku. rlkov slovensl<eho p0vodu, Clanok .Kio klame a dezlnfor- ktorl sa hlasla k slovenskemu muje'" naplsal Mlloslav Andre- rodu a pf§u o slovenskef otazansky. ke vedeckym spOsobom, teda Ten lsty Mlloslav Andretln- objektlvne. sky (alias MIiot Blel) v augusToto sa pravdafe, M. Andretovom tisle Slovenska uveref- tlnskemu-Blelovl nep6tl, lebo nil znova lltok na dr. M. Stoia- sa tam nechvall techoslovaklzrlka, klory fe najkvallflkovanef- mus a marx-lenlnlzmus. !Im slovenskym hlslorlkom v Taketo plsanle Sloyenska spolotnym stolom. J" nam Nto, fe na amerlc• kom konllnenle mtl komunls!Icky reflm na Slovensku svoflch obdlvovatel'ov a kolaborantov, ale tych my anl nepresvedtlme, anl neziskame. Tleto litoky, krltlky, alebo I za. lletanl■ tasoplsu Slovensko nas e§te vlac upevnla v tom, f~ budeme mOcr dOsledne br6nlt a chranlt' mravne a narodne hodnoty slovenskeho exllu a P.rllva slov:en~ e~~9 , .n_a,[.(1da pra~ neAl'astna_~~ ! slovenska v Tufe1anskom Svlltom Martine t~k ne~_f.!)eba Z[pdlla a zre_d.,u. Y m me vel'a svojlch vlaslnej§lch a nallehavejAlch liloh. (R) s/itort �SLOV AKIA-2015 105 APPENDIX8 lHE BALCH INSTITLJrE for ElHNIC STUDIES 18 South Seventh Street, Philadelphia, PA. Or M. Men STOlorik Uecutive Director Boord cJ Trustees Samuel H 8olklm. .k Ch011mon .JohnC Hoen ViceCr'\Otlmon AlexO:"'1010 8 Goloslu 19106 November 29, 1983 P4'n MiloS Biel Reda'kcia Slovensko 036 52 M a ~ Mudroifo va 35 Czechoslovakia Europe DrahY pcln Biel: Secrelo,y v.f$ .John F White heosu16' wo11er ~ Afooe, t0w1ence J 9ornh0'\T r, oc:e,1 C Cho01n MOn Beo111ce K Chemock lh90CJOl8 H Cov11 Th0m01 J F111oei-010 list zo dn'a 14 . novembra, 1983, som dO.e s obdrZal. Mlt~ yravdu ,/ed p{sete Z\ pozn~ obsah ~lo":,enskfch C:asop1;sov. Ako h isto ri k c!tam vsetke Slovenske tasopisy ktore vychadzaju na zapade. Aj niektore' zo Slovenska. Mam tiez' p{somne sty'ky zo Slovak.mi po celom svete. Pre mXa ti e to tasopisy a li s t y su pramene pre deji ny Slova'kov v 20. storoc'i. Lis t y od v;{s pa tt:i a mc dz i nima. Or Muffov J:.11eomon WdhOmL GfolO Dr Roso Bo~e Green Pl"Ol A W~liom Hogiuno Rooe,tM HOwe Moue A ledeler Corv L8Ylnson. Esci Mri- Fronk P louchheln'\ Set C Mo-npon MictlOel Novak Vrvion W Piosoc:k1 Mrs Meve, P Potomlun Em11vC m1ev Prof Timothy l. Smith Consiontine S. Sosongells Dr Jomes Ton11 1-1on Pou! A TroncMellO hOn Mno Cibott1 Ve,no Dr tv'torvin Wocnmon Ho~, Notnan1e1Wos.,1ngton c ec,110 Mov veo Polemizovaf s valmi neb1;,dem. \'1Sa tfloha je robi'! '!,ropa gandu . Mo'ja j e p{sal de jiny. V tomto pripade budem ~ ma'E posledne slovo. Ked chcete da~o uverejni'f v c!as opise Sl ovensk o , zasi ela'm vfm Clanok z Horizontu, o semin.iri v Martine. Vi k t or M.amatey , n.JS by'vali predseda, ho napisal a celkom s nlm s\Jhlasim. P{sat mOtete Co chcete. Historici budu vSetko posudzo vat. "Pravda vitazi," ako hovoril Masaryk. S k rajansk[m pozdrav om , /~ Emet1tu1 Prot fo.....o'O p HuTC""l1nson / (215) 925-8090 /-r?'i / v -~ Maria'n Stolclri k 0-< �SLOV AKIA-2015 106 APPENDIX 9 Slovak Studies Association Affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 700 Pe nfie ld Ave. , Havertown , PA 19083 Septemb e r 3 , 1983 Dr . Vladimfr !tinll! Predseda Matice slovenakej 812 51 Bratislava Pugai!"evova 2 Czechoslovakia 1968, I have of scholarly asked for my agreed . Over thousands of exchange. Since my first research tri p to Slovakia in the summe r of actively cooperated with the Matica elovensk8 in the exchange materials . Dr. Jan Martak and Dr. ~tefan Krivulf wrote me and cooperation in this program of cultural exchange and I gladly the last fifteen years I have sent the Mat i ca slovenska dollars worth of book.a and periodicals as a part of this You can imagine what a s hock and aurprise it was to me, therefore , to open your monthly magazine Slovensko (No.8, 1983) and to find, on page 6 of your supplement, 11 Slovensko krajanom, 11 an attack upon me by a certain MiloJ Biel. He accuses me, aa editor of the Slovak Studies Newsletter , of bringing to people's attention articles and publications "whose contents are hostile to our state I a political system," of working "in cooperation 11 with the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, 11 and of taking an unfriendly s tand" towards Slovakia. Cont'd on page 107 �SLOV AKIA-2015 107 APPENDIX9 Besides being false, these charges betray a certain naivte by Mr. Biel about historical scholarship and conditions in the West. You, as a scholar and poet, must realize that serious historians have to consider all sources when writing their history, not just those that a certain political philosophy calls for. That i s the very essence of objectivity. Furthermore, it is the duty of true scholars to have contacts with all institutions that contain historical meterials, whether they be located ~Slovakia or in the United States. Finally, we in the West believe in openness and pluralism. For instance, the Slovak Studies Association, of which I am the founder and Secretary-Treasurer, has among its members Slovak Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Greek Catholics, Jews, nationalis ts, 'Czechoslovaks' and Marxists. We do not exclude people because of their religion or political orientation. We are open to all scholars who are interested in promoting Slovak studies the world over . Therefore, Mr. Biel' s clumsy attempt to list 1 'friendly 11 and "unfriendly" members of the Slovak Studies Association is going to backfire and hurt the good contacts that the Hatica slovenska has developed with Slovaks in the West over the last several years. I s uggest that you have Mr. Biel retract his crude and unwarranted attack upon me in the next issue of Slovensko . If he does not, I have a feeling that most of the goodwill that the Hatica slovensklhas built up with young scholars in the Western World will very quickly disappear. Yours Sincerely, l ·f i~ �108 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIX 10 Bratislava, 4,10,1983 Vazeny pan Stolarik! Iste Vas nemusfm ubezpe ~ovaf o tom, ako Matici slovenskej zalezf na vsetkom, co sa aotyka dejin i su~asnosti slovenskej narodnej kultury, ako nam teda zalezi aj na kazdom, kto s nami chce v mene buducnosti tejto kultury spo lupracovaf, To sa dotyka aj Slovak Studies newsletter i Vas osobne, Mrzf ma to, co sa stale v ~asopise Slovensko, Nemam priam_y vplyv na redigovania ~asopisu, ale pokia! to bude v mojich silach., zabranim v buducnosti moznym nedorozumeniam . Rozumia sa, za mame rozliCne nazory na zivot spolocnosti a na jej buducnost . Ale mame aj spoloCnu starost, ktorou je slovenska narodna kultura, jej dejiey a osudy - na celom svete, Dufam teda, ze nam v oalse.j spolupraci nezabrania malichernosti a ostavam so srdeCnym pozaravom dJ.l~-t~~ / t/ • Vazeny pan M,Mark Stolarik 7U0 Penfiela Ave. Havertown, ~A 19083 ~~~U Narodny umelec Vladimir Minal! �SLOV AKIA-2015 109 APPENDIX 11 - s--!.. =■ ~ S:io'-'6,1,~Ko t /tJ.,~f. HIOll4CIIKl:1:t c::==s ilowc11td::~ ► --. 5: Slovensko pre ,,dva druhy citatefov" Pod tymto Hver•vr•vnYffl .. l&IVom uv--tnM p6n M...Wn Mtt Stolarik. tajomnlk • po-. ......· - - • e t ipolotnOfll (Slovak StudlN \Noc:Ultion) v USA vo •vojom "MWUetter rot. I , tWo 1/iun 1114, str. I . nuledujUCU pomemku : ,Sloven•ko, oflcialny meu~ "Ilk M•tH» •lov•n•k• J vych'· dz.a vo dvoch veni,ch, p,-. dv• r,dliln4 titat•l•k4 ve,.jna.rl. Predpok/adal aom, I • ..,,•tci nd i ~novla to vedill, • I• n• d4vn o .am zlstil l e to tak nle ,._ Vlalna 1. v,. J. v domienk•. h Slo~o. tron dost'"'• t• Vy ■Jja, jetenl•tvtuop/a, lrto,Y cirltulu}9 ,,. Slowm•ku. f•li•. Aku pozome adlv■ t• n• lcror,hofvek 8•/o V"h o U•ooi•u SloVM1•ko, vlimnite al, le mtKUi 16. • 17. atranou hlevnej t..•ti ~nopi•u je Cudzofuytn' prf/ohe, r,ro Cudzoj•~n, prlloha znaman, oval• vlec n#Jl vyzer,. ObuhuJ• tiel ~,,,.. ky v •loventine, ilu•troven4 ,, Toho tuu ,,.jchUlo•tiwjjoo ....cou je otbb •lav•n•k•J prl• lo hy Sloven.Ice. v,1ho m • ~ nib, wnov• MJ Jcr• Janom v u hr•ni8, ,,. ktof'U m• upozornlll •i vlac»rl )ednotllvcl. PodobM elco Stol• rilc v Slov• lc Studi• ._ Pouvelu;t• a WICI, uda t•ru ul r,ro prlloh• v •lowrwt.•f rKi b y mohl• by( •U~•fou rl•dM otlaloven'(Ch .rr, n Slovt1M ka, • to •i pre 6it•t• l ov v • t•rom kr•JI. Cudzojuytry prllohe by u moh/M vloli( do ~•oplsu Hp■ r,rne. Predillo by u zbytotn•J krltilce, nedtr wre, yYSmelnYm • ultll)«:nYm pozn,mlcem • Jcont,..ver• zil, I• u Ju ,ob4v• t• uUnf titetefom dome '. S.m ozre/m, w c, Je potombyste melivybe,..f • pr'vy od 01db v,m pr!Jat111nych.,, Ne dldede tohoto llstu sm• pochopHI, le naM nepriatalls v auf•l•J sneh• dlskredftova! n'6 tasopls. c:hytaJU N kaJdel prildfto.tl, aby naMI Umlen• 2) bu<f vy va ml moriadtis!■ Sk>vensb 2 X do roka • ru u rok Magufn, ako •m• to uroblll v rokoch 1811 s 1NZ. 3) elebo prUollt NmostatnU prflohu ku kald,mu tulu Slovenska, 1rtor• bud• ••· pedov•n• U.,enom. Bolo n,m Ja.sn',, le form• pristupu ku luajanom vytadu}11. ■by ttat.M slovo, ktorym .. bud•m• obraca! ku krajaq_om. bolo vy,obeM najmodern9llou tachn.lkou • na kv■• litnom ps.,...-1. preto.le all.nm toho, le bude plnft' nu-odnouvedomovadu • fflformKnU funk.du, bude slutff •J ako ,.._ pruenUda nai•J SUtesnosd. Preto rozhoduJUdml taktorml, ~ urtlll tretlu alt.emaUvu ako opdmilnu • reelb.ovstel'nU, boll: pridal kvalhMho pa• piera a Aulomberka, ftnentn. prostriedky poa«ytovan, Ml• nlst.erstvom lwlturf SSA. pwaoniln• ubupet:enl• redak• tn't'ch pnc bu zvylenla at.aw redaktorov • konetne 11..padta tlatlarM. NaN Slovensko •ko Matupc:a MatitMho ffianlll vych6du ul 6smy roll. Ptvyc:h I rokov vyc:hadulo i.k ako teraz n• 32 stnMc:h, ale z toho Ian na I farebnych. Nlekol'ko stovik vytlatkov Slov•nslta :uslelalo byval4 Oddelenle MS ~ U· hranltnjch Slov,kov I n■JJm knjanom predovletkym do Fnl'tCUului, Juhosljvle • Kanady. 11M I do USA• Auatr611e. 0d roku 1813, v a&JvlslMtl • I► ho vlalm umeranhn do uhran~•• rodlriM sme fa,.bnU ten' n11 11 atrin. bez avylenla cany Ka 5, - :u a.Jo. To ale znamenelo t1atH oety tuopfs na kvalftnom ,,..,_... Nale tov,,.I\ v Rulombertc.u vyr6ba skutotne kv•lltnY pepler, ktory Je yYZ.namnYffl exportn,;m ;rovania • udriovania kontak tov • lu■janml • v ""•ha po m6d im v kh Ualll o udrianll sloven~o n,rodn~ pov• dornla a podtu •~upatrit nosd • Jedrom n6rods P04 T atraml, alto I umo.t:ntr Im YU )omn, poznanl• krsjan~ livota v r6znyc:h tastiac:h sva ta Itek ako sma to uv&edl v 1/14 Bale Slov•nslui). Ak by sm• chcall dod6v• prilohu Slovansko krajanon I na domic:I trh, potrebovaU b• ame prlnajmen9' o 30 % vyt.t pridel p,aJNer•. to u daneJ vj robne4 sftuKM v n.&J:ombe, • k•J tov6rni nle }e moln4i. Tak ti&I by sme muMII ;rvyi,lt' cani tasopisu na dom6com trhu, 6t tlel v sutasnoati Ne Je ul.alM TNI• •ko vldlta, m ill luaja nl a, calkom proukk6 flnant " '• ma....Ulna • techrdck, d6 vody Mt pntinou, pre&t tj ta.Slovenaka, ktor6 Ja ur6en6 kni janom • :uoberi N prevs.tn. luajanskou problematikou nil Je k dlt,poddl I domkam1 Btat.rovl. Cudzojuyl"' priloha J• tla 6an, na obytajnom 1.-.bnon novl novom pepl■ rt, aby ZyY ru.nlla a oddelllll prlohu 0< ostat,,..,o taxtu . Talrto nie J4 ponJien6 kontlnulta taxtu pr1 domidch tltatelov • kr■J•n sky at.atel' dOSUva svoj u prflo hu komp,aktnU. Konettla treba p. Mar5'nov Stolarikovl prlpomenut', h pr avojef vedlajiej tinnostl altc r.dsktor • vydav■tel' Nawalet• tar al mohol (ubudol alebo nec:hcel1) Yilmnuf, le sko oudzolazytni prilohe, tak I Slo· vansko lu■Janom majU NmoatatnU tlril. to v novin6rskej praxl anama"'-, la hod Je Jedan vydav■ W I Ufr.daktor. prMaa to, to do.Uvs, SU vlast• ne tri Nmostatn4i periodlld (hod I spolu zoliU). ktor6 m~ tu byf upedov•M • rodlro• Cont'd on page 110 �SLOV AKIA-2015 110 APPENDIX 11 • ~ • to priMU a , nky o s1ov, lcoch na UpatH. Slovkl dom• tuto prllohu niltdy navkl~ . Vla•tMUwry .iurobteMml." Nepovdov•II •m• dopot,lal' uWM ,-govat' na alee dot.. .nultov•n&i. ... pNdu len U'9jmU domyeel'noet' uv.. defMlpmNlmlryvNew.iett:•. Medd6uo,n u I\U v I.ta opjul llnjan a NSR. pr.ea nedoetaf v CSSR i!uopla SbveMlco • prilohou 8&ovenako lulljanom. Odpovadal am• mu p&.omne pnllmo • on naM vywetaenieakoeptoval. Oo.teM ..,... vlak d'.U 19t a USA od vjzn,amrwho krajanakMto kutbimeho Bnltel'-. v ktorom bol nuledufQd od- u ......, dWttod &u ndavnutomli, PN koho taeopl• vycUvama ■ v ■ tom rouahu, roahod.W .me N podllf ilrokej knjanilk•J Y«9jnoatl vywedanie. 0 d6vodoch, ktcri nN • nM nadrtadenf Ol'Pn - Mlnlnera:tvo 11.ulb;ry 8SR - vleclll le tomu, ■by am• vycMv■ II tlHMM alovo pre lualanov, MM plull oblim• ne tomto m'-te v 9/M a.le Slovanaka. Tu tr..bll objaantt' Iba technldw .trinJa.i rulldde. Z Uvah, ■ ko rHll.zov■t i.nto dme,, vykryttall.zovall J ■har­ t111tfvy: 1) bud' vydjvaf Nmo.tab'tf fuopl■ pre knjaftOV (kvr(.-O<J. vyN>ba, Ide na uport. Napatr"' Ullf' aoaUiva pre, tuumsko ■ ,. prfen■ llmH.ovan6. N•t tuopq doetaval tie.I urtfty prid.a tohoto papi.,.. (n■ I _,.n). 0d roku 1N3 bol prklel r,ylent na pokrytM I farebnych strin (d'.tlkh) ■ I rilin prflohy PN lu■Janov. baopta 810¥'9ftN0 I• WWnY' ..........................ho atatel'■ : 70 % Nlldadu Ide na dom'4:il trh ■ len 25 % ,. prilohou) pre lnjanov ■ I % pre on.atnu GUdzlnu. Tyoh 21 "' "'ldadu. apolu • c:uckoluy6nou p,9ohou • prlohou Slownako kntrlanom IMnC:1Ujeme a~Matloe.aov.n•uJ dotovaMho ~om kuhury &SR v UUJm• Na UV..- .. t ied.a podotknUf, ta ,ri..,.a tych rucMckofaM.tkkych luuhov, kto" •ita necMvno qltovall, aby Mm lln)ani• Slovenako vrac.all Cnapr. tt.nadaky Slodk), .. aruu DZYV• fartzajsk.6 atarost• lfvo.t o nilho do""oeho tltaWa. la nav&dl iu.JaN116 priohu. :Um..- Je fun'i' • jednoanat:nj . Cheu Mm polllodK, otrevovaf vzfahy nwwdal narnl • krajanml. lrtoN .. 1 naprielc lch lntria'm .,.,.,.. • Ua,pe,tn• roMJaJ'I . .... anahy hod~ nflnonn, • hod I n• Cpeaudo) ved41Ckej Oroml aem,ow"' prukn6 alto myclo"' bubllna. pr.tole pr■ vda )e ,.. n-■J nadvA- Cud1oja1yCnd prnoha Rlowcnallo ~ S...- Htl.i.., Z -fll M ,i.,1 .. A ~,t--AOI V~MMl1lcaoi...-U• • " " ' -· 'i.t.llTS""'.••"' .w(- "-9,_fJa. MolniA, (l.$a • - 1,n . . . , . �SLOV AKIA-2015 111 APPENDIX 12 TRAFENA HUS ZAGAGA is a Slovak saying meaning literally •the goose that is hit will maJce a loud cackle• . .I t caoos to one's mind when reading the article in SLOVENSKO *) ,tbe.:.official monthly publication of'Hatica slovenska (Czecho-Slovakia) attacking Hark H. Stolarik, Secretary-Treasurer of the SlovaJc Studies' Asscr ciation (USA) far his brief remark in the Association's Newsletter (June 1984, see also SM 5 &6, p.28). Stolarik informed about the non-availability of SLCNENSKO' s supplement SLDIENSKO XRAJANOH (aimed at Slovaks outside Sl~ vakia) to readers in J;lovakia. According to SLOIENSXO,the re~ sons f.or this non-availability are econcmi c : paper . shortage• •though no mention •is made of the fact that they are flooding the West with 'canplimentary copies' of their books printed on very expensive paper. I t takes them the best part of a page to say this, when a simple ,sentence •because of economic reasQllS we cannot supply the Supplement for no extra cost to readers in Slovakia, however they can obtain i t· ·e asily for an additional subscription . & . Kcs ... • would have been sufficient. But ·this they dia ..cot want tD say! By the way, one is concerned~ bout access to SLCNENSKO KRAJANOH not as i f this was the best way to inform people in Slovakia . - about Slovak life in the West, but because Hatica slovenska herself has been encouraging Slovaks in the -west to establish contactJwith their old homeland through h'Z"iting ·to SLCNENSKO. I f the only obstacles to establishing such contacts were economic , a simple solution would be this : The BULI£TIN of the SLCNAX WCRLD CONGRESS states that it: "is available to readers in Slovakia free of charge• (there is no paper shortage in Canada !J. Why does not Hatica slovenska undertaJce to distribute the BULI£TIN free .of charge among the subscribers of SLOVENSKO in .Slovakia, and have in exchange the Slovak World Congress distribute SWVENSKO KRAJANOH free of charge to the readers of their BULLETIN in the West. Nobody could then canplain about lack of contacts : •I t was too much of a temptation to resist, namely to present to our readers the final part of the article in SWVENSKO with ·al:1 -its orwellian beauty (their English sUD1Dary contains neither this nor the vitriolic attaak .on H. Stolarik) : Those who dared to question the availability of SLOVENSKO KRAJANOH are •fascists• and "pharisees• (what a combination !) who "want to damage and poison the r~ lationship between us [i.e. Hatica] and our countrymen, which shows a premising and successful development despite their [i. e. the fascists' and pharisees' J intrigues. Their attempts, though cunning and presented on a {pseudo) scientific level .will burst like a soap bubble because .the truth is on our side.• � SLOV AKIA-2015 87 MY ROCKY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MATICA SLOVENSKA. DURING THE SECOND ERA OF COMMUNISM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1970-1989: A PERSONAL MEMOIR M. Mark Stolarik When I first visited Slovakia in the summer of 1968, I established friendly contacts with the Matica slovenska in Martin . 1 Never did I dream that, a short while later, one of its employees would publicly attack me. This happened because the political situation in Czechoslovakia changed as a result of the Warsaw Pact invasion of August, 1968. The so-called "Prague Spring," led by the Slovak reformer Alexander Dubcek, who wished to transform Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," was crushed under the weight of Warsaw Pact tanks. Less than a year later, Dubcek was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia by the turncoat Gustav Husak, who proceeded to "normalize" the state. What started out as a year of high hopes turned into one of great disappointment. 2 Even though I was born in Slovakia in 1943, my parents decided to evacuate the whole family into Austria before the Russian front came through in January of 1945 . I did not return to my home town of Martin until July of 1968. 3 Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the National Library, which then belonged to the Matica slovenska, 1 A shorter, Slovak version of this article first appeared as "Matica slovenska pod dohl'adom Statnej bezpecnosti," in Matica slovenska v narodnych dejinach, ed. by Imrich Sedlak (Martin : Matica slovenska, 2013), 174-78. I initially described this trip in greater detail as "My Memories of Slovakia under Communism (S ummer of 1968)," in Narodny kalendar CVII (Pittsburgh, 1999), 96-99 . 2 For the latest scholarship on the " Prague Spring" see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Stolarik (Mundelein, IL: Bolchazi-Carducci, 2010). For the period of "normalization" in Slovakia see Norbert Kmet' and Juraj Marusiak, comp., S/ovensko a reiim normalizacii (Presov: Michal Vasko, 2002). 3 1 described my family's Odyssey, as well as Slovak emigration in general, in Where is my Home? Slovak Emigration to North America (1870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). �88 SLOV AKIA-2015 heartily welcomed me. He was delighted that, after so many years of being cut off from the West, he could once again establish contacts with Slovaks in the West. 4 I had come to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 as a Ph.D. student from the University of Minnesota in order to study the villaie origins of Slovak emigration to North America in the 19 th and 20 centuries. I had already studied the parish records of various Slovak communities in the United States and Canada and wished to link them with those in Slovakia. At the same time, I had started to collect archival materials for the newly-established Immigrant Archives at the University of Minnesota. When I finished my research in Slovakia in September of 1968, I promised Telgarsky, that I would begin to send duplicate archival and library materials concerning Slovaks in the USA and Canada to the Slovak National Library in return for the SNL sending me the latest publications of historians in Slovakia. 5 After I finished my doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, I was employed by several professional institutions but never lost contact with the Matica slovenska. At first I was employed by the Cleveland State University as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor (1972-76), then as an Historical Researcher at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa (1977-78), then as President and CEO of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia (1979-91) and finally as Professor and Chairholder of the only Chair in Slovak History and Culture in the Western World at the University of Ottawa (1992 to the present). During all of these years I continued my program of exchange with the Matica slovenska. I wish that I could say that our relations were always good, but it was not to be. While I worked at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, I took the initiative to establish a new scholarly organization. In 1975 a Czechoslovak History Conference had been founded by a group of historians in the United States. 6 From my study of Czech and Slovak history, I knew that, as always, Slovak history, and Slovak scholars, 4 When I returned to the USA, it occurred to me that Jozef Telgarsky was the author of my favorite children's book - Zirafa [The Giraffe] (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1946). While we were refugees in Austria from 1945-1950, my mother often read me sections of this book. I still have it and cherish it. 5 JozefTelgarsky to Marian Stolarik, May 13, 1969, NK 289 20/69-St. See Appendix 1, page 97. 6The history of this organization can be found in its Czechoslovak History Ne wsletter, founded in 1979. �SLOV AKIA-2015 89 would play "second fiddle" in such an organization. Therefore, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Washington, D.C. in October of 1977, I persuaded half a dozen scholars in the USA and Canada to create our own Slovak Studies Association. Since I took the initiative in founding this organization, I was elected its first Secretary-Treasurer and Newsletter Editor. I then contacted as many scholars as I knew had an interest in Slovak studies and invited them to join. By 1983 our ranks had grown to 120 members. Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies accepted us as an affiliated organization and the officers and I organized regular sessions of the Slovak Studies Association at the annual meetings of the AAASS. 7 As Newsletter Editor, I also informed our members of recent scholarly developments in Slovakia, as well as of the activities and publications of our members. Meanwhile, in 1968 the Matica slovenska began to publish a semi-weekly newspaper entitled Maticne citanie and put me on its mailing list. 8 At the beginning this newspaper reflected a good dose of Slovak nationalism and on its masthead carried a stylized Slovak national emblem, which had been banned by the Communists. 9 However, under the weight of Gustav Husak's, "normalization" campaign, in 1973 the Slovak emblem disappeared from the Matica's letterhead and in 1978 the Maticne citanie folded . It was then replaced by the glossy monthly Slovensko. At the same time, Jozef Telgarsky no longer corresponded with me. Instead, two hard-line Communists, at first Jaroslav Celko and later Stefan Krivus, both Directors of the Matica, continued the correspondence. The masthead of their letters no longer carried the Slovak emblem; it was replaced by the letters MS , for the Matica slovenska. 10 It was clear from these changes that the Matica was being purged . Nevertheless, I kept exchanging materials with the Matica and hoped for the best. 7 The history of the Slovak Studies Association can be found in the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association, published since October, 1977. Recently the AAASS changed its name to the American Association for Slavic and Eurasian Studies. 8 A complete run of this newspaper can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 9 See the first issue of Maticne citanie dated October 28, 1968, Appendix 2, pages 98-99. 10 See the letters of Jaroslav Celko, dated March 27, 1973 and Stefan Krivus, dated October 23, 1974 to Mark Stolarik, Appendices 3, page 100, and App 4, page 10 I. �90 SLOV AKIA-2015 Unfortunately, in the 1980's my relations with the Matica slovenska took a tum for the worse. The first sign that something was amiss came in 1980 when the "Oddelenie pre zahranicnych Slovakov" (the Department for Slovaks Abroad) of the Matica slovenska sponsored an international scholarly conference on "Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete" (Emigration and the Life of Countrymen Abroad) and published the papers.11 Even though I had met and befriended Jan Siracky, the Director, and Frantisek Bielek, one of their researchers in 1968 when the Department was established in Bratislava, and they knew that I specialized in the history of the immigration of Slovaks to North America, they did not invite me to this conference. Instead, they invited my good friend and colleague Thomas D. Marzik (originally Mrazik), an Associate Professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. A scholar of Central Europe, Marzik specialized on T.G. Masaryk and the Slovakophile Czech Karel Kalal. He had done no archival research on Slovak immigration. Nevertheless, the conference organizers asked him to present a paper on "The State of American Scholarly Research on Slovak Emigration and on American Slovaks," which he read in English, since he could not speak Slovak. He must have taken the conference organizers by surprise when he asserted, among other things, that "M. Mark Stolarik is currently the most productive scholar concerning the history American Slovaks," and then added, "currently, he is the Executive Director of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia... .In this capacity, he can be very helpful in encouraging further research on American Slovaks." 12 When I received a copy of the Proceedings of this conference, I no longer regretted not having been invited. As I leafed through the book, I noticed that the conference had been opened by Viliam Salgovic, at that time the Chairman of the Slovak National Council, but formerly the Deputy Minister of the Interior in 1968, who betrayed his colleagues in the "Prague Spring" by collaborating with the invading Warsaw Pact forces . It turns out that Salgovic had been an agent of the Soviet KGB and was one of the most hated individu11 Vyst'ahova/ectvo a iivot krajanov vo svete. K storocnici masoveho vyst'ahova/ectva s/ovenskeho /'udu do zamoria. Zbornik prispevkov k vedeckej konferencii. Zost. Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky a Claude Balaz (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1982). 12 Ibid., 131-32. The compilers arranged for Marzik's article to be translated into Slovak. �SLOVAKIA-2015 91 als in Slovakia. 13 Furthermore, the conference organizers also invited the retired grade-school teacher and communist activist Helen Vrabel-Saunders of Los Angeles and the Canadian Slovak communist activist Jan Rumisek to present papers on the Slovak communities in their respective countries. 14 These individuals reflected poorly on the scholarly level of this conference. When Marzik returned to Philadelphia and described the conference to me, he mocked the presentations of these so-called "experts." However, when the Proceedings arrived in the mail in 1982, I mocked Marzik for the company he had kept. The second bad sign from Czechoslovakia came in 1982. At that time my wife and I had decided that, even though the Matica did not invite me to its scholarly conference, we would visit our native Slovakia on our own. As was required at that time, we applied for a visitor 's visa to Czechoslovakia, but, much to our surprise, the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington denied our application, without any explanation. 15 When we had visited Czechoslovakia in the summers of 1968 and 1970, we had acquired visas without any difficulty. The third bad sign occurred in 1983 when, to my great surprise, a certain writer for the Matica's monthly Slovensko, began to attack me. Even though he signed his articles as Milos Biel, he was, in fact, Miroslav Andreansky, a collaborator of the STB (State Security), who edited the Cudzojazicnu prilohu (Foreign-Language Supplement) of Slovensko. 16 In the 1970's, using the cover name Tacovsky, he had served a spy for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in West Germany. 17 13 For Salgovic's welcoming remarks see Ibid., 12-16. For his role in the "Prague Spring" see William Shawcross, Dubcek (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970), 154. Soon after the Communists relinquished power during the "Velvet Revolution" in I 989, Salgovic committed suicide. 14 For their papers see Vyst'ahova/ectvo, 270-87 and 340-42. 15 Chief of the Visa Section (unreadable signature), Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to Mark Stolarik, June 4, 1982 (in author's personal papers) . 16 Dr. Tomas Klubert, an employee of the Ustav pamdti naroda (The Nation 's Memory Institute) of the Slovak Republic, in a reply to my query dated September 3, 2010, confirmed that Andreansky was indeed a collaborator of the STB. His cover name was "Korunka." Unfortunately, his file was shredded on October 8t11, 1988. 17 See the article"Co na to pan Prokes?" published in the monthly Svedectvo: Casopis politickych vdznov na Slovensku, I, no. 4 (April 1992), page 18. �92 SLOV AKIA-2015 Andreansky/Biel had learned about the Slovak Studies Association from Thomas D. Marzik. The Matica slovenska had invited the latter to another international conference in Martin on July 5-7, 1983, on the occasion of the Matica's 120th anniversary. Knowing that the Matica had once again failed to invite Stolarik to this conference, Marzik urged it to establish formal relations with the Slovak Studies Association and also to invite "more American experts" to future conferences.18 Andreansky/Biel replied to Marzik's appeal in the Foreign Language Supplement of the August issue of Slovensko. In an article entitled "?Slovak Studies Association?" Andreansky/Biel wrote: "Direct contact with such leading personalities in the SSA as Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, M. Mark Stolarik and Renee Mikus, because of their hostility [towards the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic] are, at the moment, impossible." 19 This reply was laughable, because neither Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, nor Renee Mikus, held any office in the SSA! I suspect that Stan Kirschbaum was on the "black list" of Czechoslovak authorities because he was the son of Jozef Kirschbaum, who at that time was one of the Executive VicePresidents of the Slovak World Congress and Renee Mikus was married to Jozef Mikus, who also held a high office in the SWC. Indeed, both the elderly Kirschbaum and his colleague Mikus were former diplomats in the service of the first Slovak Republic (1939-1945) as well as members of the Slovak People 's Party, and, as such, supporters of Slovak independence. 20 Thus, they were anathema to the Husak regime. Andreansky/Biel probably did not like Mark Stolarik because he was the son of Imrich Stolarik, also a former member of the Slovak People's Party and, therefore a "separatist" who often wrote articles advocating Slovak independence in the weekly 18 Thomas D. Marzik, "K problematike Slovensko-americkych akademickych vzt'ahov," in Zahranicni S/ovaci a narodne kulturne dedictvo: Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho seminara k 120. vyrociu zaloienia Matice s/ovenskej, compiled by Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1984), 10109. Once again, the Matica arranged to translate Marzik' s article into Slovak. 19 Slovensko, 8 (August, 1983), Foreign Language Supplement. See Appendix 5, gage 102. °For the history of the first ten years of the Slovak World Congress, see Desat' rokov cinnosti SKS, comp . by JozefM. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981). For the struggle for Slovak independence, see J. M . Kirschbaum, Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovensko (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted by the Matica slovenska, Martin, 2000). �SLOVAKIA-2015 93 Kanadsky Slovak. For this reason Andreansky/Biel wrote to Mark Stolarik on November 14, 1983 and asked the latter to repudiate an article written by his father in Kanadsky Slovak on September 24, 1983, which had criticized the August issue of Slovensko.2 1 Andreansky/Biel even promised to publish Stolarik' s reply in the next issue of Slovensko! Instead, Mark Stolarik wrote to Andreansky/Biel as follows : "I will not polemicize with you . Your job is to create propaganda. Mine is to write history. In this instance, I will have the last word." 22 Andreansky/Biel ' s letter showed that, at that time he had more power in the Matica slovenska than its president, the "Narodny umelec" (national artist) and writer Vladimir Mi nae, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. After having read Andrensky/Biel's attack upon me in Slovensko, I complained to Mi nae in a letter dated September 3, 1983 .23 In his reply of October 4, 1983, Minac wrote the following: "I am sorry about what happened in the periodical Slovensko . I have no direct control over the editorial content of the magazine, but, as much as I can, I will try to prevent such future misunderstandings." 24 Meanwhile, Victor S. Mamatey, considered the "dean" of Czech and Slovak historians in the United States, also reacted to the machinations of the Matica slovenska. In the Slovak monthly Horizont, published by emigres in Switzerland, he wrote the following: Slovaks abroad need cultural contacts with their homeland and Slovakia needs contacts with Slovaks abroad . Unfortunately, at the moment such contacts are weak and inadequate. The Matica and the entire regime need to understand that not they, but Slovaks abroad have the right to decide who will represent them at conferences and who will properly interpret their needs. 25 Vladimir Minac could not have been sincere in his reply to Mark Stolarik's complaint because, as indicated above, Andreansky/Biel wrote me again on November 141\ Furthermore, in 1988, during the 21 Milos Biel to Mark Stolarik, November 14, 1983 . See Appendix 6, page 103 . See also Appendix 7, page I 04, for the article in Kanadsky Slowik, September 24, 1983 . 22 Mark Stolarik to Milos Biel, November 29, 1983. See Appendix 8, page 105 . 23 Mark Stolarik to Vladimir Mimic, September 3, 1983 . See Appendix 9, pages 106 and 107. 24 Vladimir Minac to Mark Stolarik, October 4, 1983 . See Appendix 10, page 108. 25 Horizon/ (Zurich), September-October, 1983. �94 SLOV AKIA-2015 era of "Glasnost" and "Perestrojka," as promoted in the Soviet Union and its satellites by General Secretary Mikhail Goobachev in the late 1980's,2.6 I was finally invited to attend another Matica conference in Bratislava. There I met Vladimir Mimic at a Matica-sponsored reception at Bratislava Castle. After the opening ceremonies ended, a tipsy Mimic approached me and asked in a voice reeking of wine "ci vas otec stale serie do toho Kanadskeho Slovaka?" (Is your father still crapping into Kanadsky Slovak?) .27 This vulgar question revealed what was really bothering Minac (and Andreansky/Biel): that my father was freely advocating independence for Slovakia in Kanadsky Slovak. Another reason why Andreansky/Biel attacked me in Slovensko is that I revealed the truth about how it was published. When Tom Marzik returned from the second Matica conference in 1983, he promptly informed me that Slovensko was published in two versions : one for domestic consumption and one for Slovaks abroad. Only the foreign version contained a "Foreign Language Supplement," which carried news about the activities of Slovaks in the wider world. I informed the readers of the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association of these two versions in the June, I 984 issue.28 In its August 22 nd issue, the largest-circulation Slovak-American newspaper, the Jednota, official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, congratulated me for having provided this information. It pointed out that the Matica slovenska was sending Slovensko for free to Slovaks all over the world, and they had no idea that it was published in two versions.29 This information so infuriated Andreansky/Biel that he reacted with a full-page response in the January, 1985 issue of Slovensko. The jist of his response was that the publishers of Slovensko did not have enough paper to offer the "Foreign Language Supplement" to domestic readers.30 The best reaction to this absurd excuse came from Juraj Virsik, editor of the Slovak-Australian Monitor. In an article beginning with the Slovak proverb "Trafena hus zagaga," (A Struck Goose 26 For the Gorbachev era see Angus Roxburgh, The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin (London : BBC Books, 1991). 27 1 described this episode in greater detail under the pseudonym Leo Carpenter in "Looking for Mr. Glasnost in Today ' s Czechoslovakia," in the monthly Crisis: A Journal of Lay Catholic Opinion, 7, no. 7 (July-August, 1989), 33-39. 28 "Slovensko for Two Audiences," SSA Newsletter, 8, no. 1 (June, 1984), p. 13. 29 Jednota (Middletown, PA), August 22, 1984. 30 Slovensko, 1 (1985), "Cudzojazycna priloha.," Appendix 11 , pages 109 and 110. �SLOVAKIA-2015 95 will Squawk), Virsik provocatively suggested that, if Slovakia indeed suffered from a shortage of paper, it could easily turn to the Bulletin of the Slovak World Congress, published in Canada, which had an abundance of newsprint, and the Bulletin would willingly publish any news that the Matica might send it. 31 Andreansky-Biel did not react to Virsik's article. Finally, in 1988, probably as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which also penetrated into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the Matica slovenska invited Mark Stolarik to another of its scholarly conferences, this time to be held in Bratislava on July 46. When I arrived in Bratislava and met with Frantisek Bielik, whom I had not seen since 1970, I asked him who was Miloslav Andreansky/Milos Biel? A surprised Bielik answered, "Don't you know?" "No, I don ' t," I replied. "But, you must know, he continued ." "No I don ' t, I answered." He was still afraid to openly tell me. I then asked where was Andreansky/Biel? Bielik answered, "in Martin." Perhaps Andreansky/ Biel did not attend the conference for fear that I would confront him . As a result, I never met him. After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia, I inquired about his whereabouts and discovered that Andreansky/ Biel had left the Matica and was living in Vrutky, a small railroad town north of Martin. He had apparently joined the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party and was its representative in that town. Since I had met and befriended Jozef Prokes, one of the founders of the Slovak National Party, when he had visited Canada in 1992, I wrote to Prokes and asked him how it was that a former collaborator of the STB was now working for the Slovak National Party?32 Prokes did not answer my letter. Meanwhile, many interesting individuals attended the Bratislava conference. After I presented my paper on the declining use of the Slovak language in the United States, 33 an elderly gentleman ap31 Slovak-Australian Monitor (March, 1985). See Appendix 12, page 111. Mark Stolarik to Jozef Prokes, August 27, 1992 (author's archive). When I visited the Matica at another conference in February of 2013, and once again inquired about the whereabouts of Andreansky/Biel, the older employees, who had known him, sheepishly answered that a few years earlier he had passed away. 33 "A Historical Perspective on the Declining Use of the Slovak Language in the United States of America," in Zahranicni Slowici a materinsky jazyk. Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho symposia k 125. vyrociu zaloienia Matice slovenskej, " comp. by Frantisek Bielik and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1990), I 7277. 32 �96 SLOVAKIA-2015 proached me. He was Dr. Belo Polla, an employee of the Matica in the l 940's, who had been purged and later found himself working for the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra, approached me. He was delighted that, in my presentation, I had mentioned his former colleagues at the Matica such as its director J.C. Hronsky and the publicist Konstantin Culen, as well as the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky and the journalist Jozef Pauco. He added that those names had been "taboo" in Czechoslovakia in the previous years. He was also delighted that emigres such as the linguist I:ubomir Durovic of Sweden and the political scientist Milan Durica of Italy were able to participate in the conference. Such was the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which would eventually lead to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe during the summer and fall of 1989.34 After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in November of 1989, the situation in the Matica slovenska immediately improved. The "old guard" either retired or was fired and the new leaders of the Matica immediately re-established friendly contacts with Slovaks in the West. There were no longer any attacks in the monthly Slovensko against me or any other members of the Slovak Studies Association. Indeed, in 1991 the Matica signed a formal agreement between the University of Ottawa and itself in which it pledged to supply the newly-established Chair in Slovak History and Culture all the books that it needed in order to properly function .35 As a result, in January, 1992, the Chair received hundreds of recently-published books from the Matica and this program of exchange continues to this day. Thus, since 1989 the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa and the Matica slovenska (and its National Library, which split off in 2000), continue to have good relations. 36 34 For the "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia see Jozef Zatkuliak et. al., Nove mber '89: Medznik vo vyvoji slovenskej spolocnosti a jeho medzinarodny kontext (Bratislava: Historicky ustav SA V vo vydavatel'stve Prodama, 2009). 35 Agreement between the Matica slovenska in Martin and the University of Ottawa (Chair in Slovak History and Culture), signed by Marcel Hamelin, Rector, University of Ottawa, September 4, 1991 and Imrich Sedlak, Director, Matica slovenska, November 18, 1991 (author's archive). 36 The National Library of Slovakia split off from the Matica slovenska on July 1, 2000. E-mail from Maria Kurhajcova to Mark Stolarik, July 21, 2000 (author's archive). �SLOV AKIA-2015 97 APPENDIX 1 L C V C: N S K A ,'J • )S1;'ELK A A AOU RE P UHLth Y M A ls1:TIN. Mudrol"lova ,e . 3:i. t e lefOn 2348. 2347 , 2340, :it34Q , 3 197 University of Minnesota, College of Liberal ArtsDepartment of History, Mr. M. St O l 8 r i k M_i_n_n_e_a_e_o_l_i_s Minnesota 55455 - US A v•l i l:111 :rn.a.6k,y1:a, o d,'\.-. 30.III.1969 Na" :an•~k.:i r:r:""maja 1969 l>'K .t.'7 20/69-St Voe Vazen:f pan Stolarik, Na VaA list z 30. marca 1969, ktory ate p!sali Dr . Sir ackemu , oznamujeme V!lm, l!e mikrofillll.Y lfosopisov "Obzor" a "Dom a 1!kol'l" sa ul! r-obia a koncom ~ Vam ich po!!leme. Obzor od roku 1863 do roku 1905 /41 ro~n!kov/ a Dom a Akola od roku 1885 do roku 1897 /13 ro~nikov/. Z ~asopisu Dom a §kola Vam zasielame 4 ro~n!lcy ~ascpisu, kedze mame viac exemplarov. Dufame, l!e Vam to vyhovie. PokiaY ide o pletenie, snhlasime a tym, aby ate nam poslsli mikrofil111.Y: Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, Slovak v Amerike, Jednota a Narodne noviny, pretol!e ni~ v uplnosti nemAme. MOzete nam tiel! oznami t, kde v USA sa tieto ~asopisy na.cMdzaju v uplnosti. Sme radi, ze ste sa ohlasili a ponukame Vam aj dal§iu spolupracu. Ochotne Vam yoaleme zo Slovenska vAetko, ~o potrebujete z novej literatucy a mOze prist do uvahy aj star§ia literatllra, pretoze mame dost dubletov. Boli by sme radi, keby sa na University of Minnesota vybudovalo slu§ne oddelenie slovenskej historickej /alebo inej, podYa potreby/ literatllry. Te§ime ea ns spolupracu s Vsmi a srde~ne Vas pozdravujeme .J ,;R I 1} /lflftl,,\ riadi teY ,N&J-.~nej ' knHnice Ma ti,ce i-'~ lovenske j Dr. J. 'Telgarslcy ~ List bol vrateny, dl\a 27. VI.1969! neznemy �~ \ 1 ~, ' j •t . 1 t ► rr-• .-.... 1..-.••........~-, }:,.\,,_" ·, 1 .. -~·\·.t Propa1atd i!lslo ~"i'darr ... -- J} •~\i ~ · ,, ... .,i\ 1-, ~.c 1·1 •• -~ '; ::;, ' {:,:~ ."1'. •%·"'" ,, __ ~~. • -~ \l ' if ::, ,_ l.;.t.•~~·~ ! ,, '... . · f }If n•Yhno1U 1141- • n« lrult6ru v61:»c, l kullt\rn, ,1:1tvrat ma• .:.zmi. ~~:,,,d:.n.tuh~':!~:.!P~I~,,f ~6,an11 T~PI opqitl~ -,:a b ~ I ,tart JJlllOd' f:111V1tov1J price, • luqttry, lap ako J,)q-lSWCn61µt ~tDltela. lkO ntitro)a. 1, aOC(&llatlc);QIZ\ n•dt-ln,U •Yte' Jebb dobr<d. tradld u, rw n11 t'.'!: =:r.u~~:mi:"!4~• 9!:-=~~::;~ •:~;VJ~~, J• to ~~•~~,b(~~~•v:d;:,,:i=!t~1 = I ~ ron9J1 1l4rodMt, U1f6rr, na prOdeate dn1f ill'1Mtt d.lliliom• fta,ahl1 • napokon l • llltwtdfctou D6~J\:-:a~·":iii!:;,:*..:r::r.' ~~~=·~l: :~~~ • _,,1 ' OT,VA·RAM.E\J,i:\i- ~l, T MeM ~• ''f'iW'• Hu If VfcW..o p,~ ftf'1 chr4'f"M ,q .t~ •.rl#ttf• ~awo po~o, .Jl«)fjatqj ~J\lt~ tUl&V, pred'Htn4lt# 4 mu 6-u,,:Ericuc/1'«/l ~' I ~ ltc&1ic ~,ut OfH'.:UjN Mprifie' ,o. N-.i6~ ho ~,=~~~.;::; ,1,ottt P"lhl¥• 100/•j ,uutl o ptttflduoei• •"' tu4tlto«I t4t, •••,-. :i:siltf~i!'"~:~ ntl11pr())flrtotnf; ,,aop; ml tltlm~Hftw k,. Off llocl 11 opak. ·'Ct potort r>0ff t•Jto irdnU &it =:::r:~~,,. bot, Cn. tr~ dt•"" ·no.:iptllf~ hdllj 01'D~QBIE ~-., l · .& -· ·1 ..•t<,., ~~ ,:.•m ·~t.·~c .j '!Ii~. h l'udslwstt,,. ,,: .. ---- N0,V;£ · l ·- . ,' . -__:_ - ...,.. t l . --= U P I , .-,/J ~ ~ ••~___..,...:..,.. ~- 0'i.~~, Uv~pk ,1,, 'l VY_D(,..VA, MATICA SLOVENS"f V M ' "';~ ~·z., N ~ 0 z --= --= tr! > I (ll .... N 0 < > e:> 0 t""' r:,, '° = �SLOV AKIA-2015 99 APPENDIX2 Za prava ,slo,enciny okrecov dfla e. 10. 19et •yledaJ• •• taJto bttl. nojbo dr.tmla prlaclp Ttato Lueencl praeanf YO . .reJaal runkctl arladiC fu.akcla •lc•prHldan · OceftuJema. te \I 10vls.l ta • tuakclu prdbo pod • •l•bo • 6ra.de., Polladnky tederActou nOho At , aa s1ov,a1 .. a.by Maduo•, .. by ktor6 •IUJ, predHdu ktortl k 50. vtroCJu CSR to ■ t• ta:■Jllf atllf ( •I .. aJoobsahoull podobae aka H • tame, iloat4ve H na progt H ■at"fdl 1Jrol6cb) po mad'■ r• •tnhu itlan6bo dko ■ a ■ awrbuJ• ob1■ daova.al• t-■ kel• •kJ~ •Y d01taU afton.a1 -ped- •I othb postavenla nar noltl. Konltatujema v1ek , kl••· mJ ■ lalra • tt6taaho tajoaud• ~.1K• •,~~:r:1.!:~~~n~;f.~U• na Jkodu vecl n,hrh IA.k1 VycbHsa•• a dotereJlfch Ila. n·ebol vopred pred uvere) ufml trpkfcb ak6Hao1U Slo4. Poprl hlatorlclry a•HI• · L S6b1Hfm■ so He ■lm ti. Y6kov • tobto A•em.Ja. Ul ,Ill.a- nlm 1Dterne konzultovanf I. ala pokl ■ dime ae newy- a fcb a6nocb 'Slovenaki ••· l.rajlla daada • d!ollasyt■ oa- organlUlcleml N•rod. tro1 haulnA doplal( ho b ■ ltalo • rodnl rad• a Cnll:6 ••rodal ti H prett SlovUom aeutf• Term.Io vereJn•J dlskusle rad• l nalogld:y podra lafch n ■ fm, I ■ ..• CSSR .. •16 eet15. 10. 198& Ja prfllJ kri Hl■ tat, la ◄ 6 povlnDf nlln a a 1lonntlaa tlob11 ro•· ■ •now Cl1tno1 dd CSSR. na to, abJ n mohll nlekt dla( po matfanlrf, t,yt tda 116taych )HJ' · vlld• Sloveaalr■ I 1oclallatlc■ oprh ■ ycb kGY ... naJasn~ mlesla n•vrhu nl dvojJ ■ aytaf. Kedle ahtb 6 kel republllry, wllda Cukaj 1CuU.be stllooa • t!I. ◄ IZ u - 11te vysvttllt u kompetl ■oclall•llclr■ J rapubllkJ ( Ire• nych mletaach. Tfmto kooltatonalm .. be • 1 ■ -te dltoaa poulluf lraz■ J• nblC ■ ltl•k aa n6 • IH potwrdzoj■ skul0Cao1f, alto oflcl61ae n6ny \Nirodnfl Predodetkfw Ide o f rodaosU • •m•,.. odllirodttio.-aala lllllllle a■ lo Dripecl• nhrhu zJikona, ktorf hov ktod objektl-ue Je1h,1je, I• rada Sloun•kel ■oc lall1Ucltal fllruje, taUe H m6h delltotlt Jnykml lt6taJcb ora• · rapubllky ■ Nlrodn6 rada 0 prhach prlslu!n"lkov 101 na vzdelanlt nArodnostt n6tlalr) takfto u •Jb16tlt eo repullll• aoclell1llclcaJ CeskaJ ••• 11 tdll•• • •alowneloa, svoJom jnyku a O poutJv SlovUov nlj ■ kf dkon • alto M to koolt ■ taje •I • ti. kf. tohto Juyka v styku • Qr, pt.. takfmto nflllakom vf· S. Uplalnlt • celo,n dkoae I ■hrhu flttHnlho dkona. ml bei akfihOkotvek da lll( 'tittlDJml 1 ■ s1kmJ led■ ai ■ d o fader•Udcll CSSR 1.hatlu, alov ■- ■-cbri.D1, je ta N!l'1ne urCenla. Sme toho nboru, aebe1petanstwo, l• Slodcl tH1kJ nirodaosU jlf6cich • -te •letlry n•tanonnl• tfk•· f6ce u arlad'ovnla federil • , oa tomto 6aemf, ktorf an•• , prho na vrdelenle u m, essa.. die aleb11 aa oeneutl■ per konkrettzovaf na ,1upel\ l Z. NHrbuJean ■, ahy .. prl nycb orahoY, lch komp■ l ■a· ly 1 ,oeesne u mall staJ mad'anlry, aiel1111.h u nebu pliant atuu n ■ l■ I republlky, cl• • unlu lch organh:lcl• vlt podmlenky, za akfch m a prhomocl n mHu menlt dO mGcf doma vo •ereJ011j 1polo•nflt fC&1ko· poulf• ■ l t:l ■ aostl uplatolt, ala bud6 Slonn1kol ; to plall ■ I o pl· Iba oa Uklad• d'allfcb 61ln• 00 uladovaf !koly vyUle ako Uklad.n~ho typu. 1 w,-ranlll •J bez-treala6mu IJ~ prfshalnfbo prfdantbo ofch 1'ko110-... n ■I mH ■ f be1ko-1lovell&kf: Cu• U. I( ni't'rhu 6atua6bo al - kauovaalu. Stovky raaol6CII lsto u1 ~ v 1omto nivrhu t ko .. lonnsk, republlka, t:H• Ilona • a6rodao,tlacb : be konlm:itlzovat, akfm SJ • ,talnoat[. lrtori polltlckfm • 11'taJ• l!laltafom • or1• · sobom sa mA uplatnlt 'l>ti pod.J. ko-alon- ■ lrf lltc • menttnovfch n8.rodnostf %iada111e, ■ bJ H • ■ hrbu ao• SloY6cl • toblo 6.nmla ,.;~:.~D•;::111,~:.:~b\ed::-:.~ VJ'PU&tll ,ad, v kloro ■ •• vlastoibo Jazy poutfvaole po1lelaJ6.. d •«llml ,.,Ntl!afm J•I•• arladlt funkci• pradH- bo•or1, la atrodao1II m•l6 v st_yFu s dradml. n;~:.,.~:- .. undHt bod lllu • podpn ...du, lrllrri by .,prho poalfnf nol Juyk • Tleto ltyllzicle n8.\'rhu .a dkooa VJ"••ch, aHaka •• obudaouU alternaU••• dradnom 1tyku". auje u poutl-..ote • mad'artl • s1avn6ho zakona sQ v roz1 Uthapcom C•sbJ aoc:la.Uatlc· re •J s akentm program1 rato pr•vo by utml pre ■J t• laayko• ltltnych "'· kll r1pub1Jky aJtbo Slo•en • Ov KSS. lebo n4vrb z6ko Slodkov lijliclcb • 1111lela· rodnoaU) • lllradnom ,tylta. ebJ eoclall•tiek•I repu•UlrJ, 511 nez.mleftuJe o povtnno v alJku H nojlml prad•t• · 1lovao1ko•m ■ dar1kfch prltom tty aa afrodn6 nsli· a:fcb n6rodnostof vllarml ,. pollllckfch • ltit• prtslu~nrkov peoie v tfchlo fankdich oblutlach malo nfml ••· aby s ! pomocou t mentin, • nirod m.lH:u uycb orgjnocb priualv6 d6tledkJ. Praklicky atrltdalo podf• funktnfch znaloatJ. osvoJo,'all v~erko t 081 u poull-...C not IHJk. No by soemol6ou1o Slodkom r obdobt. ,:iemolao _ doko ■ ca dko - hatstvo ees kej II slovens• • ttm prlsplev kulrGry .aoru _ n6Uf Slodko• uClf k -\ldjomn6mu s1>0z.ntvar ■a po mad'llhk.) , aby M•cf•rl ,. ■lyku • aJml mohli upl•t · • spolutll1u nirodov • r ubaapeCe11A rodno1H v CSSR . dfJoaom alt Konlunu1eme. ta Slov6cl prflu. Moho tu mlmocbo• IOChtO oblbtlach, kde stl dom upuoralC na krlkfno odchodd poataY■nie Slod • n61 v memlln e, mohll by doataf podra do1erejleJ p1 lrov • Mad'araku, ktort• u xe • poclporou dstavn6ho , • podobnfch prhacb a ■ I 1- ■ kona ' do 11tuAcle, ktora ,, k .o1 .. t nnmia. mo dbsledkoch Tole 1tale •t ■ aoviako ■ a- neentch aaaff. ta by •m• boll proll vlHf k odn6rodf'iovaolu p prfiv a,.ro4aostf, aluJnfkov llitotvorn6bo n.61 :a■ ru~a■ la •I• aem&hme a6bl•alf I poi- da, prfpad ne k lcb 1lteku kodzonnlm Slodkov, lclol"f tfc bto iUemf ■ IovensUbo o , by malo by1 dO.lellltom ale• roda. -. kforjtb _prt• urul!e ■ fch ••- • .J)rginy, lriorf ad nlnter tovan6 na pTlpr,\'e Qstevn .rodaostiHn .,. predlolenom bo zalcooa, by mall uvUlf. ahrbu d•tndbo dkona. by nebolo vbodn6 ,,yhlheci .. tobto Ukona Casove navl * Pracovalcl Matice slovenskej ut na ust1nov11n1e zAkoaa ate · ho odlol federallrAcll. v Martine dt'Ja 8. 10. 196'1 vyslovlU k vl4dnemu ntvrhu • ltylldcle dOsledneftle pr • prekonzultowaf • myallef o postavent nirod• Ukon■ nostl v C:SSR Ueto prlpo• vtetkfcb zlotktch N• rodn ho tronru. mleoky: Publtktcle nivrhu astavntMatt e• slovenska ako c ho Ulkooa -vyvolalo n1Jml v lon4rodn.6 ustanovl.Zeft al p mlestnycb odboroch Matice ldada u morllnu povtnno 1lovenskt1J 01 futnom Sloven- ur,ozornlf na tao.to probl61 sku a.naent ohlaa. Vframe ut •I preto, lebo se 01 ru sa to l)teJavtlo •I ·n, porade v teJto vttel obraceJO tlensl ■ Joie/ Smrhoikj L /Ulo 196& no ndolteoc v Uortln~. m1111tn~bo ~~~1~~. oraanlz.tde 1 cel61 predstavltefov v Mahci ,tovenskeJ, ,nwe:I odpoot.4111 no aktwtlne: otdik~. l'I~"~"'" " ,.............. - .. .. - ~ Foto: A. V. H•id• (Vrouo sprduca MS 4r. Jd,t Mart4k.J Jaqko,adaf '"•• tudowft• lt6ta SAV prlJal k abrbu dkOH O flNf•nlldcH .CS51 ■ atnba filtHatbo dkDDI • ■ trodaC¥,tlacb 1taoo•lako, _. ktorAllo ')'llertme. �SLOVAKIA-2015 100 APPENDIX3 , MATICA SLOVENSK A 1863 1973 NOS!Tlr.RA IADtl IIPl11tlltY The Cleveland Stete University DepArtment of History - College of Arts et Sciences Mr . Marien St olarik C 1 e_v_e_l_ a_n_d_, Ohio 44115 U.S. A. VU li,t anatlty Vee: 10 d6a 26/II/73 Na la I natlta 4-63/1157/35 4/73 - St Martin 27. marca 1973 Vaieny pan Stolarik, ~akuje me za Va§ list, ktory nam umoihuje nadvi azat medzinarodny vymenny styk s The Cleveland State University , Department of History , Cleveland, Ohio prostrednictvom Va§ej pOaobnosti na tejto univerzi te. Avizovam1 publikaciu sme este zatial' ned ostali, nakol'ko doru~enie zasielky trva v priemere tri mesiace. Matice slovenska, Martin s radostou pr!jme predpletne na ~asopis v ramci vymeny "The International Migration Review", ako aj vybavenie na§ich objednavok ns publikacie, ktore Vam budeme postupne, taktiez v remci vymeny posiela t, Vyme nn~ rekepitulacie si budeme viest individuelne na zaklade Va si ch zasielok s cenemi a prip ! §eme v prospech Va§ho vymenneho konte , ako aj z naAej strany zasielane potvrdenky s uvedenim cien pre Va§u evidenciu. Zatial' sme Varn po slali 9 publikacii z oblasti historie su~~snej produkcie podl'a Va§ej po~iadavky dha 15.III,1973 a dal'sie publikacie , tykajuce sa tejto obla sti Vam postupne po~leme, Dufame , te s tymto postu~om budete s uhlbsit a roz s!ri sa fond o slovacika na Va§ej univerzite, ako aj f ond Matice slovenskej s publika ciami , o ktore bud eme ziadat na zaklsde excerpt z Cumulative Book Index s zoznamov vydani j ednotlivych vydavatel'ov. Tymto by sme pokladali dohodu z nasej strany za uzavretu a prosime Vas o pisomny suhlas, Te§ime sa na Va §u odpoved ~ sme / s pozdravom ~ -=- Prof.dr.Ing . Jarosl ov .~ELKO , CSc, / Spravco Matice slovenskej v,b .. •i" Stuchlikova Tclt:r6n 2Sf6, 2547, 2548, 25+9, 5197 Oalekopi1 0755:SI 0)6 5 2Martin, Mud ro6ova M �SLOVAKIA-2015 101 APPENDIX4 , MATICA SLOVENSKA NOSIT£t K A RADU RIP U B LIKY Kr. Ph. D. KarU.n Stol6rii: The Cleveland State Univereity CLEVELAND, Ohio 44115 U SA V' j Ii SI I.oa t ")' zo d na Ma r tin Nala znal': K a 5-63 /1JtlJ/Ff l14-U Vee: 23.10.1974 ~ai:)lje■ e Vma Ba list a vr,ten,y ponui:ovy zozJ:lUl. Poaielee Vo !iadan4 knihy a! na tri tituly, i:tor4 eu •! rocobra• n41 1. Ju!n4 Slovenako 2. Ratkoil1 Pra■ ene k dejinmn Vel'kej Koravy 3e Sedla1 Preilovek4 kolegium v elovenekych dejin,ch Dll:fame, !e oetatn4 knihy dostanete ~o najekar av poriadku. ~akujeme Vu aj za aaaopia "Ethnicity•. Sudame ve:rmi r~ di, ked ho pre n,a objean,te. S pozdravo■ / ~f~ Stefan Krivuil spr,vca Matice slovenakej Vy b ovujec Ulbr ichtov, Kiria Tcler6n 2346, 2347, 2548, 2349, 3197 Oalek.opi1 0753,1 0'652 Mar tin, Mu d r ufi ova 35 �102 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIXS a Cudzojazycnci priloha Sefredali:to, Stefan Hovlo r. Zosto vi l M iloslo v And re6nsky Vydalo Mati ce slo.,en 1k6 v Ma rti ne. Tlotili TSNP, z6 v< Neogrofla , Martin, CSSR v m6Ji 1983. fllowcnal:o a 1983 roku u ma konat' 14. d: 17. okt6bra vo Washing• tone, na budud rok v Kansas City). Madzl elenml SSA je I nlalcorko vyznamnych 7 SLOVAK STUDIES ASSOCIATION 7 Tato apoloalosf ui 120 vedec:kych p.-.covnikov s1ov..-.. p6vodu a priatefov slovenekef vedy, lwttury • umenla nielen z USA• Kanady, ale I z cfalilch lblitov ..,_ zlskava prootrednfo. tvom The Balch lnstitut vo Phlladelphll, USA, od Matice olovaMkef, Slovenakej akademle vied a cfalilch . - k y c h kultumych inititudl e.aoplsy, zbomlky a knlhy. VosvoJom ,,Newsletter", ktory ut po 8 rolcov vyd6va dvakrU do roka, oboznamuje avofich Benov • prostrednk:tvom nlch I sV9tOvu vect.cku verejnosf • knlhaml ■ zbomflcml a upozoffluje na zaujfm■Ye ~Hinley v tasoplsoch. Okrem toho Jnfonnuje •J o knihKfl a - - V 6uopi9och O Slovikoch, a alovenakef problematlke, ktore vytll v cudzlne. Bohutlar napriek evidentnaJ snahe po objekttvnom, nezaujatom rwferovanf prmu len pravlida zimer uprlamlf pozomosf na publlkacle a ttanky a obuhom niilmu lblitu a zrladenlu naprlatersky orlentovanych. SSA mi •I vl■-u edialu l!lnnosf preva!ne V apolupr6cl - ao Slovanakjm Ustavom v Clevelande, oriento-v■ nU nepri■tal'slry voa n,m. Zatlar eo predaada a elenovla vyboru sa vprlebehu rokov - pokier am■ to mall mofnost ■ ledovat menlli, trvalU pozldu ta)omnfka a pokladnlka od r. 1978 mi M . Marl< Stolarik. ktory je aj Ndalctorom .,Newsletter" . SSA je lnltttucionlilnym aenom American Assoclation for Advenc:ement of Slavic Studies • aktivne aa zututiluje na Jej nirodnych konvandich (toho kn)anakych vadeckych p.-.covnlkov, lctori ma)u s Matlcou alovenskou dobre kontalcty. Medzl inyml Mrs. Nonna Rudlnski, Gerald J . Sabo, June Alexander, John Berta, Saly Staruch, Tom Marzik • d'alif z USA.. prof. Peter Petro a Yvonne Grabowski z Kanady ako I J . M. Rydlo zo avajaarska a dalil. AJctfvna Bnn~ tychto k spoluprild • Maticou lllovenskou na kuttumom poff ochotnych llanov SSA, vytvira perapektivu, le v buducnostf aa bude m6ct' celkom aeri6zne uva!ovaf I o konkretnej prlamej apoluprid Matice alovenekej ao Slovak Studies Anoclatlon v oblastl propagicle vyaledkov alovanokef vacly, kultury • umenla vo . - .. Zatlar, • vyhradou propagide nim naprlat.rokej litera• tury, pozltlvna hodnotima snahu SSA oboznamovat svetoW vededc:U vsejnost o nallch uspechoch v oblutl vedy, literatury • umanla. Priame kontalctyvtak vzhradom na neprlat.rsky postoj preclovtetkym takych vplyvnych oaobnostf v SSA ako SU Stanislav J . IOrachbaum, M. Mark Stolarik ■ Renee Mikus, nie SU v SUbsnoatl mOZ"'. Je to aamozrejme na ikodu vecf, ktor.6 nim je opolol!ni: propagidl slovan■kaj vacly. lfteratury a umenla na svatovom f6rw. MILOS BIEL �SLOV AKIA-2015 103 APPENDIX6 VYD/..VA MA.TICA SLOVlNSK/.. no&luil'b bdu repubUky MARTIN 14. Dovembra 1983. VAS LIST ZNA<'!KY Valent pe p~. lla.rlc K. Stolarik The i!lalch lMtit~te 18 S., 1th Street ZO Di'IA N~A ZNA<'!KA Philadelphia, Pa. 19106 VYBAVUJE Kiloll Bie]l. VEC: Vll!eny pain pro:f'e aorl V pr:!10118 Vllm zasielam :f'otokopiu a aajho l!lilnlcu, a SSA v nallom l!aeopiae Slovenako l!.6/83 a :f'otokopiu replilcy z Kanadak4ho Sloviika l!.37, rot. 42 z 24.9.1983, hoci J>Nldpoklaau, !e ich ob11ah d poznate. Ak oba l!llllllcy poromllte a apoaeaiete ei na to1 l!o ate nap1aali predaedovi Matice alovenalcej DIU'o 111119lcovi Vlatia!rovi Kinal!ovi i na jeho odpoved, bude Vu zre,im4, !e Vu Va6i priatelia z Kanadak4ho SlovlUca (Vall otec??) poalcytli aedvadiu alu!bu. Ol!akav.,._, !a ea nad oboma l!lllnkud zllJIIYalite, najd nad ich doaahoa v elovenalalj varejnoati za hranicaai, zaujaete jednoznaln4 a pravde zodpovedaj uce etanoviako a po!iadate redalcciu Kanadak4ho Sloviika o opravu. Ky v Slovensku ame tie! oohotn1 Valle atanoviako publikova~. �SLOVAKIA-2015 104 APPENDIX 7 kor..ne s mojfm prt,dpllllnym . Zarove~ pr1p•J11m MO na 23 dolarov, t. J. 20 11ko predplatne 11 3 na podporu. Zarovel\ m1pr11vde , ktor4 oko!0 nM 11li:1(l _ _______ _ ne. No to si pocnete s eecno- _ ........_,,.;,;._..;..,.....;...,._,,.. slovakm i a podobnymi pobhi- nerobl dobru slufbu medzl sh,denymi oveckami? . venskyml vyst'ahovalcaml na amerlckom konllnente. To by . sl mall uvedomll' af II, ktorl 1:: chcli hfadaf spolupracu so I~sJovenskym exllom v slobod- r-----------------------7 , Mm citatelia opiitovne Vas chceme poprosit', aby ste si prezreli zaznam pri Vasej adrese. Ak mate este stale na konci dvojku (2). tak Vase predplatne vyprsalo. Nedavno sme poslali cfalsfch vyse sto (100) iiadosti o vyrovnanie si predplatneho. Prosfme aj tych, ktori maju na konci trojku (3) a mesiac ai po okt6ber, nech si laskavo vyrovnaju predplatne, lebo im sa uz t' · k c ·1 UI' h • a •d k 1ez s on_ '. o a . c1 1e nam pr cu a vy a_v Y na znamky t1ez. riakureme Varn za porozum~nie Admin1strac1a K . S. I nom svete. I Je zfavne, fe reflm na SloI vensku podnlk6 11 bude podI' nlkaf kroky, aby potupoval sloI venskych ntlrodovcov v exlle a 1' aby podryvallch f"dnotu a akll- J I vltu " 11 kafdom poN. Bolo by ., pod nalu d0stofnosl', aby sme 115 komunlstlckyml ldeol6gml debatovall II vledll s nlml dla16gy. Tym bysme Im roblll sluf- -------------------------• - bu, uzn6vall lch za parlnerov, s kloryml stofl ZII lo sedl ..t' ZII USA a pollllkov sa nezaobera. PIie vedecke prtlce O sloven• skom vyst'ahov,.1lectve do USA _-_·-- •-=;-- ' ~ 11 fe uzntivanou uutorltou medzl amerlckyml hlstorlkml II vedeckyml lnAlllliclaml Podra Andrnansk~ho-Blela Pod tltulom .Ohlasy" uverejnl,. ~ b._g.rof. Sto"rlka,.Je.Jt lo ,.Slovensko'", klore mt! byt' f ·srov ~Sludle._!. kulllirno-spolotenskym s _~ c 18 11 0 ,. 11 b y t 8 t •0 mesatnlkom a je vydavane Ma- ";iiofot!nosr mor.t'a reprezentollcou slovenskou v Turtlan- ,vat' Slovakov medzl amerlckyskom Svlltom Marline, vo svo- ml hlstorlkml a v Slavic Stujom tlsle z flila 1983 naslrane6 dies Association 8 teda Slov,icl utok na Msgr. F. Fugu , ktory je n e b O II p O ne ch an I p O d slovenskym narodovcom a patronatom ,.Czechoslovak predsedom Zahranltnef Mall- Studies Assoclnllon'". Ide O tisce slovenskej, ktora nle je mar- te vedeckli spolotnosl" hlstoxlsllcka ako hi na Slovensku. rlkov slovensl<eho p0vodu, Clanok .Kio klame a dezlnfor- ktorl sa hlasla k slovenskemu muje'" naplsal Mlloslav Andre- rodu a pf§u o slovenskef otazansky. ke vedeckym spOsobom, teda Ten lsty Mlloslav Andretln- objektlvne. sky (alias MIiot Blel) v augusToto sa pravdafe, M. Andretovom tisle Slovenska uveref- tlnskemu-Blelovl nep6tl, lebo nil znova lltok na dr. M. Stoia- sa tam nechvall techoslovaklzrlka, klory fe najkvallflkovanef- mus a marx-lenlnlzmus. !Im slovenskym hlslorlkom v Taketo plsanle Sloyenska spolotnym stolom. J" nam Nto, fe na amerlc• kom konllnenle mtl komunls!Icky reflm na Slovensku svoflch obdlvovatel'ov a kolaborantov, ale tych my anl nepresvedtlme, anl neziskame. Tleto litoky, krltlky, alebo I za. lletanl■ tasoplsu Slovensko nas e§te vlac upevnla v tom, f~ budeme mOcr dOsledne br6nlt a chranlt' mravne a narodne hodnoty slovenskeho exllu a P.rllva slov:en~ e~~9 , .n_a,[.(1da pra~ neAl'astna_~~ ! slovenska v Tufe1anskom Svlltom Martine t~k ne~_f.!)eba Z[pdlla a zre_d.,u. Y m me vel'a svojlch vlaslnej§lch a nallehavejAlch liloh. (R) s/itort �SLOV AKIA-2015 105 APPENDIX8 lHE BALCH INSTITLJrE for ElHNIC STUDIES 18 South Seventh Street, Philadelphia, PA. Or M. Men STOlorik Uecutive Director Boord cJ Trustees Samuel H 8olklm. .k Ch011mon .JohnC Hoen ViceCr'\Otlmon AlexO:"'1010 8 Goloslu 19106 November 29, 1983 P4'n MiloS Biel Reda'kcia Slovensko 036 52 M a ~ Mudroifo va 35 Czechoslovakia Europe DrahY pcln Biel: Secrelo,y v.f$ .John F White heosu16' wo11er ~ Afooe, t0w1ence J 9ornh0'\T r, oc:e,1 C Cho01n MOn Beo111ce K Chemock lh90CJOl8 H Cov11 Th0m01 J F111oei-010 list zo dn'a 14 . novembra, 1983, som dO.e s obdrZal. Mlt~ yravdu ,/ed p{sete Z\ pozn~ obsah ~lo":,enskfch C:asop1;sov. Ako h isto ri k c!tam vsetke Slovenske tasopisy ktore vychadzaju na zapade. Aj niektore' zo Slovenska. Mam tiez' p{somne sty'ky zo Slovak.mi po celom svete. Pre mXa ti e to tasopisy a li s t y su pramene pre deji ny Slova'kov v 20. storoc'i. Lis t y od v;{s pa tt:i a mc dz i nima. Or Muffov J:.11eomon WdhOmL GfolO Dr Roso Bo~e Green Pl"Ol A W~liom Hogiuno Rooe,tM HOwe Moue A ledeler Corv L8Ylnson. Esci Mri- Fronk P louchheln'\ Set C Mo-npon MictlOel Novak Vrvion W Piosoc:k1 Mrs Meve, P Potomlun Em11vC m1ev Prof Timothy l. Smith Consiontine S. Sosongells Dr Jomes Ton11 1-1on Pou! A TroncMellO hOn Mno Cibott1 Ve,no Dr tv'torvin Wocnmon Ho~, Notnan1e1Wos.,1ngton c ec,110 Mov veo Polemizovaf s valmi neb1;,dem. \'1Sa tfloha je robi'! '!,ropa gandu . Mo'ja j e p{sal de jiny. V tomto pripade budem ~ ma'E posledne slovo. Ked chcete da~o uverejni'f v c!as opise Sl ovensk o , zasi ela'm vfm Clanok z Horizontu, o semin.iri v Martine. Vi k t or M.amatey , n.JS by'vali predseda, ho napisal a celkom s nlm s\Jhlasim. P{sat mOtete Co chcete. Historici budu vSetko posudzo vat. "Pravda vitazi," ako hovoril Masaryk. S k rajansk[m pozdrav om , /~ Emet1tu1 Prot fo.....o'O p HuTC""l1nson / (215) 925-8090 /-r?'i / v -~ Maria'n Stolclri k 0-< �SLOV AKIA-2015 106 APPENDIX 9 Slovak Studies Association Affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 700 Pe nfie ld Ave. , Havertown , PA 19083 Septemb e r 3 , 1983 Dr . Vladimfr !tinll! Predseda Matice slovenakej 812 51 Bratislava Pugai!"evova 2 Czechoslovakia 1968, I have of scholarly asked for my agreed . Over thousands of exchange. Since my first research tri p to Slovakia in the summe r of actively cooperated with the Matica elovensk8 in the exchange materials . Dr. Jan Martak and Dr. ~tefan Krivulf wrote me and cooperation in this program of cultural exchange and I gladly the last fifteen years I have sent the Mat i ca slovenska dollars worth of book.a and periodicals as a part of this You can imagine what a s hock and aurprise it was to me, therefore , to open your monthly magazine Slovensko (No.8, 1983) and to find, on page 6 of your supplement, 11 Slovensko krajanom, 11 an attack upon me by a certain MiloJ Biel. He accuses me, aa editor of the Slovak Studies Newsletter , of bringing to people's attention articles and publications "whose contents are hostile to our state I a political system," of working "in cooperation 11 with the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, 11 and of taking an unfriendly s tand" towards Slovakia. Cont'd on page 107 �SLOV AKIA-2015 107 APPENDIX9 Besides being false, these charges betray a certain naivte by Mr. Biel about historical scholarship and conditions in the West. You, as a scholar and poet, must realize that serious historians have to consider all sources when writing their history, not just those that a certain political philosophy calls for. That i s the very essence of objectivity. Furthermore, it is the duty of true scholars to have contacts with all institutions that contain historical meterials, whether they be located ~Slovakia or in the United States. Finally, we in the West believe in openness and pluralism. For instance, the Slovak Studies Association, of which I am the founder and Secretary-Treasurer, has among its members Slovak Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Greek Catholics, Jews, nationalis ts, 'Czechoslovaks' and Marxists. We do not exclude people because of their religion or political orientation. We are open to all scholars who are interested in promoting Slovak studies the world over . Therefore, Mr. Biel' s clumsy attempt to list 1 'friendly 11 and "unfriendly" members of the Slovak Studies Association is going to backfire and hurt the good contacts that the Hatica slovenska has developed with Slovaks in the West over the last several years. I s uggest that you have Mr. Biel retract his crude and unwarranted attack upon me in the next issue of Slovensko . If he does not, I have a feeling that most of the goodwill that the Hatica slovensklhas built up with young scholars in the Western World will very quickly disappear. Yours Sincerely, l ·f i~ �108 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIX 10 Bratislava, 4,10,1983 Vazeny pan Stolarik! Iste Vas nemusfm ubezpe ~ovaf o tom, ako Matici slovenskej zalezf na vsetkom, co sa aotyka dejin i su~asnosti slovenskej narodnej kultury, ako nam teda zalezi aj na kazdom, kto s nami chce v mene buducnosti tejto kultury spo lupracovaf, To sa dotyka aj Slovak Studies newsletter i Vas osobne, Mrzf ma to, co sa stale v ~asopise Slovensko, Nemam priam_y vplyv na redigovania ~asopisu, ale pokia! to bude v mojich silach., zabranim v buducnosti moznym nedorozumeniam . Rozumia sa, za mame rozliCne nazory na zivot spolocnosti a na jej buducnost . Ale mame aj spoloCnu starost, ktorou je slovenska narodna kultura, jej dejiey a osudy - na celom svete, Dufam teda, ze nam v oalse.j spolupraci nezabrania malichernosti a ostavam so srdeCnym pozaravom dJ.l~-t~~ / t/ • Vazeny pan M,Mark Stolarik 7U0 Penfiela Ave. Havertown, ~A 19083 ~~~U Narodny umelec Vladimir Minal! �SLOV AKIA-2015 109 APPENDIX 11 - s--!.. =■ ~ S:io'-'6,1,~Ko t /tJ.,~f. HIOll4CIIKl:1:t c::==s ilowc11td::~ ► --. 5: Slovensko pre ,,dva druhy citatefov" Pod tymto Hver•vr•vnYffl .. l&IVom uv--tnM p6n M...Wn Mtt Stolarik. tajomnlk • po-. ......· - - • e t ipolotnOfll (Slovak StudlN \Noc:Ultion) v USA vo •vojom "MWUetter rot. I , tWo 1/iun 1114, str. I . nuledujUCU pomemku : ,Sloven•ko, oflcialny meu~ "Ilk M•tH» •lov•n•k• J vych'· dz.a vo dvoch veni,ch, p,-. dv• r,dliln4 titat•l•k4 ve,.jna.rl. Predpok/adal aom, I • ..,,•tci nd i ~novla to vedill, • I• n• d4vn o .am zlstil l e to tak nle ,._ Vlalna 1. v,. J. v domienk•. h Slo~o. tron dost'"'• t• Vy ■Jja, jetenl•tvtuop/a, lrto,Y cirltulu}9 ,,. Slowm•ku. f•li•. Aku pozome adlv■ t• n• lcror,hofvek 8•/o V"h o U•ooi•u SloVM1•ko, vlimnite al, le mtKUi 16. • 17. atranou hlevnej t..•ti ~nopi•u je Cudzofuytn' prf/ohe, r,ro Cudzoj•~n, prlloha znaman, oval• vlec n#Jl vyzer,. ObuhuJ• tiel ~,,,.. ky v •loventine, ilu•troven4 ,, Toho tuu ,,.jchUlo•tiwjjoo ....cou je otbb •lav•n•k•J prl• lo hy Sloven.Ice. v,1ho m • ~ nib, wnov• MJ Jcr• Janom v u hr•ni8, ,,. ktof'U m• upozornlll •i vlac»rl )ednotllvcl. PodobM elco Stol• rilc v Slov• lc Studi• ._ Pouvelu;t• a WICI, uda t•ru ul r,ro prlloh• v •lowrwt.•f rKi b y mohl• by( •U~•fou rl•dM otlaloven'(Ch .rr, n Slovt1M ka, • to •i pre 6it•t• l ov v • t•rom kr•JI. Cudzojuytry prllohe by u moh/M vloli( do ~•oplsu Hp■ r,rne. Predillo by u zbytotn•J krltilce, nedtr wre, yYSmelnYm • ultll)«:nYm pozn,mlcem • Jcont,..ver• zil, I• u Ju ,ob4v• t• uUnf titetefom dome '. S.m ozre/m, w c, Je potombyste melivybe,..f • pr'vy od 01db v,m pr!Jat111nych.,, Ne dldede tohoto llstu sm• pochopHI, le naM nepriatalls v auf•l•J sneh• dlskredftova! n'6 tasopls. c:hytaJU N kaJdel prildfto.tl, aby naMI Umlen• 2) bu<f vy va ml moriadtis!■ Sk>vensb 2 X do roka • ru u rok Magufn, ako •m• to uroblll v rokoch 1811 s 1NZ. 3) elebo prUollt NmostatnU prflohu ku kald,mu tulu Slovenska, 1rtor• bud• ••· pedov•n• U.,enom. Bolo n,m Ja.sn',, le form• pristupu ku luajanom vytadu}11. ■by ttat.M slovo, ktorym .. bud•m• obraca! ku krajaq_om. bolo vy,obeM najmodern9llou tachn.lkou • na kv■• litnom ps.,...-1. preto.le all.nm toho, le bude plnft' nu-odnouvedomovadu • fflformKnU funk.du, bude slutff •J ako ,.._ pruenUda nai•J SUtesnosd. Preto rozhoduJUdml taktorml, ~ urtlll tretlu alt.emaUvu ako opdmilnu • reelb.ovstel'nU, boll: pridal kvalhMho pa• piera a Aulomberka, ftnentn. prostriedky poa«ytovan, Ml• nlst.erstvom lwlturf SSA. pwaoniln• ubupet:enl• redak• tn't'ch pnc bu zvylenla at.aw redaktorov • konetne 11..padta tlatlarM. NaN Slovensko •ko Matupc:a MatitMho ffianlll vych6du ul 6smy roll. Ptvyc:h I rokov vyc:hadulo i.k ako teraz n• 32 stnMc:h, ale z toho Ian na I farebnych. Nlekol'ko stovik vytlatkov Slov•nslta :uslelalo byval4 Oddelenle MS ~ U· hranltnjch Slov,kov I n■JJm knjanom predovletkym do Fnl'tCUului, Juhosljvle • Kanady. 11M I do USA• Auatr611e. 0d roku 1813, v a&JvlslMtl • I► ho vlalm umeranhn do uhran~•• rodlriM sme fa,.bnU ten' n11 11 atrin. bez avylenla cany Ka 5, - :u a.Jo. To ale znamenelo t1atH oety tuopfs na kvalftnom ,,..,_... Nale tov,,.I\ v Rulombertc.u vyr6ba skutotne kv•lltnY pepler, ktory Je yYZ.namnYffl exportn,;m ;rovania • udriovania kontak tov • lu■janml • v ""•ha po m6d im v kh Ualll o udrianll sloven~o n,rodn~ pov• dornla a podtu •~upatrit nosd • Jedrom n6rods P04 T atraml, alto I umo.t:ntr Im YU )omn, poznanl• krsjan~ livota v r6znyc:h tastiac:h sva ta Itek ako sma to uv&edl v 1/14 Bale Slov•nslui). Ak by sm• chcall dod6v• prilohu Slovansko krajanon I na domic:I trh, potrebovaU b• ame prlnajmen9' o 30 % vyt.t pridel p,aJNer•. to u daneJ vj robne4 sftuKM v n.&J:ombe, • k•J tov6rni nle }e moln4i. Tak ti&I by sme muMII ;rvyi,lt' cani tasopisu na dom6com trhu, 6t tlel v sutasnoati Ne Je ul.alM TNI• •ko vldlta, m ill luaja nl a, calkom proukk6 flnant " '• ma....Ulna • techrdck, d6 vody Mt pntinou, pre&t tj ta.Slovenaka, ktor6 Ja ur6en6 kni janom • :uoberi N prevs.tn. luajanskou problematikou nil Je k dlt,poddl I domkam1 Btat.rovl. Cudzojuyl"' priloha J• tla 6an, na obytajnom 1.-.bnon novl novom pepl■ rt, aby ZyY ru.nlla a oddelllll prlohu 0< ostat,,..,o taxtu . Talrto nie J4 ponJien6 kontlnulta taxtu pr1 domidch tltatelov • kr■J•n sky at.atel' dOSUva svoj u prflo hu komp,aktnU. Konettla treba p. Mar5'nov Stolarikovl prlpomenut', h pr avojef vedlajiej tinnostl altc r.dsktor • vydav■tel' Nawalet• tar al mohol (ubudol alebo nec:hcel1) Yilmnuf, le sko oudzolazytni prilohe, tak I Slo· vansko lu■Janom majU NmoatatnU tlril. to v novin6rskej praxl anama"'-, la hod Je Jedan vydav■ W I Ufr.daktor. prMaa to, to do.Uvs, SU vlast• ne tri Nmostatn4i periodlld (hod I spolu zoliU). ktor6 m~ tu byf upedov•M • rodlro• Cont'd on page 110 �SLOV AKIA-2015 110 APPENDIX 11 • ~ • to priMU a , nky o s1ov, lcoch na UpatH. Slovkl dom• tuto prllohu niltdy navkl~ . Vla•tMUwry .iurobteMml." Nepovdov•II •m• dopot,lal' uWM ,-govat' na alee dot.. .nultov•n&i. ... pNdu len U'9jmU domyeel'noet' uv.. defMlpmNlmlryvNew.iett:•. Medd6uo,n u I\U v I.ta opjul llnjan a NSR. pr.ea nedoetaf v CSSR i!uopla SbveMlco • prilohou 8&ovenako lulljanom. Odpovadal am• mu p&.omne pnllmo • on naM vywetaenieakoeptoval. Oo.teM ..,... vlak d'.U 19t a USA od vjzn,amrwho krajanakMto kutbimeho Bnltel'-. v ktorom bol nuledufQd od- u ......, dWttod &u ndavnutomli, PN koho taeopl• vycUvama ■ v ■ tom rouahu, roahod.W .me N podllf ilrokej knjanilk•J Y«9jnoatl vywedanie. 0 d6vodoch, ktcri nN • nM nadrtadenf Ol'Pn - Mlnlnera:tvo 11.ulb;ry 8SR - vleclll le tomu, ■by am• vycMv■ II tlHMM alovo pre lualanov, MM plull oblim• ne tomto m'-te v 9/M a.le Slovanaka. Tu tr..bll objaantt' Iba technldw .trinJa.i rulldde. Z Uvah, ■ ko rHll.zov■t i.nto dme,, vykryttall.zovall J ■har­ t111tfvy: 1) bud' vydjvaf Nmo.tab'tf fuopl■ pre knjaftOV (kvr(.-O<J. vyN>ba, Ide na uport. Napatr"' Ullf' aoaUiva pre, tuumsko ■ ,. prfen■ llmH.ovan6. N•t tuopq doetaval tie.I urtfty prid.a tohoto papi.,.. (n■ I _,.n). 0d roku 1N3 bol prklel r,ylent na pokrytM I farebnych strin (d'.tlkh) ■ I rilin prflohy PN lu■Janov. baopta 810¥'9ftN0 I• WWnY' ..........................ho atatel'■ : 70 % Nlldadu Ide na dom'4:il trh ■ len 25 % ,. prilohou) pre lnjanov ■ I % pre on.atnu GUdzlnu. Tyoh 21 "' "'ldadu. apolu • c:uckoluy6nou p,9ohou • prlohou Slownako kntrlanom IMnC:1Ujeme a~Matloe.aov.n•uJ dotovaMho ~om kuhury &SR v UUJm• Na UV..- .. t ied.a podotknUf, ta ,ri..,.a tych rucMckofaM.tkkych luuhov, kto" •ita necMvno qltovall, aby Mm lln)ani• Slovenako vrac.all Cnapr. tt.nadaky Slodk), .. aruu DZYV• fartzajsk.6 atarost• lfvo.t o nilho do""oeho tltaWa. la nav&dl iu.JaN116 priohu. :Um..- Je fun'i' • jednoanat:nj . Cheu Mm polllodK, otrevovaf vzfahy nwwdal narnl • krajanml. lrtoN .. 1 naprielc lch lntria'm .,.,.,.. • Ua,pe,tn• roMJaJ'I . .... anahy hod~ nflnonn, • hod I n• Cpeaudo) ved41Ckej Oroml aem,ow"' prukn6 alto myclo"' bubllna. pr.tole pr■ vda )e ,.. n-■J nadvA- Cud1oja1yCnd prnoha Rlowcnallo ~ S...- Htl.i.., Z -fll M ,i.,1 .. A ~,t--AOI V~MMl1lcaoi...-U• • " " ' -· 'i.t.llTS""'.••"' .w(- "-9,_fJa. MolniA, (l.$a • - 1,n . . . , . �SLOV AKIA-2015 111 APPENDIX 12 TRAFENA HUS ZAGAGA is a Slovak saying meaning literally •the goose that is hit will maJce a loud cackle• . .I t caoos to one's mind when reading the article in SLOVENSKO *) ,tbe.:.official monthly publication of'Hatica slovenska (Czecho-Slovakia) attacking Hark H. Stolarik, Secretary-Treasurer of the SlovaJc Studies' Asscr ciation (USA) far his brief remark in the Association's Newsletter (June 1984, see also SM 5 &6, p.28). Stolarik informed about the non-availability of SLCNENSKO' s supplement SLDIENSKO XRAJANOH (aimed at Slovaks outside Sl~ vakia) to readers in J;lovakia. According to SLOIENSXO,the re~ sons f.or this non-availability are econcmi c : paper . shortage• •though no mention •is made of the fact that they are flooding the West with 'canplimentary copies' of their books printed on very expensive paper. I t takes them the best part of a page to say this, when a simple ,sentence •because of economic reasQllS we cannot supply the Supplement for no extra cost to readers in Slovakia, however they can obtain i t· ·e asily for an additional subscription . & . Kcs ... • would have been sufficient. But ·this they dia ..cot want tD say! By the way, one is concerned~ bout access to SLCNENSKO KRAJANOH not as i f this was the best way to inform people in Slovakia . - about Slovak life in the West, but because Hatica slovenska herself has been encouraging Slovaks in the -west to establish contactJwith their old homeland through h'Z"iting ·to SLCNENSKO. I f the only obstacles to establishing such contacts were economic , a simple solution would be this : The BULI£TIN of the SLCNAX WCRLD CONGRESS states that it: "is available to readers in Slovakia free of charge• (there is no paper shortage in Canada !J. Why does not Hatica slovenska undertaJce to distribute the BULI£TIN free .of charge among the subscribers of SLOVENSKO in .Slovakia, and have in exchange the Slovak World Congress distribute SWVENSKO KRAJANOH free of charge to the readers of their BULLETIN in the West. Nobody could then canplain about lack of contacts : •I t was too much of a temptation to resist, namely to present to our readers the final part of the article in SWVENSKO with ·al:1 -its orwellian beauty (their English sUD1Dary contains neither this nor the vitriolic attaak .on H. Stolarik) : Those who dared to question the availability of SLOVENSKO KRAJANOH are •fascists• and "pharisees• (what a combination !) who "want to damage and poison the r~ lationship between us [i.e. Hatica] and our countrymen, which shows a premising and successful development despite their [i. e. the fascists' and pharisees' J intrigues. Their attempts, though cunning and presented on a {pseudo) scientific level .will burst like a soap bubble because .the truth is on our side.• � 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 2015, Vol. 42 Description An account of the resource Vol. 42 (No. 78-79), 2015. 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 2015 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOV AKIA-2015 87 MY ROCKY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MATICA SLOVENSKA. DURING THE SECOND ERA OF COMMUNISM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1970-1989: A PERSONAL MEMOIR M. Mark Stolarik When I first visited Slovakia in the summer of 1968, I established friendly contacts with the Matica slovenska in Martin . 1 Never did I dream that, a short while later, one of its employees would publicly attack me. This happened because the political situation in Czechoslovakia changed as a result of the Warsaw Pact invasion of August, 1968. The so-called "Prague Spring," led by the Slovak reformer Alexander Dubcek, who wished to transform Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," was crushed under the weight of Warsaw Pact tanks. Less than a year later, Dubcek was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia by the turncoat Gustav Husak, who proceeded to "normalize" the state. What started out as a year of high hopes turned into one of great disappointment. 2 Even though I was born in Slovakia in 1943, my parents decided to evacuate the whole family into Austria before the Russian front came through in January of 1945 . I did not return to my home town of Martin until July of 1968. 3 Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the National Library, which then belonged to the Matica slovenska, 1 A shorter, Slovak version of this article first appeared as "Matica slovenska pod dohl'adom Statnej bezpecnosti," in Matica slovenska v narodnych dejinach, ed. by Imrich Sedlak (Martin : Matica slovenska, 2013), 174-78. I initially described this trip in greater detail as "My Memories of Slovakia under Communism (S ummer of 1968)," in Narodny kalendar CVII (Pittsburgh, 1999), 96-99 . 2 For the latest scholarship on the " Prague Spring" see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Stolarik (Mundelein, IL: Bolchazi-Carducci, 2010). For the period of "normalization" in Slovakia see Norbert Kmet' and Juraj Marusiak, comp., S/ovensko a reiim normalizacii (Presov: Michal Vasko, 2002). 3 1 described my family's Odyssey, as well as Slovak emigration in general, in Where is my Home? Slovak Emigration to North America (1870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012). 88 SLOV AKIA-2015 heartily welcomed me. He was delighted that, after so many years of being cut off from the West, he could once again establish contacts with Slovaks in the West. 4 I had come to Slovakia in the summer of 1968 as a Ph.D. student from the University of Minnesota in order to study the villaie origins of Slovak emigration to North America in the 19 th and 20 centuries. I had already studied the parish records of various Slovak communities in the United States and Canada and wished to link them with those in Slovakia. At the same time, I had started to collect archival materials for the newly-established Immigrant Archives at the University of Minnesota. When I finished my research in Slovakia in September of 1968, I promised Telgarsky, that I would begin to send duplicate archival and library materials concerning Slovaks in the USA and Canada to the Slovak National Library in return for the SNL sending me the latest publications of historians in Slovakia. 5 After I finished my doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, I was employed by several professional institutions but never lost contact with the Matica slovenska. At first I was employed by the Cleveland State University as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor (1972-76), then as an Historical Researcher at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa (1977-78), then as President and CEO of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia (1979-91) and finally as Professor and Chairholder of the only Chair in Slovak History and Culture in the Western World at the University of Ottawa (1992 to the present). During all of these years I continued my program of exchange with the Matica slovenska. I wish that I could say that our relations were always good, but it was not to be. While I worked at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa, I took the initiative to establish a new scholarly organization. In 1975 a Czechoslovak History Conference had been founded by a group of historians in the United States. 6 From my study of Czech and Slovak history, I knew that, as always, Slovak history, and Slovak scholars, 4 When I returned to the USA, it occurred to me that Jozef Telgarsky was the author of my favorite children's book - Zirafa [The Giraffe] (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1946). While we were refugees in Austria from 1945-1950, my mother often read me sections of this book. I still have it and cherish it. 5 JozefTelgarsky to Marian Stolarik, May 13, 1969, NK 289 20/69-St. See Appendix 1, page 97. 6The history of this organization can be found in its Czechoslovak History Ne wsletter, founded in 1979. SLOV AKIA-2015 89 would play "second fiddle" in such an organization. Therefore, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Washington, D.C. in October of 1977, I persuaded half a dozen scholars in the USA and Canada to create our own Slovak Studies Association. Since I took the initiative in founding this organization, I was elected its first Secretary-Treasurer and Newsletter Editor. I then contacted as many scholars as I knew had an interest in Slovak studies and invited them to join. By 1983 our ranks had grown to 120 members. Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies accepted us as an affiliated organization and the officers and I organized regular sessions of the Slovak Studies Association at the annual meetings of the AAASS. 7 As Newsletter Editor, I also informed our members of recent scholarly developments in Slovakia, as well as of the activities and publications of our members. Meanwhile, in 1968 the Matica slovenska began to publish a semi-weekly newspaper entitled Maticne citanie and put me on its mailing list. 8 At the beginning this newspaper reflected a good dose of Slovak nationalism and on its masthead carried a stylized Slovak national emblem, which had been banned by the Communists. 9 However, under the weight of Gustav Husak's, "normalization" campaign, in 1973 the Slovak emblem disappeared from the Matica's letterhead and in 1978 the Maticne citanie folded . It was then replaced by the glossy monthly Slovensko. At the same time, Jozef Telgarsky no longer corresponded with me. Instead, two hard-line Communists, at first Jaroslav Celko and later Stefan Krivus, both Directors of the Matica, continued the correspondence. The masthead of their letters no longer carried the Slovak emblem; it was replaced by the letters MS , for the Matica slovenska. 10 It was clear from these changes that the Matica was being purged . Nevertheless, I kept exchanging materials with the Matica and hoped for the best. 7 The history of the Slovak Studies Association can be found in the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association, published since October, 1977. Recently the AAASS changed its name to the American Association for Slavic and Eurasian Studies. 8 A complete run of this newspaper can be found in the Slovak Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa. 9 See the first issue of Maticne citanie dated October 28, 1968, Appendix 2, pages 98-99. 10 See the letters of Jaroslav Celko, dated March 27, 1973 and Stefan Krivus, dated October 23, 1974 to Mark Stolarik, Appendices 3, page 100, and App 4, page 10 I. 90 SLOV AKIA-2015 Unfortunately, in the 1980's my relations with the Matica slovenska took a tum for the worse. The first sign that something was amiss came in 1980 when the "Oddelenie pre zahranicnych Slovakov" (the Department for Slovaks Abroad) of the Matica slovenska sponsored an international scholarly conference on "Vyst'ahovalectvo a zivot krajanov vo svete" (Emigration and the Life of Countrymen Abroad) and published the papers.11 Even though I had met and befriended Jan Siracky, the Director, and Frantisek Bielek, one of their researchers in 1968 when the Department was established in Bratislava, and they knew that I specialized in the history of the immigration of Slovaks to North America, they did not invite me to this conference. Instead, they invited my good friend and colleague Thomas D. Marzik (originally Mrazik), an Associate Professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. A scholar of Central Europe, Marzik specialized on T.G. Masaryk and the Slovakophile Czech Karel Kalal. He had done no archival research on Slovak immigration. Nevertheless, the conference organizers asked him to present a paper on "The State of American Scholarly Research on Slovak Emigration and on American Slovaks," which he read in English, since he could not speak Slovak. He must have taken the conference organizers by surprise when he asserted, among other things, that "M. Mark Stolarik is currently the most productive scholar concerning the history American Slovaks," and then added, "currently, he is the Executive Director of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia... .In this capacity, he can be very helpful in encouraging further research on American Slovaks." 12 When I received a copy of the Proceedings of this conference, I no longer regretted not having been invited. As I leafed through the book, I noticed that the conference had been opened by Viliam Salgovic, at that time the Chairman of the Slovak National Council, but formerly the Deputy Minister of the Interior in 1968, who betrayed his colleagues in the "Prague Spring" by collaborating with the invading Warsaw Pact forces . It turns out that Salgovic had been an agent of the Soviet KGB and was one of the most hated individu11 Vyst'ahova/ectvo a iivot krajanov vo svete. K storocnici masoveho vyst'ahova/ectva s/ovenskeho /'udu do zamoria. Zbornik prispevkov k vedeckej konferencii. Zost. Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky a Claude Balaz (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1982). 12 Ibid., 131-32. The compilers arranged for Marzik's article to be translated into Slovak. SLOVAKIA-2015 91 als in Slovakia. 13 Furthermore, the conference organizers also invited the retired grade-school teacher and communist activist Helen Vrabel-Saunders of Los Angeles and the Canadian Slovak communist activist Jan Rumisek to present papers on the Slovak communities in their respective countries. 14 These individuals reflected poorly on the scholarly level of this conference. When Marzik returned to Philadelphia and described the conference to me, he mocked the presentations of these so-called "experts." However, when the Proceedings arrived in the mail in 1982, I mocked Marzik for the company he had kept. The second bad sign from Czechoslovakia came in 1982. At that time my wife and I had decided that, even though the Matica did not invite me to its scholarly conference, we would visit our native Slovakia on our own. As was required at that time, we applied for a visitor 's visa to Czechoslovakia, but, much to our surprise, the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington denied our application, without any explanation. 15 When we had visited Czechoslovakia in the summers of 1968 and 1970, we had acquired visas without any difficulty. The third bad sign occurred in 1983 when, to my great surprise, a certain writer for the Matica's monthly Slovensko, began to attack me. Even though he signed his articles as Milos Biel, he was, in fact, Miroslav Andreansky, a collaborator of the STB (State Security), who edited the Cudzojazicnu prilohu (Foreign-Language Supplement) of Slovensko. 16 In the 1970's, using the cover name Tacovsky, he had served a spy for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in West Germany. 17 13 For Salgovic's welcoming remarks see Ibid., 12-16. For his role in the "Prague Spring" see William Shawcross, Dubcek (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970), 154. Soon after the Communists relinquished power during the "Velvet Revolution" in I 989, Salgovic committed suicide. 14 For their papers see Vyst'ahova/ectvo, 270-87 and 340-42. 15 Chief of the Visa Section (unreadable signature), Embassy of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to Mark Stolarik, June 4, 1982 (in author's personal papers) . 16 Dr. Tomas Klubert, an employee of the Ustav pamdti naroda (The Nation 's Memory Institute) of the Slovak Republic, in a reply to my query dated September 3, 2010, confirmed that Andreansky was indeed a collaborator of the STB. His cover name was "Korunka." Unfortunately, his file was shredded on October 8t11, 1988. 17 See the article"Co na to pan Prokes?" published in the monthly Svedectvo: Casopis politickych vdznov na Slovensku, I, no. 4 (April 1992), page 18. 92 SLOV AKIA-2015 Andreansky/Biel had learned about the Slovak Studies Association from Thomas D. Marzik. The Matica slovenska had invited the latter to another international conference in Martin on July 5-7, 1983, on the occasion of the Matica's 120th anniversary. Knowing that the Matica had once again failed to invite Stolarik to this conference, Marzik urged it to establish formal relations with the Slovak Studies Association and also to invite "more American experts" to future conferences.18 Andreansky/Biel replied to Marzik's appeal in the Foreign Language Supplement of the August issue of Slovensko. In an article entitled "?Slovak Studies Association?" Andreansky/Biel wrote: "Direct contact with such leading personalities in the SSA as Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, M. Mark Stolarik and Renee Mikus, because of their hostility [towards the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic] are, at the moment, impossible." 19 This reply was laughable, because neither Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, nor Renee Mikus, held any office in the SSA! I suspect that Stan Kirschbaum was on the "black list" of Czechoslovak authorities because he was the son of Jozef Kirschbaum, who at that time was one of the Executive VicePresidents of the Slovak World Congress and Renee Mikus was married to Jozef Mikus, who also held a high office in the SWC. Indeed, both the elderly Kirschbaum and his colleague Mikus were former diplomats in the service of the first Slovak Republic (1939-1945) as well as members of the Slovak People 's Party, and, as such, supporters of Slovak independence. 20 Thus, they were anathema to the Husak regime. Andreansky/Biel probably did not like Mark Stolarik because he was the son of Imrich Stolarik, also a former member of the Slovak People's Party and, therefore a "separatist" who often wrote articles advocating Slovak independence in the weekly 18 Thomas D. Marzik, "K problematike Slovensko-americkych akademickych vzt'ahov," in Zahranicni S/ovaci a narodne kulturne dedictvo: Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho seminara k 120. vyrociu zaloienia Matice s/ovenskej, compiled by Frantisek Bielik, Jan Siracky and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1984), 10109. Once again, the Matica arranged to translate Marzik' s article into Slovak. 19 Slovensko, 8 (August, 1983), Foreign Language Supplement. See Appendix 5, gage 102. °For the history of the first ten years of the Slovak World Congress, see Desat' rokov cinnosti SKS, comp . by JozefM. Kirschbaum (Toronto: Slovak World Congress, 1981). For the struggle for Slovak independence, see J. M . Kirschbaum, Nas boj o samostatnost' Slovensko (Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958; reprinted by the Matica slovenska, Martin, 2000). SLOVAKIA-2015 93 Kanadsky Slovak. For this reason Andreansky/Biel wrote to Mark Stolarik on November 14, 1983 and asked the latter to repudiate an article written by his father in Kanadsky Slovak on September 24, 1983, which had criticized the August issue of Slovensko.2 1 Andreansky/Biel even promised to publish Stolarik' s reply in the next issue of Slovensko! Instead, Mark Stolarik wrote to Andreansky/Biel as follows : "I will not polemicize with you . Your job is to create propaganda. Mine is to write history. In this instance, I will have the last word." 22 Andreansky/Biel ' s letter showed that, at that time he had more power in the Matica slovenska than its president, the "Narodny umelec" (national artist) and writer Vladimir Mi nae, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. After having read Andrensky/Biel's attack upon me in Slovensko, I complained to Mi nae in a letter dated September 3, 1983 .23 In his reply of October 4, 1983, Minac wrote the following: "I am sorry about what happened in the periodical Slovensko . I have no direct control over the editorial content of the magazine, but, as much as I can, I will try to prevent such future misunderstandings." 24 Meanwhile, Victor S. Mamatey, considered the "dean" of Czech and Slovak historians in the United States, also reacted to the machinations of the Matica slovenska. In the Slovak monthly Horizont, published by emigres in Switzerland, he wrote the following: Slovaks abroad need cultural contacts with their homeland and Slovakia needs contacts with Slovaks abroad . Unfortunately, at the moment such contacts are weak and inadequate. The Matica and the entire regime need to understand that not they, but Slovaks abroad have the right to decide who will represent them at conferences and who will properly interpret their needs. 25 Vladimir Minac could not have been sincere in his reply to Mark Stolarik's complaint because, as indicated above, Andreansky/Biel wrote me again on November 141\ Furthermore, in 1988, during the 21 Milos Biel to Mark Stolarik, November 14, 1983 . See Appendix 6, page 103 . See also Appendix 7, page I 04, for the article in Kanadsky Slowik, September 24, 1983 . 22 Mark Stolarik to Milos Biel, November 29, 1983. See Appendix 8, page 105 . 23 Mark Stolarik to Vladimir Mimic, September 3, 1983 . See Appendix 9, pages 106 and 107. 24 Vladimir Minac to Mark Stolarik, October 4, 1983 . See Appendix 10, page 108. 25 Horizon/ (Zurich), September-October, 1983. 94 SLOV AKIA-2015 era of "Glasnost" and "Perestrojka," as promoted in the Soviet Union and its satellites by General Secretary Mikhail Goobachev in the late 1980's,2.6 I was finally invited to attend another Matica conference in Bratislava. There I met Vladimir Mimic at a Matica-sponsored reception at Bratislava Castle. After the opening ceremonies ended, a tipsy Mimic approached me and asked in a voice reeking of wine "ci vas otec stale serie do toho Kanadskeho Slovaka?" (Is your father still crapping into Kanadsky Slovak?) .27 This vulgar question revealed what was really bothering Minac (and Andreansky/Biel): that my father was freely advocating independence for Slovakia in Kanadsky Slovak. Another reason why Andreansky/Biel attacked me in Slovensko is that I revealed the truth about how it was published. When Tom Marzik returned from the second Matica conference in 1983, he promptly informed me that Slovensko was published in two versions : one for domestic consumption and one for Slovaks abroad. Only the foreign version contained a "Foreign Language Supplement," which carried news about the activities of Slovaks in the wider world. I informed the readers of the Newsletter of the Slovak Studies Association of these two versions in the June, I 984 issue.28 In its August 22 nd issue, the largest-circulation Slovak-American newspaper, the Jednota, official organ of the First Catholic Slovak Union, congratulated me for having provided this information. It pointed out that the Matica slovenska was sending Slovensko for free to Slovaks all over the world, and they had no idea that it was published in two versions.29 This information so infuriated Andreansky/Biel that he reacted with a full-page response in the January, 1985 issue of Slovensko. The jist of his response was that the publishers of Slovensko did not have enough paper to offer the "Foreign Language Supplement" to domestic readers.30 The best reaction to this absurd excuse came from Juraj Virsik, editor of the Slovak-Australian Monitor. In an article beginning with the Slovak proverb "Trafena hus zagaga," (A Struck Goose 26 For the Gorbachev era see Angus Roxburgh, The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin (London : BBC Books, 1991). 27 1 described this episode in greater detail under the pseudonym Leo Carpenter in "Looking for Mr. Glasnost in Today ' s Czechoslovakia," in the monthly Crisis: A Journal of Lay Catholic Opinion, 7, no. 7 (July-August, 1989), 33-39. 28 "Slovensko for Two Audiences," SSA Newsletter, 8, no. 1 (June, 1984), p. 13. 29 Jednota (Middletown, PA), August 22, 1984. 30 Slovensko, 1 (1985), "Cudzojazycna priloha.," Appendix 11 , pages 109 and 110. SLOVAKIA-2015 95 will Squawk), Virsik provocatively suggested that, if Slovakia indeed suffered from a shortage of paper, it could easily turn to the Bulletin of the Slovak World Congress, published in Canada, which had an abundance of newsprint, and the Bulletin would willingly publish any news that the Matica might send it. 31 Andreansky-Biel did not react to Virsik's article. Finally, in 1988, probably as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which also penetrated into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the Matica slovenska invited Mark Stolarik to another of its scholarly conferences, this time to be held in Bratislava on July 46. When I arrived in Bratislava and met with Frantisek Bielik, whom I had not seen since 1970, I asked him who was Miloslav Andreansky/Milos Biel? A surprised Bielik answered, "Don't you know?" "No, I don ' t," I replied. "But, you must know, he continued ." "No I don ' t, I answered." He was still afraid to openly tell me. I then asked where was Andreansky/Biel? Bielik answered, "in Martin." Perhaps Andreansky/ Biel did not attend the conference for fear that I would confront him . As a result, I never met him. After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia, I inquired about his whereabouts and discovered that Andreansky/ Biel had left the Matica and was living in Vrutky, a small railroad town north of Martin. He had apparently joined the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party and was its representative in that town. Since I had met and befriended Jozef Prokes, one of the founders of the Slovak National Party, when he had visited Canada in 1992, I wrote to Prokes and asked him how it was that a former collaborator of the STB was now working for the Slovak National Party?32 Prokes did not answer my letter. Meanwhile, many interesting individuals attended the Bratislava conference. After I presented my paper on the declining use of the Slovak language in the United States, 33 an elderly gentleman ap31 Slovak-Australian Monitor (March, 1985). See Appendix 12, page 111. Mark Stolarik to Jozef Prokes, August 27, 1992 (author's archive). When I visited the Matica at another conference in February of 2013, and once again inquired about the whereabouts of Andreansky/Biel, the older employees, who had known him, sheepishly answered that a few years earlier he had passed away. 33 "A Historical Perspective on the Declining Use of the Slovak Language in the United States of America," in Zahranicni Slowici a materinsky jazyk. Zbornik prispevkov z vedeckeho symposia k 125. vyrociu zaloienia Matice slovenskej, " comp. by Frantisek Bielik and Claude Balaz (Martin : Matica slovenska, 1990), I 7277. 32 96 SLOVAKIA-2015 proached me. He was Dr. Belo Polla, an employee of the Matica in the l 940's, who had been purged and later found himself working for the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra, approached me. He was delighted that, in my presentation, I had mentioned his former colleagues at the Matica such as its director J.C. Hronsky and the publicist Konstantin Culen, as well as the historian Frantisek Hrusovsky and the journalist Jozef Pauco. He added that those names had been "taboo" in Czechoslovakia in the previous years. He was also delighted that emigres such as the linguist I:ubomir Durovic of Sweden and the political scientist Milan Durica of Italy were able to participate in the conference. Such was the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Glasnost," which would eventually lead to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe during the summer and fall of 1989.34 After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in November of 1989, the situation in the Matica slovenska immediately improved. The "old guard" either retired or was fired and the new leaders of the Matica immediately re-established friendly contacts with Slovaks in the West. There were no longer any attacks in the monthly Slovensko against me or any other members of the Slovak Studies Association. Indeed, in 1991 the Matica signed a formal agreement between the University of Ottawa and itself in which it pledged to supply the newly-established Chair in Slovak History and Culture all the books that it needed in order to properly function .35 As a result, in January, 1992, the Chair received hundreds of recently-published books from the Matica and this program of exchange continues to this day. Thus, since 1989 the Chair in Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa and the Matica slovenska (and its National Library, which split off in 2000), continue to have good relations. 36 34 For the "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia see Jozef Zatkuliak et. al., Nove mber '89: Medznik vo vyvoji slovenskej spolocnosti a jeho medzinarodny kontext (Bratislava: Historicky ustav SA V vo vydavatel'stve Prodama, 2009). 35 Agreement between the Matica slovenska in Martin and the University of Ottawa (Chair in Slovak History and Culture), signed by Marcel Hamelin, Rector, University of Ottawa, September 4, 1991 and Imrich Sedlak, Director, Matica slovenska, November 18, 1991 (author's archive). 36 The National Library of Slovakia split off from the Matica slovenska on July 1, 2000. E-mail from Maria Kurhajcova to Mark Stolarik, July 21, 2000 (author's archive). SLOV AKIA-2015 97 APPENDIX 1 L C V C: N S K A ,'J • )S1;'ELK A A AOU RE P UHLth Y M A ls1:TIN. Mudrol"lova ,e . 3:i. t e lefOn 2348. 2347 , 2340, :it34Q , 3 197 University of Minnesota, College of Liberal ArtsDepartment of History, Mr. M. St O l 8 r i k M_i_n_n_e_a_e_o_l_i_s Minnesota 55455 - US A v•l i l:111 :rn.a.6k,y1:a, o d,'\.-. 30.III.1969 Na" :an•~k.:i r:r:""maja 1969 l>'K .t.'7 20/69-St Voe Vazen:f pan Stolarik, Na VaA list z 30. marca 1969, ktory ate p!sali Dr . Sir ackemu , oznamujeme V!lm, l!e mikrofillll.Y lfosopisov "Obzor" a "Dom a 1!kol'l" sa ul! r-obia a koncom ~ Vam ich po!!leme. Obzor od roku 1863 do roku 1905 /41 ro~n!kov/ a Dom a Akola od roku 1885 do roku 1897 /13 ro~nikov/. Z ~asopisu Dom a §kola Vam zasielame 4 ro~n!lcy ~ascpisu, kedze mame viac exemplarov. Dufame, l!e Vam to vyhovie. PokiaY ide o pletenie, snhlasime a tym, aby ate nam poslsli mikrofil111.Y: Amerikansko-Slovenske noviny, Slovak v Amerike, Jednota a Narodne noviny, pretol!e ni~ v uplnosti nemAme. MOzete nam tiel! oznami t, kde v USA sa tieto ~asopisy na.cMdzaju v uplnosti. Sme radi, ze ste sa ohlasili a ponukame Vam aj dal§iu spolupracu. Ochotne Vam yoaleme zo Slovenska vAetko, ~o potrebujete z novej literatucy a mOze prist do uvahy aj star§ia literatllra, pretoze mame dost dubletov. Boli by sme radi, keby sa na University of Minnesota vybudovalo slu§ne oddelenie slovenskej historickej /alebo inej, podYa potreby/ literatllry. Te§ime ea ns spolupracu s Vsmi a srde~ne Vas pozdravujeme .J ,;R I 1} /lflftl,,\ riadi teY ,N&J-.~nej ' knHnice Ma ti,ce i-'~ lovenske j Dr. J. 'Telgarslcy ~ List bol vrateny, dl\a 27. VI.1969! neznemy ~ \ 1 ~, ' j •t . 1 t ► rr-• .-.... 1..-.••........~-, }:,.\,,_" ·, 1 .. -~·\·.t Propa1atd i!lslo ~"i'darr ... -- J} •~\i ~ · ,, ... .,i\ 1-, ~.c 1·1 •• -~ '; ::;, ' {:,:~ ."1'. •%·"'" ,, __ ~~. • -~ \l ' if ::, ,_ l.;.t.•~~·~ ! ,, '... . · f }If n•Yhno1U 1141- • n« lrult6ru v61:»c, l kullt\rn, ,1:1tvrat ma• .:.zmi. ~~:,,,d:.n.tuh~':!~:.!P~I~,,f ~6,an11 T~PI opqitl~ -,:a b ~ I ,tart JJlllOd' f:111V1tov1J price, • luqttry, lap ako J,)q-lSWCn61µt ~tDltela. lkO ntitro)a. 1, aOC(&llatlc);QIZ\ n•dt-ln,U •Yte' Jebb dobr<d. tradld u, rw n11 t'.'!: =:r.u~~:mi:"!4~• 9!:-=~~::;~ •:~;VJ~~, J• to ~~•~~,b(~~~•v:d;:,,:i=!t~1 = I ~ ron9J1 1l4rodMt, U1f6rr, na prOdeate dn1f ill'1Mtt d.lliliom• fta,ahl1 • napokon l • llltwtdfctou D6~J\:-:a~·":iii!:;,:*..:r::r.' ~~~=·~l: :~~~ • _,,1 ' OT,VA·RAM.E\J,i:\i- ~l, T MeM ~• ''f'iW'• Hu If VfcW..o p,~ ftf'1 chr4'f"M ,q .t~ •.rl#ttf• ~awo po~o, .Jl«)fjatqj ~J\lt~ tUl&V, pred'Htn4lt# 4 mu 6-u,,:Ericuc/1'«/l ~' I ~ ltc&1ic ~,ut OfH'.:UjN Mprifie' ,o. N-.i6~ ho ~,=~~~.;::; ,1,ottt P"lhl¥• 100/•j ,uutl o ptttflduoei• •"' tu4tlto«I t4t, •••,-. :i:siltf~i!'"~:~ ntl11pr())flrtotnf; ,,aop; ml tltlm~Hftw k,. Off llocl 11 opak. ·'Ct potort r>0ff t•Jto irdnU &it =:::r:~~,,. bot, Cn. tr~ dt•"" ·no.:iptllf~ hdllj 01'D~QBIE ~-., l · .& -· ·1 ..•t<,., ~~ ,:.•m ·~t.·~c .j '!Ii~. h l'udslwstt,,. ,,: .. ---- N0,V;£ · l ·- . ,' . -__:_ - ...,.. t l . --= U P I , .-,/J ~ ~ ••~___..,...:..,.. ~- 0'i.~~, Uv~pk ,1,, 'l VY_D(,..VA, MATICA SLOVENS"f V M ' "';~ ~·z., N ~ 0 z --= --= tr! > I (ll .... N 0 < > e:> 0 t""' r:,, '° = SLOV AKIA-2015 99 APPENDIX2 Za prava ,slo,enciny okrecov dfla e. 10. 19et •yledaJ• •• taJto bttl. nojbo dr.tmla prlaclp Ttato Lueencl praeanf YO . .reJaal runkctl arladiC fu.akcla •lc•prHldan · OceftuJema. te \I 10vls.l ta • tuakclu prdbo pod • •l•bo • 6ra.de., Polladnky tederActou nOho At , aa s1ov,a1 .. a.by Maduo•, .. by ktor6 •IUJ, predHdu ktortl k 50. vtroCJu CSR to ■ t• ta:■Jllf atllf ( •I .. aJoobsahoull podobae aka H • tame, iloat4ve H na progt H ■at"fdl 1Jrol6cb) po mad'■ r• •tnhu itlan6bo dko ■ a ■ awrbuJ• ob1■ daova.al• t-■ kel• •kJ~ •Y d01taU afton.a1 -ped- •I othb postavenla nar noltl. Konltatujema v1ek , kl••· mJ ■ lalra • tt6taaho tajoaud• ~.1K• •,~~:r:1.!:~~~n~;f.~U• na Jkodu vecl n,hrh IA.k1 VycbHsa•• a dotereJlfch Ila. n·ebol vopred pred uvere) ufml trpkfcb ak6Hao1U Slo4. Poprl hlatorlclry a•HI• · L S6b1Hfm■ so He ■lm ti. Y6kov • tobto A•em.Ja. Ul ,Ill.a- nlm 1Dterne konzultovanf I. ala pokl ■ dime ae newy- a fcb a6nocb 'Slovenaki ••· l.rajlla daada • d!ollasyt■ oa- organlUlcleml N•rod. tro1 haulnA doplal( ho b ■ ltalo • rodnl rad• a Cnll:6 ••rodal ti H prett SlovUom aeutf• Term.Io vereJn•J dlskusle rad• l nalogld:y podra lafch n ■ fm, I ■ ..• CSSR .. •16 eet15. 10. 198& Ja prfllJ kri Hl■ tat, la ◄ 6 povlnDf nlln a a 1lonntlaa tlob11 ro•· ■ •now Cl1tno1 dd CSSR. na to, abJ n mohll nlekt dla( po matfanlrf, t,yt tda 116taych )HJ' · vlld• Sloveaalr■ I 1oclallatlc■ oprh ■ ycb kGY ... naJasn~ mlesla n•vrhu nl dvojJ ■ aytaf. Kedle ahtb 6 kel republllry, wllda Cukaj 1CuU.be stllooa • t!I. ◄ IZ u - 11te vysvttllt u kompetl ■oclall•llclr■ J rapubllkJ ( Ire• nych mletaach. Tfmto kooltatonalm .. be • 1 ■ -te dltoaa poulluf lraz■ J• nblC ■ ltl•k aa n6 • IH potwrdzoj■ skul0Cao1f, alto oflcl61ae n6ny \Nirodnfl Predodetkfw Ide o f rodaosU • •m•,.. odllirodttio.-aala lllllllle a■ lo Dripecl• nhrhu zJikona, ktorf hov ktod objektl-ue Je1h,1je, I• rada Sloun•kel ■oc lall1Ucltal fllruje, taUe H m6h delltotlt Jnykml lt6taJcb ora• · rapubllky ■ Nlrodn6 rada 0 prhach prlslu!n"lkov 101 na vzdelanlt nArodnostt n6tlalr) takfto u •Jb16tlt eo repullll• aoclell1llclcaJ CeskaJ ••• 11 tdll•• • •alowneloa, svoJom jnyku a O poutJv SlovUov nlj ■ kf dkon • alto M to koolt ■ taje •I • ti. kf. tohto Juyka v styku • Qr, pt.. takfmto nflllakom vf· S. Uplalnlt • celo,n dkoae I ■hrhu flttHnlho dkona. ml bei akfihOkotvek da lll( 'tittlDJml 1 ■ s1kmJ led■ ai ■ d o fader•Udcll CSSR 1.hatlu, alov ■- ■-cbri.D1, je ta N!l'1ne urCenla. Sme toho nboru, aebe1petanstwo, l• Slodcl tH1kJ nirodaosU jlf6cich • -te •letlry n•tanonnl• tfk•· f6ce u arlad'ovnla federil • , oa tomto 6aemf, ktorf an•• , prho na vrdelenle u m, essa.. die aleb11 aa oeneutl■ per konkrettzovaf na ,1upel\ l Z. NHrbuJean ■, ahy .. prl nycb orahoY, lch komp■ l ■a· ly 1 ,oeesne u mall staJ mad'anlry, aiel1111.h u nebu pliant atuu n ■ l■ I republlky, cl• • unlu lch organh:lcl• vlt podmlenky, za akfch m a prhomocl n mHu menlt dO mGcf doma vo •ereJ011j 1polo•nflt fC&1ko· poulf• ■ l t:l ■ aostl uplatolt, ala bud6 Slonn1kol ; to plall ■ I o pl· Iba oa Uklad• d'allfcb 61ln• 00 uladovaf !koly vyUle ako Uklad.n~ho typu. 1 w,-ranlll •J bez-treala6mu IJ~ prfshalnfbo prfdantbo ofch 1'ko110-... n ■I mH ■ f be1ko-1lovell&kf: Cu• U. I( ni't'rhu 6atua6bo al - kauovaalu. Stovky raaol6CII lsto u1 ~ v 1omto nivrhu t ko .. lonnsk, republlka, t:H• Ilona • a6rodao,tlacb : be konlm:itlzovat, akfm SJ • ,talnoat[. lrtori polltlckfm • 11'taJ• l!laltafom • or1• · sobom sa mA uplatnlt 'l>ti pod.J. ko-alon- ■ lrf lltc • menttnovfch n8.rodnostf %iada111e, ■ bJ H • ■ hrbu ao• SloY6cl • toblo 6.nmla ,.;~:.~D•;::111,~:.:~b\ed::-:.~ VJ'PU&tll ,ad, v kloro ■ •• vlastoibo Jazy poutfvaole po1lelaJ6.. d •«llml ,.,Ntl!afm J•I•• arladlt funkci• pradH- bo•or1, la atrodao1II m•l6 v st_yFu s dradml. n;~:.,.~:- .. undHt bod lllu • podpn ...du, lrllrri by .,prho poalfnf nol Juyk • Tleto ltyllzicle n8.\'rhu .a dkooa VJ"••ch, aHaka •• obudaouU alternaU••• dradnom 1tyku". auje u poutl-..ote • mad'artl • s1avn6ho zakona sQ v roz1 Uthapcom C•sbJ aoc:la.Uatlc· re •J s akentm program1 rato pr•vo by utml pre ■J t• laayko• ltltnych "'· kll r1pub1Jky aJtbo Slo•en • Ov KSS. lebo n4vrb z6ko Slodkov lijliclcb • 1111lela· rodnoaU) • lllradnom ,tylta. ebJ eoclall•tiek•I repu•UlrJ, 511 nez.mleftuJe o povtnno v alJku H nojlml prad•t• · 1lovao1ko•m ■ dar1kfch prltom tty aa afrodn6 nsli· a:fcb n6rodnostof vllarml ,. pollllckfch • ltit• prtslu~nrkov peoie v tfchlo fankdich oblutlach malo nfml ••· aby s ! pomocou t mentin, • nirod m.lH:u uycb orgjnocb priualv6 d6tledkJ. Praklicky atrltdalo podf• funktnfch znaloatJ. osvoJo,'all v~erko t 081 u poull-...C not IHJk. No by soemol6ou1o Slodkom r obdobt. ,:iemolao _ doko ■ ca dko - hatstvo ees kej II slovens• • ttm prlsplev kulrGry .aoru _ n6Uf Slodko• uClf k -\ldjomn6mu s1>0z.ntvar ■a po mad'llhk.) , aby M•cf•rl ,. ■lyku • aJml mohli upl•t · • spolutll1u nirodov • r ubaapeCe11A rodno1H v CSSR . dfJoaom alt Konlunu1eme. ta Slov6cl prflu. Moho tu mlmocbo• IOChtO oblbtlach, kde stl dom upuoralC na krlkfno odchodd poataY■nie Slod • n61 v memlln e, mohll by doataf podra do1erejleJ p1 lrov • Mad'araku, ktort• u xe • poclporou dstavn6ho , • podobnfch prhacb a ■ I 1- ■ kona ' do 11tuAcle, ktora ,, k .o1 .. t nnmia. mo dbsledkoch Tole 1tale •t ■ aoviako ■ a- neentch aaaff. ta by •m• boll proll vlHf k odn6rodf'iovaolu p prfiv a,.ro4aostf, aluJnfkov llitotvorn6bo n.61 :a■ ru~a■ la •I• aem&hme a6bl•alf I poi- da, prfpad ne k lcb 1lteku kodzonnlm Slodkov, lclol"f tfc bto iUemf ■ IovensUbo o , by malo by1 dO.lellltom ale• roda. -. kforjtb _prt• urul!e ■ fch ••- • .J)rginy, lriorf ad nlnter tovan6 na pTlpr,\'e Qstevn .rodaostiHn .,. predlolenom bo zalcooa, by mall uvUlf. ahrbu d•tndbo dkona. by nebolo vbodn6 ,,yhlheci .. tobto Ukona Casove navl * Pracovalcl Matice slovenskej ut na ust1nov11n1e zAkoaa ate · ho odlol federallrAcll. v Martine dt'Ja 8. 10. 196'1 vyslovlU k vl4dnemu ntvrhu • ltylldcle dOsledneftle pr • prekonzultowaf • myallef o postavent nirod• Ukon■ nostl v C:SSR Ueto prlpo• vtetkfcb zlotktch N• rodn ho tronru. mleoky: Publtktcle nivrhu astavntMatt e• slovenska ako c ho Ulkooa -vyvolalo n1Jml v lon4rodn.6 ustanovl.Zeft al p mlestnycb odboroch Matice ldada u morllnu povtnno 1lovenskt1J 01 futnom Sloven- ur,ozornlf na tao.to probl61 sku a.naent ohlaa. Vframe ut •I preto, lebo se 01 ru sa to l)teJavtlo •I ·n, porade v teJto vttel obraceJO tlensl ■ Joie/ Smrhoikj L /Ulo 196& no ndolteoc v Uortln~. m1111tn~bo ~~~1~~. oraanlz.tde 1 cel61 predstavltefov v Mahci ,tovenskeJ, ,nwe:I odpoot.4111 no aktwtlne: otdik~. l'I~"~"'" " ,.............. - .. .. - ~ Foto: A. V. H•id• (Vrouo sprduca MS 4r. Jd,t Mart4k.J Jaqko,adaf '"•• tudowft• lt6ta SAV prlJal k abrbu dkOH O flNf•nlldcH .CS51 ■ atnba filtHatbo dkDDI • ■ trodaC¥,tlacb 1taoo•lako, _. ktorAllo ')'llertme. SLOVAKIA-2015 100 APPENDIX3 , MATICA SLOVENSK A 1863 1973 NOS!Tlr.RA IADtl IIPl11tlltY The Cleveland Stete University DepArtment of History - College of Arts et Sciences Mr . Marien St olarik C 1 e_v_e_l_ a_n_d_, Ohio 44115 U.S. A. VU li,t anatlty Vee: 10 d6a 26/II/73 Na la I natlta 4-63/1157/35 4/73 - St Martin 27. marca 1973 Vaieny pan Stolarik, ~akuje me za Va§ list, ktory nam umoihuje nadvi azat medzinarodny vymenny styk s The Cleveland State University , Department of History , Cleveland, Ohio prostrednictvom Va§ej pOaobnosti na tejto univerzi te. Avizovam1 publikaciu sme este zatial' ned ostali, nakol'ko doru~enie zasielky trva v priemere tri mesiace. Matice slovenska, Martin s radostou pr!jme predpletne na ~asopis v ramci vymeny "The International Migration Review", ako aj vybavenie na§ich objednavok ns publikacie, ktore Vam budeme postupne, taktiez v remci vymeny posiela t, Vyme nn~ rekepitulacie si budeme viest individuelne na zaklade Va si ch zasielok s cenemi a prip ! §eme v prospech Va§ho vymenneho konte , ako aj z naAej strany zasielane potvrdenky s uvedenim cien pre Va§u evidenciu. Zatial' sme Varn po slali 9 publikacii z oblasti historie su~~snej produkcie podl'a Va§ej po~iadavky dha 15.III,1973 a dal'sie publikacie , tykajuce sa tejto obla sti Vam postupne po~leme, Dufame , te s tymto postu~om budete s uhlbsit a roz s!ri sa fond o slovacika na Va§ej univerzite, ako aj f ond Matice slovenskej s publika ciami , o ktore bud eme ziadat na zaklsde excerpt z Cumulative Book Index s zoznamov vydani j ednotlivych vydavatel'ov. Tymto by sme pokladali dohodu z nasej strany za uzavretu a prosime Vas o pisomny suhlas, Te§ime sa na Va §u odpoved ~ sme / s pozdravom ~ -=- Prof.dr.Ing . Jarosl ov .~ELKO , CSc, / Spravco Matice slovenskej v,b .. •i" Stuchlikova Tclt:r6n 2Sf6, 2547, 2548, 25+9, 5197 Oalekopi1 0755:SI 0)6 5 2Martin, Mud ro6ova M SLOVAKIA-2015 101 APPENDIX4 , MATICA SLOVENSKA NOSIT£t K A RADU RIP U B LIKY Kr. Ph. D. KarU.n Stol6rii: The Cleveland State Univereity CLEVELAND, Ohio 44115 U SA V' j Ii SI I.oa t ")' zo d na Ma r tin Nala znal': K a 5-63 /1JtlJ/Ff l14-U Vee: 23.10.1974 ~ai:)lje■ e Vma Ba list a vr,ten,y ponui:ovy zozJ:lUl. Poaielee Vo !iadan4 knihy a! na tri tituly, i:tor4 eu •! rocobra• n41 1. Ju!n4 Slovenako 2. Ratkoil1 Pra■ ene k dejinmn Vel'kej Koravy 3e Sedla1 Preilovek4 kolegium v elovenekych dejin,ch Dll:fame, !e oetatn4 knihy dostanete ~o najekar av poriadku. ~akujeme Vu aj za aaaopia "Ethnicity•. Sudame ve:rmi r~ di, ked ho pre n,a objean,te. S pozdravo■ / ~f~ Stefan Krivuil spr,vca Matice slovenakej Vy b ovujec Ulbr ichtov, Kiria Tcler6n 2346, 2347, 2548, 2349, 3197 Oalek.opi1 0753,1 0'652 Mar tin, Mu d r ufi ova 35 102 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIXS a Cudzojazycnci priloha Sefredali:to, Stefan Hovlo r. Zosto vi l M iloslo v And re6nsky Vydalo Mati ce slo.,en 1k6 v Ma rti ne. Tlotili TSNP, z6 v< Neogrofla , Martin, CSSR v m6Ji 1983. fllowcnal:o a 1983 roku u ma konat' 14. d: 17. okt6bra vo Washing• tone, na budud rok v Kansas City). Madzl elenml SSA je I nlalcorko vyznamnych 7 SLOVAK STUDIES ASSOCIATION 7 Tato apoloalosf ui 120 vedec:kych p.-.covnikov s1ov..-.. p6vodu a priatefov slovenekef vedy, lwttury • umenla nielen z USA• Kanady, ale I z cfalilch lblitov ..,_ zlskava prootrednfo. tvom The Balch lnstitut vo Phlladelphll, USA, od Matice olovaMkef, Slovenakej akademle vied a cfalilch . - k y c h kultumych inititudl e.aoplsy, zbomlky a knlhy. VosvoJom ,,Newsletter", ktory ut po 8 rolcov vyd6va dvakrU do roka, oboznamuje avofich Benov • prostrednk:tvom nlch I sV9tOvu vect.cku verejnosf • knlhaml ■ zbomflcml a upozoffluje na zaujfm■Ye ~Hinley v tasoplsoch. Okrem toho Jnfonnuje •J o knihKfl a - - V 6uopi9och O Slovikoch, a alovenakef problematlke, ktore vytll v cudzlne. Bohutlar napriek evidentnaJ snahe po objekttvnom, nezaujatom rwferovanf prmu len pravlida zimer uprlamlf pozomosf na publlkacle a ttanky a obuhom niilmu lblitu a zrladenlu naprlatersky orlentovanych. SSA mi •I vl■-u edialu l!lnnosf preva!ne V apolupr6cl - ao Slovanakjm Ustavom v Clevelande, oriento-v■ nU nepri■tal'slry voa n,m. Zatlar eo predaada a elenovla vyboru sa vprlebehu rokov - pokier am■ to mall mofnost ■ ledovat menlli, trvalU pozldu ta)omnfka a pokladnlka od r. 1978 mi M . Marl< Stolarik. ktory je aj Ndalctorom .,Newsletter" . SSA je lnltttucionlilnym aenom American Assoclation for Advenc:ement of Slavic Studies • aktivne aa zututiluje na Jej nirodnych konvandich (toho kn)anakych vadeckych p.-.covnlkov, lctori ma)u s Matlcou alovenskou dobre kontalcty. Medzl inyml Mrs. Nonna Rudlnski, Gerald J . Sabo, June Alexander, John Berta, Saly Staruch, Tom Marzik • d'alif z USA.. prof. Peter Petro a Yvonne Grabowski z Kanady ako I J . M. Rydlo zo avajaarska a dalil. AJctfvna Bnn~ tychto k spoluprild • Maticou lllovenskou na kuttumom poff ochotnych llanov SSA, vytvira perapektivu, le v buducnostf aa bude m6ct' celkom aeri6zne uva!ovaf I o konkretnej prlamej apoluprid Matice alovenekej ao Slovak Studies Anoclatlon v oblastl propagicle vyaledkov alovanokef vacly, kultury • umenla vo . - .. Zatlar, • vyhradou propagide nim naprlat.rokej litera• tury, pozltlvna hodnotima snahu SSA oboznamovat svetoW vededc:U vsejnost o nallch uspechoch v oblutl vedy, literatury • umanla. Priame kontalctyvtak vzhradom na neprlat.rsky postoj preclovtetkym takych vplyvnych oaobnostf v SSA ako SU Stanislav J . IOrachbaum, M. Mark Stolarik ■ Renee Mikus, nie SU v SUbsnoatl mOZ"'. Je to aamozrejme na ikodu vecf, ktor.6 nim je opolol!ni: propagidl slovan■kaj vacly. lfteratury a umenla na svatovom f6rw. MILOS BIEL SLOV AKIA-2015 103 APPENDIX6 VYD/..VA MA.TICA SLOVlNSK/.. no&luil'b bdu repubUky MARTIN 14. Dovembra 1983. VAS LIST ZNA<'!KY Valent pe p~. lla.rlc K. Stolarik The i!lalch lMtit~te 18 S., 1th Street ZO Di'IA N~A ZNA<'!KA Philadelphia, Pa. 19106 VYBAVUJE Kiloll Bie]l. VEC: Vll!eny pain pro:f'e aorl V pr:!10118 Vllm zasielam :f'otokopiu a aajho l!lilnlcu, a SSA v nallom l!aeopiae Slovenako l!.6/83 a :f'otokopiu replilcy z Kanadak4ho Sloviika l!.37, rot. 42 z 24.9.1983, hoci J>Nldpoklaau, !e ich ob11ah d poznate. Ak oba l!llllllcy poromllte a apoaeaiete ei na to1 l!o ate nap1aali predaedovi Matice alovenalcej DIU'o 111119lcovi Vlatia!rovi Kinal!ovi i na jeho odpoved, bude Vu zre,im4, !e Vu Va6i priatelia z Kanadak4ho SlovlUca (Vall otec??) poalcytli aedvadiu alu!bu. Ol!akav.,._, !a ea nad oboma l!lllnkud zllJIIYalite, najd nad ich doaahoa v elovenalalj varejnoati za hranicaai, zaujaete jednoznaln4 a pravde zodpovedaj uce etanoviako a po!iadate redalcciu Kanadak4ho Sloviika o opravu. Ky v Slovensku ame tie! oohotn1 Valle atanoviako publikova~. SLOVAKIA-2015 104 APPENDIX 7 kor..ne s mojfm prt,dpllllnym . Zarove~ pr1p•J11m MO na 23 dolarov, t. J. 20 11ko predplatne 11 3 na podporu. Zarovel\ m1pr11vde , ktor4 oko!0 nM 11li:1(l _ _______ _ ne. No to si pocnete s eecno- _ ........_,,.;,;._..;..,.....;...,._,,.. slovakm i a podobnymi pobhi- nerobl dobru slufbu medzl sh,denymi oveckami? . venskyml vyst'ahovalcaml na amerlckom konllnente. To by . sl mall uvedomll' af II, ktorl 1:: chcli hfadaf spolupracu so I~sJovenskym exllom v slobod- r-----------------------7 , Mm citatelia opiitovne Vas chceme poprosit', aby ste si prezreli zaznam pri Vasej adrese. Ak mate este stale na konci dvojku (2). tak Vase predplatne vyprsalo. Nedavno sme poslali cfalsfch vyse sto (100) iiadosti o vyrovnanie si predplatneho. Prosfme aj tych, ktori maju na konci trojku (3) a mesiac ai po okt6ber, nech si laskavo vyrovnaju predplatne, lebo im sa uz t' · k c ·1 UI' h • a •d k 1ez s on_ '. o a . c1 1e nam pr cu a vy a_v Y na znamky t1ez. riakureme Varn za porozum~nie Admin1strac1a K . S. I nom svete. I Je zfavne, fe reflm na SloI vensku podnlk6 11 bude podI' nlkaf kroky, aby potupoval sloI venskych ntlrodovcov v exlle a 1' aby podryvallch f"dnotu a akll- J I vltu " 11 kafdom poN. Bolo by ., pod nalu d0stofnosl', aby sme 115 komunlstlckyml ldeol6gml debatovall II vledll s nlml dla16gy. Tym bysme Im roblll sluf- -------------------------• - bu, uzn6vall lch za parlnerov, s kloryml stofl ZII lo sedl ..t' ZII USA a pollllkov sa nezaobera. PIie vedecke prtlce O sloven• skom vyst'ahov,.1lectve do USA _-_·-- •-=;-- ' ~ 11 fe uzntivanou uutorltou medzl amerlckyml hlstorlkml II vedeckyml lnAlllliclaml Podra Andrnansk~ho-Blela Pod tltulom .Ohlasy" uverejnl,. ~ b._g.rof. Sto"rlka,.Je.Jt lo ,.Slovensko'", klore mt! byt' f ·srov ~Sludle._!. kulllirno-spolotenskym s _~ c 18 11 0 ,. 11 b y t 8 t •0 mesatnlkom a je vydavane Ma- ";iiofot!nosr mor.t'a reprezentollcou slovenskou v Turtlan- ,vat' Slovakov medzl amerlckyskom Svlltom Marline, vo svo- ml hlstorlkml a v Slavic Stujom tlsle z flila 1983 naslrane6 dies Association 8 teda Slov,icl utok na Msgr. F. Fugu , ktory je n e b O II p O ne ch an I p O d slovenskym narodovcom a patronatom ,.Czechoslovak predsedom Zahranltnef Mall- Studies Assoclnllon'". Ide O tisce slovenskej, ktora nle je mar- te vedeckli spolotnosl" hlstoxlsllcka ako hi na Slovensku. rlkov slovensl<eho p0vodu, Clanok .Kio klame a dezlnfor- ktorl sa hlasla k slovenskemu muje'" naplsal Mlloslav Andre- rodu a pf§u o slovenskef otazansky. ke vedeckym spOsobom, teda Ten lsty Mlloslav Andretln- objektlvne. sky (alias MIiot Blel) v augusToto sa pravdafe, M. Andretovom tisle Slovenska uveref- tlnskemu-Blelovl nep6tl, lebo nil znova lltok na dr. M. Stoia- sa tam nechvall techoslovaklzrlka, klory fe najkvallflkovanef- mus a marx-lenlnlzmus. !Im slovenskym hlslorlkom v Taketo plsanle Sloyenska spolotnym stolom. J" nam Nto, fe na amerlc• kom konllnenle mtl komunls!Icky reflm na Slovensku svoflch obdlvovatel'ov a kolaborantov, ale tych my anl nepresvedtlme, anl neziskame. Tleto litoky, krltlky, alebo I za. lletanl■ tasoplsu Slovensko nas e§te vlac upevnla v tom, f~ budeme mOcr dOsledne br6nlt a chranlt' mravne a narodne hodnoty slovenskeho exllu a P.rllva slov:en~ e~~9 , .n_a,[.(1da pra~ neAl'astna_~~ ! slovenska v Tufe1anskom Svlltom Martine t~k ne~_f.!)eba Z[pdlla a zre_d.,u. Y m me vel'a svojlch vlaslnej§lch a nallehavejAlch liloh. (R) s/itort SLOV AKIA-2015 105 APPENDIX8 lHE BALCH INSTITLJrE for ElHNIC STUDIES 18 South Seventh Street, Philadelphia, PA. Or M. Men STOlorik Uecutive Director Boord cJ Trustees Samuel H 8olklm. .k Ch011mon .JohnC Hoen ViceCr'\Otlmon AlexO:"'1010 8 Goloslu 19106 November 29, 1983 P4'n MiloS Biel Reda'kcia Slovensko 036 52 M a ~ Mudroifo va 35 Czechoslovakia Europe DrahY pcln Biel: Secrelo,y v.f$ .John F White heosu16' wo11er ~ Afooe, t0w1ence J 9ornh0'\T r, oc:e,1 C Cho01n MOn Beo111ce K Chemock lh90CJOl8 H Cov11 Th0m01 J F111oei-010 list zo dn'a 14 . novembra, 1983, som dO.e s obdrZal. Mlt~ yravdu ,/ed p{sete Z\ pozn~ obsah ~lo":,enskfch C:asop1;sov. Ako h isto ri k c!tam vsetke Slovenske tasopisy ktore vychadzaju na zapade. Aj niektore' zo Slovenska. Mam tiez' p{somne sty'ky zo Slovak.mi po celom svete. Pre mXa ti e to tasopisy a li s t y su pramene pre deji ny Slova'kov v 20. storoc'i. Lis t y od v;{s pa tt:i a mc dz i nima. Or Muffov J:.11eomon WdhOmL GfolO Dr Roso Bo~e Green Pl"Ol A W~liom Hogiuno Rooe,tM HOwe Moue A ledeler Corv L8Ylnson. Esci Mri- Fronk P louchheln'\ Set C Mo-npon MictlOel Novak Vrvion W Piosoc:k1 Mrs Meve, P Potomlun Em11vC m1ev Prof Timothy l. Smith Consiontine S. Sosongells Dr Jomes Ton11 1-1on Pou! A TroncMellO hOn Mno Cibott1 Ve,no Dr tv'torvin Wocnmon Ho~, Notnan1e1Wos.,1ngton c ec,110 Mov veo Polemizovaf s valmi neb1;,dem. \'1Sa tfloha je robi'! '!,ropa gandu . Mo'ja j e p{sal de jiny. V tomto pripade budem ~ ma'E posledne slovo. Ked chcete da~o uverejni'f v c!as opise Sl ovensk o , zasi ela'm vfm Clanok z Horizontu, o semin.iri v Martine. Vi k t or M.amatey , n.JS by'vali predseda, ho napisal a celkom s nlm s\Jhlasim. P{sat mOtete Co chcete. Historici budu vSetko posudzo vat. "Pravda vitazi," ako hovoril Masaryk. S k rajansk[m pozdrav om , /~ Emet1tu1 Prot fo.....o'O p HuTC""l1nson / (215) 925-8090 /-r?'i / v -~ Maria'n Stolclri k 0-< SLOV AKIA-2015 106 APPENDIX 9 Slovak Studies Association Affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 700 Pe nfie ld Ave. , Havertown , PA 19083 Septemb e r 3 , 1983 Dr . Vladimfr !tinll! Predseda Matice slovenakej 812 51 Bratislava Pugai!"evova 2 Czechoslovakia 1968, I have of scholarly asked for my agreed . Over thousands of exchange. Since my first research tri p to Slovakia in the summe r of actively cooperated with the Matica elovensk8 in the exchange materials . Dr. Jan Martak and Dr. ~tefan Krivulf wrote me and cooperation in this program of cultural exchange and I gladly the last fifteen years I have sent the Mat i ca slovenska dollars worth of book.a and periodicals as a part of this You can imagine what a s hock and aurprise it was to me, therefore , to open your monthly magazine Slovensko (No.8, 1983) and to find, on page 6 of your supplement, 11 Slovensko krajanom, 11 an attack upon me by a certain MiloJ Biel. He accuses me, aa editor of the Slovak Studies Newsletter , of bringing to people's attention articles and publications "whose contents are hostile to our state I a political system," of working "in cooperation 11 with the Slovak Institute in Cleveland, 11 and of taking an unfriendly s tand" towards Slovakia. Cont'd on page 107 SLOV AKIA-2015 107 APPENDIX9 Besides being false, these charges betray a certain naivte by Mr. Biel about historical scholarship and conditions in the West. You, as a scholar and poet, must realize that serious historians have to consider all sources when writing their history, not just those that a certain political philosophy calls for. That i s the very essence of objectivity. Furthermore, it is the duty of true scholars to have contacts with all institutions that contain historical meterials, whether they be located ~Slovakia or in the United States. Finally, we in the West believe in openness and pluralism. For instance, the Slovak Studies Association, of which I am the founder and Secretary-Treasurer, has among its members Slovak Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Greek Catholics, Jews, nationalis ts, 'Czechoslovaks' and Marxists. We do not exclude people because of their religion or political orientation. We are open to all scholars who are interested in promoting Slovak studies the world over . Therefore, Mr. Biel' s clumsy attempt to list 1 'friendly 11 and "unfriendly" members of the Slovak Studies Association is going to backfire and hurt the good contacts that the Hatica slovenska has developed with Slovaks in the West over the last several years. I s uggest that you have Mr. Biel retract his crude and unwarranted attack upon me in the next issue of Slovensko . If he does not, I have a feeling that most of the goodwill that the Hatica slovensklhas built up with young scholars in the Western World will very quickly disappear. Yours Sincerely, l ·f i~ 108 SLOV AKIA-2015 APPENDIX 10 Bratislava, 4,10,1983 Vazeny pan Stolarik! Iste Vas nemusfm ubezpe ~ovaf o tom, ako Matici slovenskej zalezf na vsetkom, co sa aotyka dejin i su~asnosti slovenskej narodnej kultury, ako nam teda zalezi aj na kazdom, kto s nami chce v mene buducnosti tejto kultury spo lupracovaf, To sa dotyka aj Slovak Studies newsletter i Vas osobne, Mrzf ma to, co sa stale v ~asopise Slovensko, Nemam priam_y vplyv na redigovania ~asopisu, ale pokia! to bude v mojich silach., zabranim v buducnosti moznym nedorozumeniam . Rozumia sa, za mame rozliCne nazory na zivot spolocnosti a na jej buducnost . Ale mame aj spoloCnu starost, ktorou je slovenska narodna kultura, jej dejiey a osudy - na celom svete, Dufam teda, ze nam v oalse.j spolupraci nezabrania malichernosti a ostavam so srdeCnym pozaravom dJ.l~-t~~ / t/ • Vazeny pan M,Mark Stolarik 7U0 Penfiela Ave. Havertown, ~A 19083 ~~~U Narodny umelec Vladimir Minal! SLOV AKIA-2015 109 APPENDIX 11 - s--!.. =■ ~ S:io'-'6,1,~Ko t /tJ.,~f. HIOll4CIIKl:1:t c::==s ilowc11td::~ ► --. 5: Slovensko pre ,,dva druhy citatefov" Pod tymto Hver•vr•vnYffl .. l&IVom uv--tnM p6n M...Wn Mtt Stolarik. tajomnlk • po-. ......· - - • e t ipolotnOfll (Slovak StudlN \Noc:Ultion) v USA vo •vojom "MWUetter rot. I , tWo 1/iun 1114, str. I . nuledujUCU pomemku : ,Sloven•ko, oflcialny meu~ "Ilk M•tH» •lov•n•k• J vych'· dz.a vo dvoch veni,ch, p,-. dv• r,dliln4 titat•l•k4 ve,.jna.rl. Predpok/adal aom, I • ..,,•tci nd i ~novla to vedill, • I• n• d4vn o .am zlstil l e to tak nle ,._ Vlalna 1. v,. J. v domienk•. h Slo~o. tron dost'"'• t• Vy ■Jja, jetenl•tvtuop/a, lrto,Y cirltulu}9 ,,. Slowm•ku. f•li•. Aku pozome adlv■ t• n• lcror,hofvek 8•/o V"h o U•ooi•u SloVM1•ko, vlimnite al, le mtKUi 16. • 17. atranou hlevnej t..•ti ~nopi•u je Cudzofuytn' prf/ohe, r,ro Cudzoj•~n, prlloha znaman, oval• vlec n#Jl vyzer,. ObuhuJ• tiel ~,,,.. ky v •loventine, ilu•troven4 ,, Toho tuu ,,.jchUlo•tiwjjoo ....cou je otbb •lav•n•k•J prl• lo hy Sloven.Ice. v,1ho m • ~ nib, wnov• MJ Jcr• Janom v u hr•ni8, ,,. ktof'U m• upozornlll •i vlac»rl )ednotllvcl. PodobM elco Stol• rilc v Slov• lc Studi• ._ Pouvelu;t• a WICI, uda t•ru ul r,ro prlloh• v •lowrwt.•f rKi b y mohl• by( •U~•fou rl•dM otlaloven'(Ch .rr, n Slovt1M ka, • to •i pre 6it•t• l ov v • t•rom kr•JI. Cudzojuytry prllohe by u moh/M vloli( do ~•oplsu Hp■ r,rne. Predillo by u zbytotn•J krltilce, nedtr wre, yYSmelnYm • ultll)«:nYm pozn,mlcem • Jcont,..ver• zil, I• u Ju ,ob4v• t• uUnf titetefom dome '. S.m ozre/m, w c, Je potombyste melivybe,..f • pr'vy od 01db v,m pr!Jat111nych.,, Ne dldede tohoto llstu sm• pochopHI, le naM nepriatalls v auf•l•J sneh• dlskredftova! n'6 tasopls. c:hytaJU N kaJdel prildfto.tl, aby naMI Umlen• 2) bu<f vy va ml moriadtis!■ Sk>vensb 2 X do roka • ru u rok Magufn, ako •m• to uroblll v rokoch 1811 s 1NZ. 3) elebo prUollt NmostatnU prflohu ku kald,mu tulu Slovenska, 1rtor• bud• ••· pedov•n• U.,enom. Bolo n,m Ja.sn',, le form• pristupu ku luajanom vytadu}11. ■by ttat.M slovo, ktorym .. bud•m• obraca! ku krajaq_om. bolo vy,obeM najmodern9llou tachn.lkou • na kv■• litnom ps.,...-1. preto.le all.nm toho, le bude plnft' nu-odnouvedomovadu • fflformKnU funk.du, bude slutff •J ako ,.._ pruenUda nai•J SUtesnosd. Preto rozhoduJUdml taktorml, ~ urtlll tretlu alt.emaUvu ako opdmilnu • reelb.ovstel'nU, boll: pridal kvalhMho pa• piera a Aulomberka, ftnentn. prostriedky poa«ytovan, Ml• nlst.erstvom lwlturf SSA. pwaoniln• ubupet:enl• redak• tn't'ch pnc bu zvylenla at.aw redaktorov • konetne 11..padta tlatlarM. NaN Slovensko •ko Matupc:a MatitMho ffianlll vych6du ul 6smy roll. Ptvyc:h I rokov vyc:hadulo i.k ako teraz n• 32 stnMc:h, ale z toho Ian na I farebnych. Nlekol'ko stovik vytlatkov Slov•nslta :uslelalo byval4 Oddelenle MS ~ U· hranltnjch Slov,kov I n■JJm knjanom predovletkym do Fnl'tCUului, Juhosljvle • Kanady. 11M I do USA• Auatr611e. 0d roku 1813, v a&JvlslMtl • I► ho vlalm umeranhn do uhran~•• rodlriM sme fa,.bnU ten' n11 11 atrin. bez avylenla cany Ka 5, - :u a.Jo. To ale znamenelo t1atH oety tuopfs na kvalftnom ,,..,_... Nale tov,,.I\ v Rulombertc.u vyr6ba skutotne kv•lltnY pepler, ktory Je yYZ.namnYffl exportn,;m ;rovania • udriovania kontak tov • lu■janml • v ""•ha po m6d im v kh Ualll o udrianll sloven~o n,rodn~ pov• dornla a podtu •~upatrit nosd • Jedrom n6rods P04 T atraml, alto I umo.t:ntr Im YU )omn, poznanl• krsjan~ livota v r6znyc:h tastiac:h sva ta Itek ako sma to uv&edl v 1/14 Bale Slov•nslui). Ak by sm• chcall dod6v• prilohu Slovansko krajanon I na domic:I trh, potrebovaU b• ame prlnajmen9' o 30 % vyt.t pridel p,aJNer•. to u daneJ vj robne4 sftuKM v n.&J:ombe, • k•J tov6rni nle }e moln4i. Tak ti&I by sme muMII ;rvyi,lt' cani tasopisu na dom6com trhu, 6t tlel v sutasnoati Ne Je ul.alM TNI• •ko vldlta, m ill luaja nl a, calkom proukk6 flnant " '• ma....Ulna • techrdck, d6 vody Mt pntinou, pre&t tj ta.Slovenaka, ktor6 Ja ur6en6 kni janom • :uoberi N prevs.tn. luajanskou problematikou nil Je k dlt,poddl I domkam1 Btat.rovl. Cudzojuyl"' priloha J• tla 6an, na obytajnom 1.-.bnon novl novom pepl■ rt, aby ZyY ru.nlla a oddelllll prlohu 0< ostat,,..,o taxtu . Talrto nie J4 ponJien6 kontlnulta taxtu pr1 domidch tltatelov • kr■J•n sky at.atel' dOSUva svoj u prflo hu komp,aktnU. Konettla treba p. Mar5'nov Stolarikovl prlpomenut', h pr avojef vedlajiej tinnostl altc r.dsktor • vydav■tel' Nawalet• tar al mohol (ubudol alebo nec:hcel1) Yilmnuf, le sko oudzolazytni prilohe, tak I Slo· vansko lu■Janom majU NmoatatnU tlril. to v novin6rskej praxl anama"'-, la hod Je Jedan vydav■ W I Ufr.daktor. prMaa to, to do.Uvs, SU vlast• ne tri Nmostatn4i periodlld (hod I spolu zoliU). ktor6 m~ tu byf upedov•M • rodlro• Cont'd on page 110 SLOV AKIA-2015 110 APPENDIX 11 • ~ • to priMU a , nky o s1ov, lcoch na UpatH. Slovkl dom• tuto prllohu niltdy navkl~ . Vla•tMUwry .iurobteMml." Nepovdov•II •m• dopot,lal' uWM ,-govat' na alee dot.. .nultov•n&i. ... pNdu len U'9jmU domyeel'noet' uv.. defMlpmNlmlryvNew.iett:•. Medd6uo,n u I\U v I.ta opjul llnjan a NSR. pr.ea nedoetaf v CSSR i!uopla SbveMlco • prilohou 8&ovenako lulljanom. Odpovadal am• mu p&.omne pnllmo • on naM vywetaenieakoeptoval. Oo.teM ..,... vlak d'.U 19t a USA od vjzn,amrwho krajanakMto kutbimeho Bnltel'-. v ktorom bol nuledufQd od- u ......, dWttod &u ndavnutomli, PN koho taeopl• vycUvama ■ v ■ tom rouahu, roahod.W .me N podllf ilrokej knjanilk•J Y«9jnoatl vywedanie. 0 d6vodoch, ktcri nN • nM nadrtadenf Ol'Pn - Mlnlnera:tvo 11.ulb;ry 8SR - vleclll le tomu, ■by am• vycMv■ II tlHMM alovo pre lualanov, MM plull oblim• ne tomto m'-te v 9/M a.le Slovanaka. Tu tr..bll objaantt' Iba technldw .trinJa.i rulldde. Z Uvah, ■ ko rHll.zov■t i.nto dme,, vykryttall.zovall J ■har­ t111tfvy: 1) bud' vydjvaf Nmo.tab'tf fuopl■ pre knjaftOV (kvr(.-O<J. vyN>ba, Ide na uport. Napatr"' Ullf' aoaUiva pre, tuumsko ■ ,. prfen■ llmH.ovan6. N•t tuopq doetaval tie.I urtfty prid.a tohoto papi.,.. (n■ I _,.n). 0d roku 1N3 bol prklel r,ylent na pokrytM I farebnych strin (d'.tlkh) ■ I rilin prflohy PN lu■Janov. baopta 810¥'9ftN0 I• WWnY' ..........................ho atatel'■ : 70 % Nlldadu Ide na dom'4:il trh ■ len 25 % ,. prilohou) pre lnjanov ■ I % pre on.atnu GUdzlnu. Tyoh 21 "' "'ldadu. apolu • c:uckoluy6nou p,9ohou • prlohou Slownako kntrlanom IMnC:1Ujeme a~Matloe.aov.n•uJ dotovaMho ~om kuhury &SR v UUJm• Na UV..- .. t ied.a podotknUf, ta ,ri..,.a tych rucMckofaM.tkkych luuhov, kto" •ita necMvno qltovall, aby Mm lln)ani• Slovenako vrac.all Cnapr. tt.nadaky Slodk), .. aruu DZYV• fartzajsk.6 atarost• lfvo.t o nilho do""oeho tltaWa. la nav&dl iu.JaN116 priohu. :Um..- Je fun'i' • jednoanat:nj . Cheu Mm polllodK, otrevovaf vzfahy nwwdal narnl • krajanml. lrtoN .. 1 naprielc lch lntria'm .,.,.,.. • Ua,pe,tn• roMJaJ'I . .... anahy hod~ nflnonn, • hod I n• Cpeaudo) ved41Ckej Oroml aem,ow"' prukn6 alto myclo"' bubllna. pr.tole pr■ vda )e ,.. n-■J nadvA- Cud1oja1yCnd prnoha Rlowcnallo ~ S...- Htl.i.., Z -fll M ,i.,1 .. A ~,t--AOI V~MMl1lcaoi...-U• • " " ' -· 'i.t.llTS""'.••"' .w(- "-9,_fJa. MolniA, (l.$a • - 1,n . . . , . SLOV AKIA-2015 111 APPENDIX 12 TRAFENA HUS ZAGAGA is a Slovak saying meaning literally •the goose that is hit will maJce a loud cackle• . .I t caoos to one's mind when reading the article in SLOVENSKO *) ,tbe.:.official monthly publication of'Hatica slovenska (Czecho-Slovakia) attacking Hark H. Stolarik, Secretary-Treasurer of the SlovaJc Studies' Asscr ciation (USA) far his brief remark in the Association's Newsletter (June 1984, see also SM 5 &6, p.28). Stolarik informed about the non-availability of SLCNENSKO' s supplement SLDIENSKO XRAJANOH (aimed at Slovaks outside Sl~ vakia) to readers in J;lovakia. According to SLOIENSXO,the re~ sons f.or this non-availability are econcmi c : paper . shortage• •though no mention •is made of the fact that they are flooding the West with 'canplimentary copies' of their books printed on very expensive paper. I t takes them the best part of a page to say this, when a simple ,sentence •because of economic reasQllS we cannot supply the Supplement for no extra cost to readers in Slovakia, however they can obtain i t· ·e asily for an additional subscription . & . Kcs ... • would have been sufficient. But ·this they dia ..cot want tD say! By the way, one is concerned~ bout access to SLCNENSKO KRAJANOH not as i f this was the best way to inform people in Slovakia . - about Slovak life in the West, but because Hatica slovenska herself has been encouraging Slovaks in the -west to establish contactJwith their old homeland through h'Z"iting ·to SLCNENSKO. I f the only obstacles to establishing such contacts were economic , a simple solution would be this : The BULI£TIN of the SLCNAX WCRLD CONGRESS states that it: "is available to readers in Slovakia free of charge• (there is no paper shortage in Canada !J. Why does not Hatica slovenska undertaJce to distribute the BULI£TIN free .of charge among the subscribers of SLOVENSKO in .Slovakia, and have in exchange the Slovak World Congress distribute SWVENSKO KRAJANOH free of charge to the readers of their BULLETIN in the West. Nobody could then canplain about lack of contacts : •I t was too much of a temptation to resist, namely to present to our readers the final part of the article in SWVENSKO with ·al:1 -its orwellian beauty (their English sUD1Dary contains neither this nor the vitriolic attaak .on H. Stolarik) : Those who dared to question the availability of SLOVENSKO KRAJANOH are •fascists• and "pharisees• (what a combination !) who "want to damage and poison the r~ lationship between us [i.e. Hatica] and our countrymen, which shows a premising and successful development despite their [i. e. the fascists' and pharisees' J intrigues. Their attempts, though cunning and presented on a {pseudo) scientific level .will burst like a soap bubble because .the truth is on our side.•  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 My Rocky Relationship with the Matica slovenská During the Second Era of Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1970-1989: A Personal Memoir Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 42 (No. 78-79), 2015 pp. 87-111 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/332785cff4f265ad3c4c359600dd8581.pdf 590394fa1a9f7d2f25e394b700d2c443 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 2021 121 "THE RUSSIANS ARE INVADING US!" PRESOV, 1968 M. Mark Stolarik In 1968 Anne and Mark Stolarik experienced two unforgettable events in their lives- they were married and later witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Not many people can brag that their honeymoon was interrupted by Russian tanks! Meanwhile, they also experienced many culture shocks, as they toured Slovakia for the first time. For the newlyweds the summer of 1968 started quite auspiciously. On June 15, over 400 guests appeared at the wedding of Mark Stolarik and Anne fvanco in Oshawa, Ontario, the automobile capital of Canada. The ceremony was held in the packed Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Ritson Road, and was presided over by the Reverend Stefan Adamiak. 1 Afterwards the guests walked to the nearby Slovak Hall ,2 ate a many-course meal in the basement and then proceeded upstairs where the dancing and drinking began . As was typical of Slovak weddings, two men got into a fight and were ejected by the bride 's father. By I 0:00 p.m. a crisis arose- there was no more liquor! Jan Jvanco, the bride 's father, quickly rounded up all of his friends, explained the situation, and they raced home to empty their liquor cabinets in order to keep the celebration going into the wee hours of the morning. After the tearful bridal dance at midnight, during which Mark was ejected from the building, Jan lvanco and his new son-in-law met in a back room and counted up all the monetary donations received, either during the wedding, or during the bridal dance. They totaled $4,000, which was more than enough to cover all of their planned-for honeymoon expenses to Europe, and their research-trip to Slovakia. At that time Mark was a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, where he was studying 1 For the history of this parish see "S lovak Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada" (Xerox copy, Oshawa, 2002) . A copy can be found in the Slovak Arc hi ves, Arc hives and Special Collections, Unive rsity of Ottawa. 2 For a photo of this hall, see the front cover of Polyphony : The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario 2, No. I (Winter, 1979). �122 SLOVAKIA 2021 under the direction of Timothy L. Smith, who had recently founded the Immigrant Archives at the University. 3 As one of Smith's Research Assistants, Mark 's duties consisted of collecting archival materials in American and Canadian cities pertaining to Slovak immigration to North America and then writing his dissertation based upon these materials. The day after their wedding Mark and Anne fl ew from Toronto to Minneapolis and from there by a special charter plane for uni versity students to Paris. After touring Paris with student colleagues from the University of Minnesota, Mark and Anne took a train to Stuttgart, Germany, where they picked up a brand-new Volkswagen " Beetle" which Mark had purchased for $1,300. With their new car they drove to Munich and Salzburg, where they visited with friend s and then proceeded to Vienna. In this ancient capital of the former Habsburg Empire, which they first toured, they applied for and received visas from the Czechoslovak Consulate to visit the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. After a picturesque drive from Vienna through the towns of Hainburg and Wolfstahl, the newlyweds approached the Czechoslovak border. They could see the Little Carpathians looming in the di stance, and Bratislava castle overlooking the city. As they approached the border, they noticed that they were the only car entering the Republic. A lonely soldier, with a sub-machine gun slung over his back, lifted a heavy cantilevered iron gate, which opened only inwards, and allowed them in . Thereupon two surprised customs officers emerged from a little building off to the side and, under a covered roof asked the travelers for their passports and visas. 3 For the history of the Immigrant Archives, later renamed the Immigration History Research Center, see my " Building Ethnic Arch ives in the United States and Canada since the I 960 's," in Dominique Daniel and Amalia Levi eds., Identity Palimpsests: Archiving Ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada (Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 20 13), 59-6 1. �SLOVAKIA 2021 123 Petrfalka border crossing from Austria, 1993 . In 1968 there were no signs at this crossing except the large letters that read " Bratislava." Fortunately, Timothy Smith had arranged for Dr. 1:udovit Holotik, the Director of the Historical [nstitute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, to issue them, as we ll as his entire team of researchers, an official invitation, which made the granting of visas by the Czechoslovak authorities that much easier. After a two-hour wait at the border, while the customs officers awaited a telephone call from Prague confirming their visas as legitimate, the couple was cleared for entrance into the Republic. Before they departed they changed some American dollars for Czechoslovak crowns, because it was noon and their stomachs were growling. Because they had an official invitation , they did not have to exchange $12.00 (U.S.) for Czechoslovak crowns for each day of their stay at the official (and unrealistic) rate of seven crowns for a �124 SLOVAKIA 2021 dollar. The real (black market) rate of exchange was 35 crowns for a dollar. Once they had cleared customs, the two visitors proceeded in their little green Volkswagen along a narrow two-lane road towards the town of Petrzalka, a suburb of Bratislava. They noticed that the road was raised higher than the nearby empty fields , and soon they passed a tall guard-tower, with two more armed soldiers watching them. rt was clear that they had just passed through the "Iron Curtain" which separated the communist East from the democratic West. After the pair had crossed the "Stary most" (Old Bridge) across the Danube River from Petrzalka to Bratislava, and drove along Sturova Street into the heart of the city, they were disappointed by what they saw. The buildings were old and grey, with the plaster falling off. What a contrast with modem, clean and dynamic Vienna! The pedestrians were dressed in what looked like I 940's clothing. It seemed to the visitors that they had entered into the "Third World." As they drove along, they looked in vain for a sign that would advertise a restaurant. When the pair drove their Volkswagen up the hill through the Square of the Slovak National Uprising, past the Church of the Holy Trinity, they noticed a large sign at its base that read "Sovietska kniha" (Soviet Bookstore), which again reminded them that they were in the communist East. Finally, as they emerged into what is now known as " Hodo:fovo namestie" (Hodza Square), the hungry couple spied a sign on the left that read "Restauracia Stefanka." Elated, they parked their car on a side road and entered the restaurant with great anticipation. A friendly waiter in a tuxedo greeted them and sat them beside a window overlooking the square. He explained that the Stefanka did not provide individual service, but they could help themselves at the buffet table. Mark and Anne were delighted to see little open-faced sandwiches, with all sorts of delicacies on them, awaiting their hungry stomachs. They ate to their heart's content. Meanwhile, they noticed that the clientele consisted mostly of older gentlemen and young women. They made nothing of it. A little later, whi le visiting Mark 's cousin Jozef Mazur in nearby Trnava, Jozef asked the couple for their first impressions of Slovakia. When they recounted their lunch at the Stefanka, Jozef burst into laughter. When Mark inquired as to what was so funny, Jozef replied, "Don't you know what the Stefanka is?" To which Mark replied , "no," to which Jozef added, "The Stefanka is �SLOVAKIA 2021 125 notorious in Bratislava as the place where you go if you want to pick up a prostitute! " Upon reflection, Mark and Anne understood why they had seen so many older gentlemen and younger women at the Stefanka. They had a good laugh! After lunch on their first day in Slovakia, Mark and Anne proceeded to the offices of the Historicky ustav SAV (Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) on Klemensova Street. Here a sheepish Dr. L:udovit Holotik welcomed them and explained that he was leaving shortly on a research trip to England . He failed to mention that he had just been fired as Director of the Institute, because in the l 950 ' s he had written a defamatory book about the Slovak national hero, General Milan R. Stefanik. During the liberali z ing " Dubcek era",4 such books were frowned upon and Holotik was attacked in the now-free press.5 Holotik then introduced Mark to his successor, Dr. Julius Mesaros. The latter was initially skeptical of Mark ' s motives, but when Mark explained that he was a student of Timothy Smith, and part of a team of researchers who were coming to Slovakia to study the emigration of various ethnic groups from the former Kingdom of Hungary, Mesaros mellowed. He offered Mark and Anne some Turkish coffee, made by his secretary, which consisted of one-third coffeegrounds and two-thirds thick, dark, coffee in a demi-tasse. The Canadian couple had never before seen or tasted such coffee and slowly sipped it in order not to insult their host. Mark and Anne were raised on "cafe au lait". Apparently, the Russians had introduced "Turkish coffee" to the Eastern Bloc. After this introduction, Mesaros brought to Mark dozens of articles and books written by himself and his colleagues at the Hi storical Institute on the social history of 19 th century Slovakia.6 Once he had read them, Mark would have a good back- 4 For the Dubce k era , popularl y kn own as the " Prague Spring," see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion of Czechoslovakia, / 968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Sto larik (Munde lein, IL : Bo lchazy-Carducc i, 20 I 0). 1..:udovit Holotik, Stefa nikovska legenda a vznik CSR (Brati slava: Slove nska academia vied. 1958); fo r th e attacks upon Holot ik see Jan Ml ynarik , " Hi stori ci v Enckylopedii Slovenska- bilanci a neostalinskeho kadrovani a (Studia k slovenskej histori ografii )" Premeny 25 (4, 1988), 147-8. 6 Mesaros's most important publication was Rolnicka a narodnostna otazka na Slovensku, 1848-1900; k problematikef eudalnych prei itkov (Bratislava : Slovenska academia vi ed, 1959). 5 �126 SLOVAKIA 2021 ground understanding of the archival sources which he would subsequently find in various Slovak state archives. After having spent their first night in the nearby Hotel Krym, Mark and Anne proceeded to the headquarters of the Slovak State Archives on the " Ulica obrancov mieru" (Street of the Defenders of Peace; today 's Stefanikova Street). There they met and befriended Dr. Frantisek Bielik, one of the archivists who was interested in the topic of Slovak immigration .7 He subsequently introduced the couple to Deputy Director Jozef Mazur who, it turned out, was Mark 's long-lost cousin on his mother's side. They had a joyful reunion during which Jozef Mazur showed Mark photos of himself visiting with Mark 's family in Turciansky Svaty Martin during the Second World War. Jozef then wrote Mark an official letter of introduction to all the Slovak State Archives scattered across the country, in which Jozef instructed the local archivists to help Mark in finding material s on Slovak emigration to North America. For the next two weeks Frantisek Bielik found such materials for Mark in the Bratislava State Archives. While Mark and Anne stayed at the nearby inexpensive Hotel Tatra, which was full of Russians, they had a curious experience. Every morning when they ate breakfast in the hotel 's dining room, they ordered the same things- ham and eggs with rolls and coffee. The total bill was always 28 crowns, which they rounded up to 30, much to the deli ght of their middle-aged waiter, who collected the money on the spot. They were not used to waiters doing this, because in North America waiters or waitresses usually submitted a bill , and the customers paid through a cashier, who controlled the amount requested and paid. One day, the middle-aged waiter took the day off and was replaced by a much younger colleague. Mark and Anne ordered the same breakfast, but the new waiter charged them 48 crowns! Not wishing to create a scene, they paid the 48 crowns and left. The next day, when the middle-aged waiter returned, they showed him the previous day's breakfast bill. He was furiou s, he apologized, did not charge them for their breakfast, and vowed that his younger colleague would never again repl ace him . Mark and Anne wondered how often waiters in 7 While Bielik started hi s career at the Slovak State Archives, he later switched to the Institute for Slovaks Abroad of the Matica slovenska and published, amon g many others things, the four- volume compendium of documents on Slovak immigrati on entitled Slovenske vystahovalectvo. Dokumenty / -4 (Bratislava: Slovenska academ ia vied, 1969- 1985). �SLOVAKIA 2021 127 Slovakia (and elsewhere in Europe) cheated their customers in this way. After their stay in Bratislava, Mark and Anne drove north to the city of Trnava, to do research in the archives of the Spolok Sv. Yojtecha (Society of St. Adalbert). They stayed with the family of Jozef Mazur, who introduced Mark to the Director of the Spolok, Msgr. Jan Postenyi . The latter was delighted to meet Mark, because Postenyi had been on a tour of the USA in 193 7, and had since not met with any American Slovaks. He gladly opened his rich archive to Mark, where the latter discovered many documents pertaining to the history of the Slovak League of America during and after World War I. These included a carbon-copy of the 1915 Cleveland Agreement. 8 After a week's stay in Trnava, Mark and Anne set out for northern Slovakia, where they met additional members of their family. In Cadca they stayed with Mark 's uncle Jozef Stolarik, who took Mark to see his grandmother Anna Stolarikova and her daughter Terezia Bosakova in the hilly settlement of Dlha, near the city of Turzovka. Anna had not seen her grandson since his Christening in 1943 . Since Anna was illiterate, she wondered how Mark had managed to find her. Mark took out a road map of Europe and showed her the roads they had driven from Stuttgart to Slovakia, but it was hard for her to comprehend what he was showing. Mark, meanwhile, was amused that she was wearing black Converse sneakers. Uncle Jozef explained that it was easier for her to climb up the hill to her house in sneakers than in leather shoes. There was no road up the hill from the one below. After having visited two more aunts and their families, in midJuly, Mark and Anne set out for the city of Martin, Mark's birthplace. While driving between the city of Zilina and the ruins of castle Strecno, Mark and Anne suddenly spotted a long column of Russian military vehicles parked on the old road beside the new one. They were engaged in war games called "operation Sumava" in order to intimidate the Czechoslovak government into stopping the transformation of Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," as the first Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, 8 For the history of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha see Stefan Hanakovic, Dejiny Spolku sviiteho Vojtecha (Trnava : Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 2005), especia ll y pages 281-84 for Postenyi ' s trip to America. The Cleve land Agreement can be found in the Archiv Spolku Svateho Vojtecha, Politika, fasc. 235 , fol. A. c.2 �128 SLOVAKIA 2021 Alexander Dubcek, put it. As he made clear in hi s memo irs, he and hi s followers were trying to turn communist Czechoslovakia into a Social Democratic Czechoslovakia.9 His colleagues in the Warsaw Pact, particularly Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka and East German leader Walter Ulbricht, vehemently disapproved of the path of the so-called Prague Spring, and "operation Sumava" was a prelude to the later in vas ion of Czechoslovakia. 10 Meanwhile, when Mark saw these Soviet military veh icles, he instantly shouted at Anne to start photographing them , because he was driving and was afraid to stop the car, lest the Russians arrest him. A terrified Anne grabbed hi s 35mi llimeter camera and took several color slides of these vehicles. Russ ian military vehicles parked on the old road between Z ilina and Strecno in northern Slovakia, Jul y, 1968 9 Hope Dies Last: The Autohiography of Alexander Dubcek, ed. and trans. by Jiri Hochman (New York: Kodansha International, 1993), 277. 10 For the views of Brezhnev, Gomulka and Ulbricht, see the chapters by Mikhail Latysh, Lukasz Kaminski and Riidi ger Wenzke in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion, 1-18, 95- 128 and 137-64. �SLOVAKIA 2021 129 Russian "Katyusha" rocket launchers on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July, 1969. Russian ambulance and military vehicles on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July 1968. After this harrowing experience, Mark and Anne kept driving around the Strecno pass until they reached the city of Martin. Here �130 SLOVAKIA 2021 they met Uncle Rudolf and hi s family and stayed with them for a week while Mark worked in the Literary Archive of the Matica slovenska. Here he met Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the Slovak National Library of the Matica slovenska. The two of them agreed upon an exchange of books and other materials in the future , a promise which is still in effect. While in Martin, at the urging of Frantisek (Ferko) Bielik, Mark attended the 6th Congress of the Slovak Historical Society, where he heard Dr. Lubomir Liptak 's attack upon the "deformation" of Slovak hi story by Marxist hi storian s in the previous decades. 11 He also heard Prof. Milos Gosiorovsky' s plea for the federation of Czechoslovakia based upon the Cleveland Agreement of 1915. 12 Mark was amused by Ferko Bielik 's antics at this Congress- he lifted hi s hand in approval of various motions made, whi le shaking hi s head sideways in disapproval. He explained that the conference organizers only counted the raised hands, not the heads shaking sideways. This was a small gesture of disapproval of the conference proceedings. After their stay in Martin, at the beginning of August, the newlyweds set out for the city of Presov, to do research in the archives of the former county of Saris, from where the first immigrants had left for America. 13 In Presov they met and stayed with Anne's uncle Andrej Krasnay in the Sid lisko Dukelskych hrdinov (the Apartment Complex of the Heroes of the Duk la Pass). Shortly after their arrival , Andrej took Mark and Anne to visit her grandmother in her vi ll age for the first time, as well as other aunts and uncles. At Andrej 's condo Mark and Anne had to get used to the socialist way of life. For instance, sometimes the water flowed from the faucets in Andrej's apartment, sometimes not. Therefore, Andrej kept his tub full of water, so that he would not run out. Sometimes the water was hot. Sometimes it was not. Whenever the water flowed hot, Andrej called the couple to immediately take a bath. And, even though Presov had street li ghts, they were not turned on at night, in order to conserve electricity. When Mark went to do research in the Slovak State Archives in Presov, which was located on the Main Square, right beside the church of St. Nicholas, he had some interesting experiences. When he met 11 Cubomir Liptak, "U loha a postavenie historiografie v nasej spolocnosti, Hisloricky casopi.1· XVII , c. l , 1969, 98- 11 7. 12 Milos Gosiorovsky, "Slovaci za prvej svetovej vojny," in Slovaci a ich narodnv v;ivin, ed. Oto Takac (Brati slava: Slovenska academ ia vied, I969), 29 1-305 . 13 Slovak State Archives in Presov, county Saris, podzupan, 9809, VB, 1879. �SLOVAK.IA 2021 131 Andrej Lukac, the Director of the Archive, the latter was cool to Mark's visit. He claimed that the material Mark was searching for was not yet processed and suggested that Mark return sometime in the future, when it would become available. Mark then asked if Lukac knew Jozef Mazur, to which Lukac replied, "Hej , onje moj set1'' (Of course! He's my boss.) To which Mark replied, "Hej, on je moj bratranec." (Of course! He's my cousin.) As soon as Lukac heard Mark ' s reply, he jumped into action. Lukac suggested that, since Mark could not read Magyar, and most of the documents were in that language, he hire a translator. Mark agreed and the next day Lukac introduced Mark to Mr. Grant. The latter was the descendant of a Scottish soldier who had remained in Central Europe in the 17 th century. Mr. Grant was in his 80's, he had been educated in the old Austria-Hungary, and knew Slovak, Magyar, German and Latin. He was overly polite, as such gentlemen were trained to be and, whenever he found an interesting document to translate, he would say "No, prosim Vas pekne," which means "Now, if you please," and then would proceed to translate. Lukac suggested that Mark pay Mr. Grant I 00 crowns per day, which was the going rate for such services. Mark agreed, since on the black market that would come to only $3.00 (US) a day. Mr. Grant was so intelligent that, after he had translated some documents, he grasped what Mark was looking for, and then did his translating without any more superv1s1on. Mark and Anne also did research in Kosice. Once they had exhausted their sources in Presov, they drove south to Kosice, to work in the fonner archives of Abov and Zemplin counties, which were housed in the former Abov county headquarters on Orlia Street, one block from the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth. As they drove into Kosice and approached the main square, they noticed and photographed a bust of General Milan R. Stefanik on a pedestal that was obviously erected spontaneously and hurriedly by some local patriots on the exact spot where a much larger statue of Stefanik had been erected in the l 920's. The statue was removed by communist authorities in the I 950's. (See the photo on page 133) This bust testified to the rise of Slovak nationalism during the Dubcek era. At the Slovak State Archives in Kosice Mark and Anne �132 SLOVAKIA 2021 were welcomed by the Director, Ladislav Andrasi and his assistant, Anna Fedorjakova. The latter willingly and eagerly helped Mark to translate documents from Magyar into Slovak. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne were joined by Professor Timothy Smith and another one of his graduate students, Oksana Dragan, who had both just come down from Poland in Smith's brown Volkswagen. Smith was studying Slovak Lutheran immigration from eastern Slovakia while Oksana was researching Rusyn (Ukrainian) immigration to North America. Smith then suggested to Mark that he a lso consult the Roman Catholic bishop's archives, located on Lenin Street, opposite the Cathedral. Since Anne had studied Latin for five years in High School, she volunteered to do this and was assisted by the Rev. Alojs Tkac, who was in charge of the archives. After the collapse of Communism, the latter was e levated to the post of Bishop, and later, Archbishop of Kosice. 14 Meanwhile, Professor Smith arranged a meeting with an "Action Committee" of the newly-resurrected Greek Catholic Church, led by Msgr. Jan Hirka, who, once Communism collapsed, was e levated to Eparch (Bishop) of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Presov. 15 On the evening of August 20, 1968, Mark and Anne, together with Timothy Smith and Oksana Dragan, decided to dine together. They went to the Magyar Restaurant in Kosice , where they enjoyed an exotic meal and did some dancing to the tunes of a Gypsy (Roma) orchestra. 14 Alojz Tkac was persecuted by the Communi sts durin g the period of "Normalization" ( 1970- 1989) and penned hi s memoirs in Pohl'adv z kriiovatky (Kapusany: Bens, 2004). 15 For the hi story of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia from 1968 to 1980, see Martin Lupco, "Grec kokatolick a a pravoslavna cirkev na Slovensku v rokoch 19681980," in Jaroslav Corani c- Jana Koprivnakova- Peter Sturak eds. Grekokatolicka cirkev na Slovensku vo svetle vyroci II (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 2012), 165-77. Msgr. Jan H irka published hi s memoirs in Pod ochranou Marie: Pastier v zlui be cirkvi (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 20 13 ). �SLOVAKIA 2021 133 Bust of General M.R. Stefanik on the main square, Kosice, August, 1968. �134 SLOVAKIA 2021 Around 11 :00 p.m. all four researchers decided to drive back to their abodes in Presov. As Mark and Anne drove through the village of Drienov, just north of Kosice, a black cat ran in front of their car. Although they did not kill it, Mark wondered aloud if it signaled that they would have bad luck. "I hope not," Anne answered. Around 4:30 a.m. on August 21 , Mark and Anne were awakened by a very loud noise coming from the streets of Presov. At first they thought that it was the sound of jackhammers, and Mark began to curse the workers who could not wait until 8:00 a.m. to repair the streets. Then they heard a knocking on the door to the apartment. Andrej Krasnay gingerly approached the door and asked, "who ' s there?" Mark and Anne were afraid that the Secret Police had come for them, because they always came at night. Instead, it was the next-doorneighbor. He told Andrej something and Andrej then knocked on Mark and Anne's glass door, came in and announced that "The Russians, Poles, East Germans, Magyars and Bulgarians are occupying us!" 16 All three then understood that the noise from the street was not from jackhammers, but from tanks. Dazed, Mark and Anne decided to immediately dress and repair to the Hotel Dukla, where Professor Smith and Oksana Dragan were staying. It was sunrise by the time they arrived and Smith had just arisen. Mark knocked on his door and as Smith opened it, Mark blurted out "the Russians are invading us." Smith looked out his window at the tanks and remarked that he thought it was military maneuvers again . Mark assured him that it was not, that this was a real invasion . Smith then suggested that Mark go find Anne, who had gone upstairs to inform Oksana of the invasion , to come down to the dining room to discuss the situation. The four researchers, along with a young and lonely waiter, were the only customers in the dining room. While Smith ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and rolls , the three students were too frightened to eat. Smith nonchalantly remarked, " We ' re Americans. This doesn ' t concern us." He cou ldn 't have been more wrong. Mark was born in Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1943 and Oksana in Berlin in 1942. Oksana was the daughter of the editor of the 16 The East Germans did not parti cipate in the invasion . For a detailed ex planati on sec Rildi gcr Wcnzkc, "The Rol e and Acti vities of the SEO, the East German State and Its Military During th e ' Prague Spring' of 1968," in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion, 137-64. �SLOVAKIA 2021 135 pro-independence Ukrainian weekly Svoboda, published in Jersey City, New Jersey. Both were post-war refugees who, with their families, had ended up in Canada and the USA after the war. Neither the Soviet Union, nor Czechoslovakia, recognized dual citizenship at that time. Either one of these students could be detained by the authorities, whether Czechoslovak or Russian . Smith, however, was so unconcerned about the invasion that he decided that all four researchers should carry on as if nothing had happened. Thus, he instructed Mark and Oksana to go to the state archives and continue with their research. Meanwhile, he took Anne with him to serve as a translator in the Presov city archives. When Smith met with the Mayor of Presov, who was clearly shattered by the invasion, Smith asked for permission to do research in the city archives. The Mayor replied, with Anne translating, that "due to the extraordinary circumstances," the city archives were closed. Smith would not take no for an answer. He repeated his request, and Anne repeated the translation that the archives were closed. After three tries, Smith gave up and told Anne to go join Mark in the state archives. When Mark and Oksana arrived at the Slovak State Archives, they noticed that the entire staff was looking out the windows at the tanks (T55 ' s) roaring by, except Mr. Grant. The latter was nonchalantly reading and translating Magyar documents, oblivious to the noise outside. After a while Mr. Grant's behavior puzzled Mark so much that he asked Mr. Grant, "how can you continue to work while we are being invaded?" Mr. Grant smiled and replied, "This is my fifth invasion ." When Mr. Grant saw the puzzled look on Mark ' s face , he explained that the Russians had broken through the Carpathians into Hungary in the fall and winter of 1914-1915, then Bela Kun's Hungarian Red Army occupied Presov in 1919, the Germans occupied Slovakia in 1944 and the Russians in 1945, and again in 1968. " So, what's new?" he asked. "But, don't you want to see the Russian tanks?" Mark asked. Mr. Grant gestured no with his hand. Then he added, "You should have seen a German Tiger. That was a tank!" Mr. Grant then reminisced that, shortly after the Second World War had ended, he took the train from Presov to Kos ice. About half way there he spotted four destroyed tanks in a nearby field . Three were Russian T34 ' s and one was a German Tiger with its treads blown off. It was obvious what had happened. �136 SLOVAKIA 2021 After these reassuring words from Mr. Grant, Mark and Anne cairned down and decided to return to Andrej's apartment, to get their camera, and take some pictures of the invasion. After having eaten some lunch, the intrepid pair set out on Uti ca cervenej arrnady [Red Army Street] (today's Levoca Street) towards the main intersection of Presov at Utica Slovenskej republiky rad [Street of the Slovak Socialist Republic] , today 's Hlavna ulica (Main Street), right in front of the Bosak Bank. 17 There the pair saw a burning Russian military vehicle, which some tank had previously rammed. Just as they were passing by the Bosak Bank, another tank roared by and hit the burning vehicle and it lunged towards the bank . Seeing the approaching truck out of the comer of his eye, Mark shoved Anne out of the way and prepared to be crushed. Fortunately, there was a very strong guard-rail at this location, and it stopped the burning vehicle. After Mark and Anne recovered from this near-fatal mishap, they crossed the street and, upon the urging of a local, climbed up the stairs of the Ukrainian Theater and emerged onto a balcony, where they had an unobstructed view of the invasion . They started to take color slides of the Russian tanks and other vehic les. Ru ss ian military vehicles on Dukla Street, Presov, August 21, 1968. Meanwhile, in the morning they had noticed that elderly citizens had lined up outside various food stores, to "stock up" in case the 17 This bui ldi ng was erected by the American Slovak millionaire Michal Bosak in the I 920 's. He also built a school in Okruhle, hi s village of origin. For more on Bosak see Michal Bosak & Rudolf Bosa k, Michal Bosak- americkj bankar zo Sarisa (Presov, Ibi s Publishin g, 1997). �SLOVAKIA 2021 137 Russian soldiers started looting, as they had done in 1945 . By noon, however, the dynamics had changed. Hundreds of students, who had been home for summer vacation, started to pour into Presov. Soon, they began marching up and down the main square, shouting " Ysetci l'udia na chodniku nemiluju republiku!" (People on the sidewalk do not love the Republic) an old communist slogan from May-day parades. Soon a few of the bravest students jumped onto the street, at the main crossing located at the Bosak Bank, and stopped the tanks! Students blocking Russian tanks at intersection of Dukla and Red Anny Streets, Presov, August 21, 1968. They held up the invasion for three hours. Finally, by mid-afternoon, a Russian military helicopter hovered overhead and must have given the driver of the lead tank orders to proceed because, at that moment, the lead tank lowered its gun and began swinging it from side-to-side, while simultaneously roaring its engine. (Photo next page). That had the desired effect, as the students jumped aside to avoid being hit by the barrel of its canon. After that the tanks proceeded closely and quickly, in order to not give the students a chance to once �138 SLOVAK.IA 2021 again jump in front and stop the tanks. On the first day of the invasion, the commander of occupation forces in Presov announced a state of Martial Law to begin at I 0:00 p.m. Instead of obeying him, the citizens of Presov hit the streets in large numbers and began to shout "Rusi domov! Rusi domov!" (Russians, go home! Russians, go home!). When an armored scout-car appeared, the people began to pelt it with bricks and bottles and it quickly fled the scene. Russian military helicopter hovering above Presov, August 21 , 1968. Russian scout car and tanks on a side street in Presov, August, 1968. �SLOVAKIA 2021 139 During the day individuals posted large anti-Russian posters and placards onto shop windows. One large cartoon was Mark's favorite: It depicted a Russian soldier, who had just had a bowl movement, rising from the toilet and the reactionary communist Vasil Bil'ak was licking his ass! Mark wanted to photograph it, but was afraid to do so, because it was rumored that agents of the Russian KGB were in town, and were arresting people taking such pictures. The citizens of Presov suspected that Vasil Bil'ak, a conservative member of the Czechoslovak Politburo, was one of the traitors who had urged the Russians to invade. The citizens were right. 18 For three days the Russians hurtled through Presov in the direction of Poprad. By the end of the week, when the city was fully occupied. (See the next 5 photographs) Russian soldier guarding tank in central Presov , August, 1968. 18 Six members of the Politburo, including Vasil Bil'ak , signed such a letter of invitation to the Ru ssians just before the invasion. For a copy of this letter see Otakar Korinek, Poz;vvaci list 1968 (Bratislava: Albert Marencin PT, 2006), 82-3. �140 SLOVAKIA 2021 Russ ian soldiers talking to civili ans, Presov, August, 1968. Russ ian vehicles bes ides Post Office in Presov, August 1968 �SLOVAKIA 2021 141 Russian soldiers and officers in a military vehicle, Presov, August, 1968. Russian tanks in front of Czechoslovak military barracks in Presov, August, 1968. �142 SLOVAKIA 2021 A certain professor of the Ukrainian language at the University of Presov, whom Timothy Smith knew, approached the research group from America and suggested that they leave as soon as possible, because he knew that Oksana had been born in Berlin in 1942 and was in danger of being picked up by agents of the KGB . Timothy Smith agreed and the four researchers set out in their respective Volkswagens towards Bratislava via Sabinov, Brezovicka and the Levoca forest in order to avoid the formidable Branisko Pass, where columns of Russian vehicles were moving very slowly. Between Spisske Podhradie and the city of Poprad they had to pass many slow-moving Russian vehicles. At one point, they drove by an entire column stopped by the side of the road, with Russian soldiers picking pears from the trees. Apparently the soldiers were hungry and their supply-wagons had not caught up with them. As the researchers approached the city of Poprad, they saw huge red letters that spelled DUBCEK painted vertically on the entire side of a tall apartment building. A nearby crane revealed how this was made possible. Mark would have photographed this sign, except that he had just passed a moving column of Russians. Meanwhile, Mark's Volkswagen rattled from the ruts in the road made by tank tracks, a ll the way to Bratislava. As they drove west, Mark and Anne noticed that the locals had changed all the directional signs, to try to confuse the Russians . It didn ' t work, since the Russians had good maps of Czechoslovakia, as did Mark and Anne. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne also noticed many pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian signs along the way. For instance, in the village of Brezovicka, past the city of Sabinov, someone had painted " The Whole World Supports Dubcek" on an abandoned log cabin. (First photo next page) On the meandering Vah river, between the cities of Ruzomberok and Martin, the locals had painted on the concrete abutment " DUBCEK JE NAS JANOSIK" (Dubcek is our Janosik), conjuring up Slovakia's I 8 th century social bandit. 19 On the way to Bratislava, the little caravan stopped in Martin, Cadca and Trnava, to bid farewell to family and friends . At the Matica slovenska the sympathetic workers gave Mark souvenir copies of the newly-resurrected daily Narodne noviny, which the communists had 19 For the story of Janosik see Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Jano.~ik (Marti n: Osveta, 1986). �SLOVAKIA 2021 143 shut down in the l 950's, but which now fully supported the Dubcekled government. (Second photo next page) As Mark was driving past the city of Trencin, he pulled out to pass a tractor dragging a wagon of hay and suddenly found himself confronted by a Russian truck barreling down on him. Fortunately, the driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and Mark narrowly avoided colliding with him. Anne upbraided Mark for this near-miss, to which he sourly replied, "The Russians don't belong here! " The American caravan stopped briefly in Trnava and Bratislava, to bid farewell to family and friends. While in Trnava at Jozef Mazur's apartment, where they had lunch, Oksana spied a piano in the living room. She started to play some tunes on it but, when she played the World War II German song "Lily Marl ene," Jozefs wife Lola, who was a schoolteacher and afra id for her job, sc reamed at Oksana to stop, because the communists had forbidden such songs from being played. Graffiti, "The Whole World Supports Dubcek" in Brezovicka, eastern Slovakia, August, 1968. �144 SLOVAKIA 2021 Narodne no viny (Martin, August 29, 1968): " We understand and support you, comrade Dubcek. You negoti ated outside of our homeland ." Thus, even though the Dubcek era had seen the abolition of censorship, self-censorship still prevailed. Meanwhile, as in most Slovak cities and villages, Trnava also had its share of pro-Dubcek and antiRussian posters. Graffiti in central Tmava: "Not what the occupiers demanded, but what we support with Dubcek and Svoboda," August, 1968. �SLOVAKIA 2021 145 The final stop of the caravan was in Bratislava. When the four researchers appeared at the Historicky ustav SA V, they were greeted by the furious but dispirited historians and their secretarial staff. After some discussion , both sides agreed that, in view of the invasion and the uncertainty of the future , it would be best to cancel the planned scholarly conference on Emigration from Eastern Europe to North America in the nearby castle of Smolen ice, which belonged to the Slovak Academy of Sciences. After they bade their farewells , the four researchers returned to their cars parked on Dostojevskeho rad (Dostojevsky Street). Fearing that The Russians would control the border, and search their car for photographs, Mark decided to photograph some more pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian graffiti painted on various buildings in the vicinity, then hide his film in a difficult-to-find spot in his car and hope the Ru ssians would not find it. (See the last 3 Photos) After thi s the American caravan approached the Old Bridge and drove past Russian tanks parked on both sides. Once they had crossed into Petrfalka they noticed what looked like a whole regiment of Russians camped in the park of Janko Kral' beside the Danube River. As they approached the border, however, they saw that Slovak soldiers were still in charge, complete with their sub-machine guns. Only one lonely Russian soldier, seated on a bench and staring at the ground, could be seen. When Mark asked the Slovak customs officers about the Russian soldier, they replied, "We're ignoring him . You should too." After perfunctorily checking their passports and visas, the customs officers bade the travelers farewell and, after the Slovak soldier lifted and pulled into Czechoslovakia the heavy cantilevered gate, the four researchers drove into Austria and freedom . August of 1968 will forever be etched into Mark 's and Anne's memories. What started out as a happy honeymoon in Europe and in Slovakia turned into the tragedy of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was a brutal reminder of how superpowers can intimidate and subjugate their much smaller and weaker neighbors. �146 SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : "Long Live Dubcek .. ." August, 1968. Graffiti in Bratislava: " ... and Svoboda" August, 1968 �SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : " Moscow" (the other way), August, 1968. 147 �� SLOVAKIA 2021 121 "THE RUSSIANS ARE INVADING US!" PRESOV, 1968 M. Mark Stolarik In 1968 Anne and Mark Stolarik experienced two unforgettable events in their lives- they were married and later witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Not many people can brag that their honeymoon was interrupted by Russian tanks! Meanwhile, they also experienced many culture shocks, as they toured Slovakia for the first time. For the newlyweds the summer of 1968 started quite auspiciously. On June 15, over 400 guests appeared at the wedding of Mark Stolarik and Anne fvanco in Oshawa, Ontario, the automobile capital of Canada. The ceremony was held in the packed Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Ritson Road, and was presided over by the Reverend Stefan Adamiak. 1 Afterwards the guests walked to the nearby Slovak Hall ,2 ate a many-course meal in the basement and then proceeded upstairs where the dancing and drinking began . As was typical of Slovak weddings, two men got into a fight and were ejected by the bride 's father. By I 0:00 p.m. a crisis arose- there was no more liquor! Jan Jvanco, the bride 's father, quickly rounded up all of his friends, explained the situation, and they raced home to empty their liquor cabinets in order to keep the celebration going into the wee hours of the morning. After the tearful bridal dance at midnight, during which Mark was ejected from the building, Jan lvanco and his new son-in-law met in a back room and counted up all the monetary donations received, either during the wedding, or during the bridal dance. They totaled $4,000, which was more than enough to cover all of their planned-for honeymoon expenses to Europe, and their research-trip to Slovakia. At that time Mark was a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, where he was studying 1 For the history of this parish see "S lovak Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada" (Xerox copy, Oshawa, 2002) . A copy can be found in the Slovak Arc hi ves, Arc hives and Special Collections, Unive rsity of Ottawa. 2 For a photo of this hall, see the front cover of Polyphony : The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario 2, No. I (Winter, 1979). �122 SLOVAKIA 2021 under the direction of Timothy L. Smith, who had recently founded the Immigrant Archives at the University. 3 As one of Smith's Research Assistants, Mark 's duties consisted of collecting archival materials in American and Canadian cities pertaining to Slovak immigration to North America and then writing his dissertation based upon these materials. The day after their wedding Mark and Anne fl ew from Toronto to Minneapolis and from there by a special charter plane for uni versity students to Paris. After touring Paris with student colleagues from the University of Minnesota, Mark and Anne took a train to Stuttgart, Germany, where they picked up a brand-new Volkswagen " Beetle" which Mark had purchased for $1,300. With their new car they drove to Munich and Salzburg, where they visited with friend s and then proceeded to Vienna. In this ancient capital of the former Habsburg Empire, which they first toured, they applied for and received visas from the Czechoslovak Consulate to visit the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. After a picturesque drive from Vienna through the towns of Hainburg and Wolfstahl, the newlyweds approached the Czechoslovak border. They could see the Little Carpathians looming in the di stance, and Bratislava castle overlooking the city. As they approached the border, they noticed that they were the only car entering the Republic. A lonely soldier, with a sub-machine gun slung over his back, lifted a heavy cantilevered iron gate, which opened only inwards, and allowed them in . Thereupon two surprised customs officers emerged from a little building off to the side and, under a covered roof asked the travelers for their passports and visas. 3 For the history of the Immigrant Archives, later renamed the Immigration History Research Center, see my " Building Ethnic Arch ives in the United States and Canada since the I 960 's," in Dominique Daniel and Amalia Levi eds., Identity Palimpsests: Archiving Ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada (Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 20 13), 59-6 1. �SLOVAKIA 2021 123 Petrfalka border crossing from Austria, 1993 . In 1968 there were no signs at this crossing except the large letters that read " Bratislava." Fortunately, Timothy Smith had arranged for Dr. 1:udovit Holotik, the Director of the Historical [nstitute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, to issue them, as we ll as his entire team of researchers, an official invitation, which made the granting of visas by the Czechoslovak authorities that much easier. After a two-hour wait at the border, while the customs officers awaited a telephone call from Prague confirming their visas as legitimate, the couple was cleared for entrance into the Republic. Before they departed they changed some American dollars for Czechoslovak crowns, because it was noon and their stomachs were growling. Because they had an official invitation , they did not have to exchange $12.00 (U.S.) for Czechoslovak crowns for each day of their stay at the official (and unrealistic) rate of seven crowns for a �124 SLOVAKIA 2021 dollar. The real (black market) rate of exchange was 35 crowns for a dollar. Once they had cleared customs, the two visitors proceeded in their little green Volkswagen along a narrow two-lane road towards the town of Petrzalka, a suburb of Bratislava. They noticed that the road was raised higher than the nearby empty fields , and soon they passed a tall guard-tower, with two more armed soldiers watching them. rt was clear that they had just passed through the "Iron Curtain" which separated the communist East from the democratic West. After the pair had crossed the "Stary most" (Old Bridge) across the Danube River from Petrzalka to Bratislava, and drove along Sturova Street into the heart of the city, they were disappointed by what they saw. The buildings were old and grey, with the plaster falling off. What a contrast with modem, clean and dynamic Vienna! The pedestrians were dressed in what looked like I 940's clothing. It seemed to the visitors that they had entered into the "Third World." As they drove along, they looked in vain for a sign that would advertise a restaurant. When the pair drove their Volkswagen up the hill through the Square of the Slovak National Uprising, past the Church of the Holy Trinity, they noticed a large sign at its base that read "Sovietska kniha" (Soviet Bookstore), which again reminded them that they were in the communist East. Finally, as they emerged into what is now known as " Hodo:fovo namestie" (Hodza Square), the hungry couple spied a sign on the left that read "Restauracia Stefanka." Elated, they parked their car on a side road and entered the restaurant with great anticipation. A friendly waiter in a tuxedo greeted them and sat them beside a window overlooking the square. He explained that the Stefanka did not provide individual service, but they could help themselves at the buffet table. Mark and Anne were delighted to see little open-faced sandwiches, with all sorts of delicacies on them, awaiting their hungry stomachs. They ate to their heart's content. Meanwhile, they noticed that the clientele consisted mostly of older gentlemen and young women. They made nothing of it. A little later, whi le visiting Mark 's cousin Jozef Mazur in nearby Trnava, Jozef asked the couple for their first impressions of Slovakia. When they recounted their lunch at the Stefanka, Jozef burst into laughter. When Mark inquired as to what was so funny, Jozef replied, "Don't you know what the Stefanka is?" To which Mark replied , "no," to which Jozef added, "The Stefanka is �SLOVAKIA 2021 125 notorious in Bratislava as the place where you go if you want to pick up a prostitute! " Upon reflection, Mark and Anne understood why they had seen so many older gentlemen and younger women at the Stefanka. They had a good laugh! After lunch on their first day in Slovakia, Mark and Anne proceeded to the offices of the Historicky ustav SAV (Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) on Klemensova Street. Here a sheepish Dr. L:udovit Holotik welcomed them and explained that he was leaving shortly on a research trip to England . He failed to mention that he had just been fired as Director of the Institute, because in the l 950 ' s he had written a defamatory book about the Slovak national hero, General Milan R. Stefanik. During the liberali z ing " Dubcek era",4 such books were frowned upon and Holotik was attacked in the now-free press.5 Holotik then introduced Mark to his successor, Dr. Julius Mesaros. The latter was initially skeptical of Mark ' s motives, but when Mark explained that he was a student of Timothy Smith, and part of a team of researchers who were coming to Slovakia to study the emigration of various ethnic groups from the former Kingdom of Hungary, Mesaros mellowed. He offered Mark and Anne some Turkish coffee, made by his secretary, which consisted of one-third coffeegrounds and two-thirds thick, dark, coffee in a demi-tasse. The Canadian couple had never before seen or tasted such coffee and slowly sipped it in order not to insult their host. Mark and Anne were raised on "cafe au lait". Apparently, the Russians had introduced "Turkish coffee" to the Eastern Bloc. After this introduction, Mesaros brought to Mark dozens of articles and books written by himself and his colleagues at the Hi storical Institute on the social history of 19 th century Slovakia.6 Once he had read them, Mark would have a good back- 4 For the Dubce k era , popularl y kn own as the " Prague Spring," see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion of Czechoslovakia, / 968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Sto larik (Munde lein, IL : Bo lchazy-Carducc i, 20 I 0). 1..:udovit Holotik, Stefa nikovska legenda a vznik CSR (Brati slava: Slove nska academia vied. 1958); fo r th e attacks upon Holot ik see Jan Ml ynarik , " Hi stori ci v Enckylopedii Slovenska- bilanci a neostalinskeho kadrovani a (Studia k slovenskej histori ografii )" Premeny 25 (4, 1988), 147-8. 6 Mesaros's most important publication was Rolnicka a narodnostna otazka na Slovensku, 1848-1900; k problematikef eudalnych prei itkov (Bratislava : Slovenska academia vi ed, 1959). 5 �126 SLOVAKIA 2021 ground understanding of the archival sources which he would subsequently find in various Slovak state archives. After having spent their first night in the nearby Hotel Krym, Mark and Anne proceeded to the headquarters of the Slovak State Archives on the " Ulica obrancov mieru" (Street of the Defenders of Peace; today 's Stefanikova Street). There they met and befriended Dr. Frantisek Bielik, one of the archivists who was interested in the topic of Slovak immigration .7 He subsequently introduced the couple to Deputy Director Jozef Mazur who, it turned out, was Mark 's long-lost cousin on his mother's side. They had a joyful reunion during which Jozef Mazur showed Mark photos of himself visiting with Mark 's family in Turciansky Svaty Martin during the Second World War. Jozef then wrote Mark an official letter of introduction to all the Slovak State Archives scattered across the country, in which Jozef instructed the local archivists to help Mark in finding material s on Slovak emigration to North America. For the next two weeks Frantisek Bielik found such materials for Mark in the Bratislava State Archives. While Mark and Anne stayed at the nearby inexpensive Hotel Tatra, which was full of Russians, they had a curious experience. Every morning when they ate breakfast in the hotel 's dining room, they ordered the same things- ham and eggs with rolls and coffee. The total bill was always 28 crowns, which they rounded up to 30, much to the deli ght of their middle-aged waiter, who collected the money on the spot. They were not used to waiters doing this, because in North America waiters or waitresses usually submitted a bill , and the customers paid through a cashier, who controlled the amount requested and paid. One day, the middle-aged waiter took the day off and was replaced by a much younger colleague. Mark and Anne ordered the same breakfast, but the new waiter charged them 48 crowns! Not wishing to create a scene, they paid the 48 crowns and left. The next day, when the middle-aged waiter returned, they showed him the previous day's breakfast bill. He was furiou s, he apologized, did not charge them for their breakfast, and vowed that his younger colleague would never again repl ace him . Mark and Anne wondered how often waiters in 7 While Bielik started hi s career at the Slovak State Archives, he later switched to the Institute for Slovaks Abroad of the Matica slovenska and published, amon g many others things, the four- volume compendium of documents on Slovak immigrati on entitled Slovenske vystahovalectvo. Dokumenty / -4 (Bratislava: Slovenska academ ia vied, 1969- 1985). �SLOVAKIA 2021 127 Slovakia (and elsewhere in Europe) cheated their customers in this way. After their stay in Bratislava, Mark and Anne drove north to the city of Trnava, to do research in the archives of the Spolok Sv. Yojtecha (Society of St. Adalbert). They stayed with the family of Jozef Mazur, who introduced Mark to the Director of the Spolok, Msgr. Jan Postenyi . The latter was delighted to meet Mark, because Postenyi had been on a tour of the USA in 193 7, and had since not met with any American Slovaks. He gladly opened his rich archive to Mark, where the latter discovered many documents pertaining to the history of the Slovak League of America during and after World War I. These included a carbon-copy of the 1915 Cleveland Agreement. 8 After a week's stay in Trnava, Mark and Anne set out for northern Slovakia, where they met additional members of their family. In Cadca they stayed with Mark 's uncle Jozef Stolarik, who took Mark to see his grandmother Anna Stolarikova and her daughter Terezia Bosakova in the hilly settlement of Dlha, near the city of Turzovka. Anna had not seen her grandson since his Christening in 1943 . Since Anna was illiterate, she wondered how Mark had managed to find her. Mark took out a road map of Europe and showed her the roads they had driven from Stuttgart to Slovakia, but it was hard for her to comprehend what he was showing. Mark, meanwhile, was amused that she was wearing black Converse sneakers. Uncle Jozef explained that it was easier for her to climb up the hill to her house in sneakers than in leather shoes. There was no road up the hill from the one below. After having visited two more aunts and their families, in midJuly, Mark and Anne set out for the city of Martin, Mark's birthplace. While driving between the city of Zilina and the ruins of castle Strecno, Mark and Anne suddenly spotted a long column of Russian military vehicles parked on the old road beside the new one. They were engaged in war games called "operation Sumava" in order to intimidate the Czechoslovak government into stopping the transformation of Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," as the first Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, 8 For the history of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha see Stefan Hanakovic, Dejiny Spolku sviiteho Vojtecha (Trnava : Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 2005), especia ll y pages 281-84 for Postenyi ' s trip to America. The Cleve land Agreement can be found in the Archiv Spolku Svateho Vojtecha, Politika, fasc. 235 , fol. A. c.2 �128 SLOVAKIA 2021 Alexander Dubcek, put it. As he made clear in hi s memo irs, he and hi s followers were trying to turn communist Czechoslovakia into a Social Democratic Czechoslovakia.9 His colleagues in the Warsaw Pact, particularly Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka and East German leader Walter Ulbricht, vehemently disapproved of the path of the so-called Prague Spring, and "operation Sumava" was a prelude to the later in vas ion of Czechoslovakia. 10 Meanwhile, when Mark saw these Soviet military veh icles, he instantly shouted at Anne to start photographing them , because he was driving and was afraid to stop the car, lest the Russians arrest him. A terrified Anne grabbed hi s 35mi llimeter camera and took several color slides of these vehicles. Russ ian military vehicles parked on the old road between Z ilina and Strecno in northern Slovakia, Jul y, 1968 9 Hope Dies Last: The Autohiography of Alexander Dubcek, ed. and trans. by Jiri Hochman (New York: Kodansha International, 1993), 277. 10 For the views of Brezhnev, Gomulka and Ulbricht, see the chapters by Mikhail Latysh, Lukasz Kaminski and Riidi ger Wenzke in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion, 1-18, 95- 128 and 137-64. �SLOVAKIA 2021 129 Russian "Katyusha" rocket launchers on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July, 1969. Russian ambulance and military vehicles on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July 1968. After this harrowing experience, Mark and Anne kept driving around the Strecno pass until they reached the city of Martin. Here �130 SLOVAKIA 2021 they met Uncle Rudolf and hi s family and stayed with them for a week while Mark worked in the Literary Archive of the Matica slovenska. Here he met Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the Slovak National Library of the Matica slovenska. The two of them agreed upon an exchange of books and other materials in the future , a promise which is still in effect. While in Martin, at the urging of Frantisek (Ferko) Bielik, Mark attended the 6th Congress of the Slovak Historical Society, where he heard Dr. Lubomir Liptak 's attack upon the "deformation" of Slovak hi story by Marxist hi storian s in the previous decades. 11 He also heard Prof. Milos Gosiorovsky' s plea for the federation of Czechoslovakia based upon the Cleveland Agreement of 1915. 12 Mark was amused by Ferko Bielik 's antics at this Congress- he lifted hi s hand in approval of various motions made, whi le shaking hi s head sideways in disapproval. He explained that the conference organizers only counted the raised hands, not the heads shaking sideways. This was a small gesture of disapproval of the conference proceedings. After their stay in Martin, at the beginning of August, the newlyweds set out for the city of Presov, to do research in the archives of the former county of Saris, from where the first immigrants had left for America. 13 In Presov they met and stayed with Anne's uncle Andrej Krasnay in the Sid lisko Dukelskych hrdinov (the Apartment Complex of the Heroes of the Duk la Pass). Shortly after their arrival , Andrej took Mark and Anne to visit her grandmother in her vi ll age for the first time, as well as other aunts and uncles. At Andrej 's condo Mark and Anne had to get used to the socialist way of life. For instance, sometimes the water flowed from the faucets in Andrej's apartment, sometimes not. Therefore, Andrej kept his tub full of water, so that he would not run out. Sometimes the water was hot. Sometimes it was not. Whenever the water flowed hot, Andrej called the couple to immediately take a bath. And, even though Presov had street li ghts, they were not turned on at night, in order to conserve electricity. When Mark went to do research in the Slovak State Archives in Presov, which was located on the Main Square, right beside the church of St. Nicholas, he had some interesting experiences. When he met 11 Cubomir Liptak, "U loha a postavenie historiografie v nasej spolocnosti, Hisloricky casopi.1· XVII , c. l , 1969, 98- 11 7. 12 Milos Gosiorovsky, "Slovaci za prvej svetovej vojny," in Slovaci a ich narodnv v;ivin, ed. Oto Takac (Brati slava: Slovenska academ ia vied, I969), 29 1-305 . 13 Slovak State Archives in Presov, county Saris, podzupan, 9809, VB, 1879. �SLOVAK.IA 2021 131 Andrej Lukac, the Director of the Archive, the latter was cool to Mark's visit. He claimed that the material Mark was searching for was not yet processed and suggested that Mark return sometime in the future, when it would become available. Mark then asked if Lukac knew Jozef Mazur, to which Lukac replied, "Hej , onje moj set1'' (Of course! He's my boss.) To which Mark replied, "Hej, on je moj bratranec." (Of course! He's my cousin.) As soon as Lukac heard Mark ' s reply, he jumped into action. Lukac suggested that, since Mark could not read Magyar, and most of the documents were in that language, he hire a translator. Mark agreed and the next day Lukac introduced Mark to Mr. Grant. The latter was the descendant of a Scottish soldier who had remained in Central Europe in the 17 th century. Mr. Grant was in his 80's, he had been educated in the old Austria-Hungary, and knew Slovak, Magyar, German and Latin. He was overly polite, as such gentlemen were trained to be and, whenever he found an interesting document to translate, he would say "No, prosim Vas pekne," which means "Now, if you please," and then would proceed to translate. Lukac suggested that Mark pay Mr. Grant I 00 crowns per day, which was the going rate for such services. Mark agreed, since on the black market that would come to only $3.00 (US) a day. Mr. Grant was so intelligent that, after he had translated some documents, he grasped what Mark was looking for, and then did his translating without any more superv1s1on. Mark and Anne also did research in Kosice. Once they had exhausted their sources in Presov, they drove south to Kosice, to work in the fonner archives of Abov and Zemplin counties, which were housed in the former Abov county headquarters on Orlia Street, one block from the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth. As they drove into Kosice and approached the main square, they noticed and photographed a bust of General Milan R. Stefanik on a pedestal that was obviously erected spontaneously and hurriedly by some local patriots on the exact spot where a much larger statue of Stefanik had been erected in the l 920's. The statue was removed by communist authorities in the I 950's. (See the photo on page 133) This bust testified to the rise of Slovak nationalism during the Dubcek era. At the Slovak State Archives in Kosice Mark and Anne �132 SLOVAKIA 2021 were welcomed by the Director, Ladislav Andrasi and his assistant, Anna Fedorjakova. The latter willingly and eagerly helped Mark to translate documents from Magyar into Slovak. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne were joined by Professor Timothy Smith and another one of his graduate students, Oksana Dragan, who had both just come down from Poland in Smith's brown Volkswagen. Smith was studying Slovak Lutheran immigration from eastern Slovakia while Oksana was researching Rusyn (Ukrainian) immigration to North America. Smith then suggested to Mark that he a lso consult the Roman Catholic bishop's archives, located on Lenin Street, opposite the Cathedral. Since Anne had studied Latin for five years in High School, she volunteered to do this and was assisted by the Rev. Alojs Tkac, who was in charge of the archives. After the collapse of Communism, the latter was e levated to the post of Bishop, and later, Archbishop of Kosice. 14 Meanwhile, Professor Smith arranged a meeting with an "Action Committee" of the newly-resurrected Greek Catholic Church, led by Msgr. Jan Hirka, who, once Communism collapsed, was e levated to Eparch (Bishop) of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Presov. 15 On the evening of August 20, 1968, Mark and Anne, together with Timothy Smith and Oksana Dragan, decided to dine together. They went to the Magyar Restaurant in Kosice , where they enjoyed an exotic meal and did some dancing to the tunes of a Gypsy (Roma) orchestra. 14 Alojz Tkac was persecuted by the Communi sts durin g the period of "Normalization" ( 1970- 1989) and penned hi s memoirs in Pohl'adv z kriiovatky (Kapusany: Bens, 2004). 15 For the hi story of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia from 1968 to 1980, see Martin Lupco, "Grec kokatolick a a pravoslavna cirkev na Slovensku v rokoch 19681980," in Jaroslav Corani c- Jana Koprivnakova- Peter Sturak eds. Grekokatolicka cirkev na Slovensku vo svetle vyroci II (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 2012), 165-77. Msgr. Jan H irka published hi s memoirs in Pod ochranou Marie: Pastier v zlui be cirkvi (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 20 13 ). �SLOVAKIA 2021 133 Bust of General M.R. Stefanik on the main square, Kosice, August, 1968. �134 SLOVAKIA 2021 Around 11 :00 p.m. all four researchers decided to drive back to their abodes in Presov. As Mark and Anne drove through the village of Drienov, just north of Kosice, a black cat ran in front of their car. Although they did not kill it, Mark wondered aloud if it signaled that they would have bad luck. "I hope not," Anne answered. Around 4:30 a.m. on August 21 , Mark and Anne were awakened by a very loud noise coming from the streets of Presov. At first they thought that it was the sound of jackhammers, and Mark began to curse the workers who could not wait until 8:00 a.m. to repair the streets. Then they heard a knocking on the door to the apartment. Andrej Krasnay gingerly approached the door and asked, "who ' s there?" Mark and Anne were afraid that the Secret Police had come for them, because they always came at night. Instead, it was the next-doorneighbor. He told Andrej something and Andrej then knocked on Mark and Anne's glass door, came in and announced that "The Russians, Poles, East Germans, Magyars and Bulgarians are occupying us!" 16 All three then understood that the noise from the street was not from jackhammers, but from tanks. Dazed, Mark and Anne decided to immediately dress and repair to the Hotel Dukla, where Professor Smith and Oksana Dragan were staying. It was sunrise by the time they arrived and Smith had just arisen. Mark knocked on his door and as Smith opened it, Mark blurted out "the Russians are invading us." Smith looked out his window at the tanks and remarked that he thought it was military maneuvers again . Mark assured him that it was not, that this was a real invasion . Smith then suggested that Mark go find Anne, who had gone upstairs to inform Oksana of the invasion , to come down to the dining room to discuss the situation. The four researchers, along with a young and lonely waiter, were the only customers in the dining room. While Smith ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and rolls , the three students were too frightened to eat. Smith nonchalantly remarked, " We ' re Americans. This doesn ' t concern us." He cou ldn 't have been more wrong. Mark was born in Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1943 and Oksana in Berlin in 1942. Oksana was the daughter of the editor of the 16 The East Germans did not parti cipate in the invasion . For a detailed ex planati on sec Rildi gcr Wcnzkc, "The Rol e and Acti vities of the SEO, the East German State and Its Military During th e ' Prague Spring' of 1968," in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion, 137-64. �SLOVAKIA 2021 135 pro-independence Ukrainian weekly Svoboda, published in Jersey City, New Jersey. Both were post-war refugees who, with their families, had ended up in Canada and the USA after the war. Neither the Soviet Union, nor Czechoslovakia, recognized dual citizenship at that time. Either one of these students could be detained by the authorities, whether Czechoslovak or Russian . Smith, however, was so unconcerned about the invasion that he decided that all four researchers should carry on as if nothing had happened. Thus, he instructed Mark and Oksana to go to the state archives and continue with their research. Meanwhile, he took Anne with him to serve as a translator in the Presov city archives. When Smith met with the Mayor of Presov, who was clearly shattered by the invasion, Smith asked for permission to do research in the city archives. The Mayor replied, with Anne translating, that "due to the extraordinary circumstances," the city archives were closed. Smith would not take no for an answer. He repeated his request, and Anne repeated the translation that the archives were closed. After three tries, Smith gave up and told Anne to go join Mark in the state archives. When Mark and Oksana arrived at the Slovak State Archives, they noticed that the entire staff was looking out the windows at the tanks (T55 ' s) roaring by, except Mr. Grant. The latter was nonchalantly reading and translating Magyar documents, oblivious to the noise outside. After a while Mr. Grant's behavior puzzled Mark so much that he asked Mr. Grant, "how can you continue to work while we are being invaded?" Mr. Grant smiled and replied, "This is my fifth invasion ." When Mr. Grant saw the puzzled look on Mark ' s face , he explained that the Russians had broken through the Carpathians into Hungary in the fall and winter of 1914-1915, then Bela Kun's Hungarian Red Army occupied Presov in 1919, the Germans occupied Slovakia in 1944 and the Russians in 1945, and again in 1968. " So, what's new?" he asked. "But, don't you want to see the Russian tanks?" Mark asked. Mr. Grant gestured no with his hand. Then he added, "You should have seen a German Tiger. That was a tank!" Mr. Grant then reminisced that, shortly after the Second World War had ended, he took the train from Presov to Kos ice. About half way there he spotted four destroyed tanks in a nearby field . Three were Russian T34 ' s and one was a German Tiger with its treads blown off. It was obvious what had happened. �136 SLOVAKIA 2021 After these reassuring words from Mr. Grant, Mark and Anne cairned down and decided to return to Andrej's apartment, to get their camera, and take some pictures of the invasion. After having eaten some lunch, the intrepid pair set out on Uti ca cervenej arrnady [Red Army Street] (today's Levoca Street) towards the main intersection of Presov at Utica Slovenskej republiky rad [Street of the Slovak Socialist Republic] , today 's Hlavna ulica (Main Street), right in front of the Bosak Bank. 17 There the pair saw a burning Russian military vehicle, which some tank had previously rammed. Just as they were passing by the Bosak Bank, another tank roared by and hit the burning vehicle and it lunged towards the bank . Seeing the approaching truck out of the comer of his eye, Mark shoved Anne out of the way and prepared to be crushed. Fortunately, there was a very strong guard-rail at this location, and it stopped the burning vehicle. After Mark and Anne recovered from this near-fatal mishap, they crossed the street and, upon the urging of a local, climbed up the stairs of the Ukrainian Theater and emerged onto a balcony, where they had an unobstructed view of the invasion . They started to take color slides of the Russian tanks and other vehic les. Ru ss ian military vehicles on Dukla Street, Presov, August 21, 1968. Meanwhile, in the morning they had noticed that elderly citizens had lined up outside various food stores, to "stock up" in case the 17 This bui ldi ng was erected by the American Slovak millionaire Michal Bosak in the I 920 's. He also built a school in Okruhle, hi s village of origin. For more on Bosak see Michal Bosak & Rudolf Bosa k, Michal Bosak- americkj bankar zo Sarisa (Presov, Ibi s Publishin g, 1997). �SLOVAKIA 2021 137 Russian soldiers started looting, as they had done in 1945 . By noon, however, the dynamics had changed. Hundreds of students, who had been home for summer vacation, started to pour into Presov. Soon, they began marching up and down the main square, shouting " Ysetci l'udia na chodniku nemiluju republiku!" (People on the sidewalk do not love the Republic) an old communist slogan from May-day parades. Soon a few of the bravest students jumped onto the street, at the main crossing located at the Bosak Bank, and stopped the tanks! Students blocking Russian tanks at intersection of Dukla and Red Anny Streets, Presov, August 21, 1968. They held up the invasion for three hours. Finally, by mid-afternoon, a Russian military helicopter hovered overhead and must have given the driver of the lead tank orders to proceed because, at that moment, the lead tank lowered its gun and began swinging it from side-to-side, while simultaneously roaring its engine. (Photo next page). That had the desired effect, as the students jumped aside to avoid being hit by the barrel of its canon. After that the tanks proceeded closely and quickly, in order to not give the students a chance to once �138 SLOVAK.IA 2021 again jump in front and stop the tanks. On the first day of the invasion, the commander of occupation forces in Presov announced a state of Martial Law to begin at I 0:00 p.m. Instead of obeying him, the citizens of Presov hit the streets in large numbers and began to shout "Rusi domov! Rusi domov!" (Russians, go home! Russians, go home!). When an armored scout-car appeared, the people began to pelt it with bricks and bottles and it quickly fled the scene. Russian military helicopter hovering above Presov, August 21 , 1968. Russian scout car and tanks on a side street in Presov, August, 1968. �SLOVAKIA 2021 139 During the day individuals posted large anti-Russian posters and placards onto shop windows. One large cartoon was Mark's favorite: It depicted a Russian soldier, who had just had a bowl movement, rising from the toilet and the reactionary communist Vasil Bil'ak was licking his ass! Mark wanted to photograph it, but was afraid to do so, because it was rumored that agents of the Russian KGB were in town, and were arresting people taking such pictures. The citizens of Presov suspected that Vasil Bil'ak, a conservative member of the Czechoslovak Politburo, was one of the traitors who had urged the Russians to invade. The citizens were right. 18 For three days the Russians hurtled through Presov in the direction of Poprad. By the end of the week, when the city was fully occupied. (See the next 5 photographs) Russian soldier guarding tank in central Presov , August, 1968. 18 Six members of the Politburo, including Vasil Bil'ak , signed such a letter of invitation to the Ru ssians just before the invasion. For a copy of this letter see Otakar Korinek, Poz;vvaci list 1968 (Bratislava: Albert Marencin PT, 2006), 82-3. �140 SLOVAKIA 2021 Russ ian soldiers talking to civili ans, Presov, August, 1968. Russ ian vehicles bes ides Post Office in Presov, August 1968 �SLOVAKIA 2021 141 Russian soldiers and officers in a military vehicle, Presov, August, 1968. Russian tanks in front of Czechoslovak military barracks in Presov, August, 1968. �142 SLOVAKIA 2021 A certain professor of the Ukrainian language at the University of Presov, whom Timothy Smith knew, approached the research group from America and suggested that they leave as soon as possible, because he knew that Oksana had been born in Berlin in 1942 and was in danger of being picked up by agents of the KGB . Timothy Smith agreed and the four researchers set out in their respective Volkswagens towards Bratislava via Sabinov, Brezovicka and the Levoca forest in order to avoid the formidable Branisko Pass, where columns of Russian vehicles were moving very slowly. Between Spisske Podhradie and the city of Poprad they had to pass many slow-moving Russian vehicles. At one point, they drove by an entire column stopped by the side of the road, with Russian soldiers picking pears from the trees. Apparently the soldiers were hungry and their supply-wagons had not caught up with them. As the researchers approached the city of Poprad, they saw huge red letters that spelled DUBCEK painted vertically on the entire side of a tall apartment building. A nearby crane revealed how this was made possible. Mark would have photographed this sign, except that he had just passed a moving column of Russians. Meanwhile, Mark's Volkswagen rattled from the ruts in the road made by tank tracks, a ll the way to Bratislava. As they drove west, Mark and Anne noticed that the locals had changed all the directional signs, to try to confuse the Russians . It didn ' t work, since the Russians had good maps of Czechoslovakia, as did Mark and Anne. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne also noticed many pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian signs along the way. For instance, in the village of Brezovicka, past the city of Sabinov, someone had painted " The Whole World Supports Dubcek" on an abandoned log cabin. (First photo next page) On the meandering Vah river, between the cities of Ruzomberok and Martin, the locals had painted on the concrete abutment " DUBCEK JE NAS JANOSIK" (Dubcek is our Janosik), conjuring up Slovakia's I 8 th century social bandit. 19 On the way to Bratislava, the little caravan stopped in Martin, Cadca and Trnava, to bid farewell to family and friends . At the Matica slovenska the sympathetic workers gave Mark souvenir copies of the newly-resurrected daily Narodne noviny, which the communists had 19 For the story of Janosik see Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Jano.~ik (Marti n: Osveta, 1986). �SLOVAKIA 2021 143 shut down in the l 950's, but which now fully supported the Dubcekled government. (Second photo next page) As Mark was driving past the city of Trencin, he pulled out to pass a tractor dragging a wagon of hay and suddenly found himself confronted by a Russian truck barreling down on him. Fortunately, the driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and Mark narrowly avoided colliding with him. Anne upbraided Mark for this near-miss, to which he sourly replied, "The Russians don't belong here! " The American caravan stopped briefly in Trnava and Bratislava, to bid farewell to family and friends. While in Trnava at Jozef Mazur's apartment, where they had lunch, Oksana spied a piano in the living room. She started to play some tunes on it but, when she played the World War II German song "Lily Marl ene," Jozefs wife Lola, who was a schoolteacher and afra id for her job, sc reamed at Oksana to stop, because the communists had forbidden such songs from being played. Graffiti, "The Whole World Supports Dubcek" in Brezovicka, eastern Slovakia, August, 1968. �144 SLOVAKIA 2021 Narodne no viny (Martin, August 29, 1968): " We understand and support you, comrade Dubcek. You negoti ated outside of our homeland ." Thus, even though the Dubcek era had seen the abolition of censorship, self-censorship still prevailed. Meanwhile, as in most Slovak cities and villages, Trnava also had its share of pro-Dubcek and antiRussian posters. Graffiti in central Tmava: "Not what the occupiers demanded, but what we support with Dubcek and Svoboda," August, 1968. �SLOVAKIA 2021 145 The final stop of the caravan was in Bratislava. When the four researchers appeared at the Historicky ustav SA V, they were greeted by the furious but dispirited historians and their secretarial staff. After some discussion , both sides agreed that, in view of the invasion and the uncertainty of the future , it would be best to cancel the planned scholarly conference on Emigration from Eastern Europe to North America in the nearby castle of Smolen ice, which belonged to the Slovak Academy of Sciences. After they bade their farewells , the four researchers returned to their cars parked on Dostojevskeho rad (Dostojevsky Street). Fearing that The Russians would control the border, and search their car for photographs, Mark decided to photograph some more pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian graffiti painted on various buildings in the vicinity, then hide his film in a difficult-to-find spot in his car and hope the Ru ssians would not find it. (See the last 3 Photos) After thi s the American caravan approached the Old Bridge and drove past Russian tanks parked on both sides. Once they had crossed into Petrfalka they noticed what looked like a whole regiment of Russians camped in the park of Janko Kral' beside the Danube River. As they approached the border, however, they saw that Slovak soldiers were still in charge, complete with their sub-machine guns. Only one lonely Russian soldier, seated on a bench and staring at the ground, could be seen. When Mark asked the Slovak customs officers about the Russian soldier, they replied, "We're ignoring him . You should too." After perfunctorily checking their passports and visas, the customs officers bade the travelers farewell and, after the Slovak soldier lifted and pulled into Czechoslovakia the heavy cantilevered gate, the four researchers drove into Austria and freedom . August of 1968 will forever be etched into Mark 's and Anne's memories. What started out as a happy honeymoon in Europe and in Slovakia turned into the tragedy of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was a brutal reminder of how superpowers can intimidate and subjugate their much smaller and weaker neighbors. �146 SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : "Long Live Dubcek .. ." August, 1968. Graffiti in Bratislava: " ... and Svoboda" August, 1968 �SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : " Moscow" (the other way), August, 1968. 147 �� 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 2021, Vol. 45 Description An account of the resource Vol. 45 (No. 84-85), 2021. 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 2021 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 2021 121 "THE RUSSIANS ARE INVADING US!" PRESOV, 1968 M. Mark Stolarik In 1968 Anne and Mark Stolarik experienced two unforgettable events in their lives- they were married and later witnessed the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Not many people can brag that their honeymoon was interrupted by Russian tanks! Meanwhile, they also experienced many culture shocks, as they toured Slovakia for the first time. For the newlyweds the summer of 1968 started quite auspiciously. On June 15, over 400 guests appeared at the wedding of Mark Stolarik and Anne fvanco in Oshawa, Ontario, the automobile capital of Canada. The ceremony was held in the packed Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Ritson Road, and was presided over by the Reverend Stefan Adamiak. 1 Afterwards the guests walked to the nearby Slovak Hall ,2 ate a many-course meal in the basement and then proceeded upstairs where the dancing and drinking began . As was typical of Slovak weddings, two men got into a fight and were ejected by the bride 's father. By I 0:00 p.m. a crisis arose- there was no more liquor! Jan Jvanco, the bride 's father, quickly rounded up all of his friends, explained the situation, and they raced home to empty their liquor cabinets in order to keep the celebration going into the wee hours of the morning. After the tearful bridal dance at midnight, during which Mark was ejected from the building, Jan lvanco and his new son-in-law met in a back room and counted up all the monetary donations received, either during the wedding, or during the bridal dance. They totaled $4,000, which was more than enough to cover all of their planned-for honeymoon expenses to Europe, and their research-trip to Slovakia. At that time Mark was a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, where he was studying 1 For the history of this parish see "S lovak Greek Catholic Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada" (Xerox copy, Oshawa, 2002) . A copy can be found in the Slovak Arc hi ves, Arc hives and Special Collections, Unive rsity of Ottawa. 2 For a photo of this hall, see the front cover of Polyphony : The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario 2, No. I (Winter, 1979). 122 SLOVAKIA 2021 under the direction of Timothy L. Smith, who had recently founded the Immigrant Archives at the University. 3 As one of Smith's Research Assistants, Mark 's duties consisted of collecting archival materials in American and Canadian cities pertaining to Slovak immigration to North America and then writing his dissertation based upon these materials. The day after their wedding Mark and Anne fl ew from Toronto to Minneapolis and from there by a special charter plane for uni versity students to Paris. After touring Paris with student colleagues from the University of Minnesota, Mark and Anne took a train to Stuttgart, Germany, where they picked up a brand-new Volkswagen " Beetle" which Mark had purchased for $1,300. With their new car they drove to Munich and Salzburg, where they visited with friend s and then proceeded to Vienna. In this ancient capital of the former Habsburg Empire, which they first toured, they applied for and received visas from the Czechoslovak Consulate to visit the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. After a picturesque drive from Vienna through the towns of Hainburg and Wolfstahl, the newlyweds approached the Czechoslovak border. They could see the Little Carpathians looming in the di stance, and Bratislava castle overlooking the city. As they approached the border, they noticed that they were the only car entering the Republic. A lonely soldier, with a sub-machine gun slung over his back, lifted a heavy cantilevered iron gate, which opened only inwards, and allowed them in . Thereupon two surprised customs officers emerged from a little building off to the side and, under a covered roof asked the travelers for their passports and visas. 3 For the history of the Immigrant Archives, later renamed the Immigration History Research Center, see my " Building Ethnic Arch ives in the United States and Canada since the I 960 's," in Dominique Daniel and Amalia Levi eds., Identity Palimpsests: Archiving Ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada (Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 20 13), 59-6 1. SLOVAKIA 2021 123 Petrfalka border crossing from Austria, 1993 . In 1968 there were no signs at this crossing except the large letters that read " Bratislava." Fortunately, Timothy Smith had arranged for Dr. 1:udovit Holotik, the Director of the Historical [nstitute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, to issue them, as we ll as his entire team of researchers, an official invitation, which made the granting of visas by the Czechoslovak authorities that much easier. After a two-hour wait at the border, while the customs officers awaited a telephone call from Prague confirming their visas as legitimate, the couple was cleared for entrance into the Republic. Before they departed they changed some American dollars for Czechoslovak crowns, because it was noon and their stomachs were growling. Because they had an official invitation , they did not have to exchange $12.00 (U.S.) for Czechoslovak crowns for each day of their stay at the official (and unrealistic) rate of seven crowns for a 124 SLOVAKIA 2021 dollar. The real (black market) rate of exchange was 35 crowns for a dollar. Once they had cleared customs, the two visitors proceeded in their little green Volkswagen along a narrow two-lane road towards the town of Petrzalka, a suburb of Bratislava. They noticed that the road was raised higher than the nearby empty fields , and soon they passed a tall guard-tower, with two more armed soldiers watching them. rt was clear that they had just passed through the "Iron Curtain" which separated the communist East from the democratic West. After the pair had crossed the "Stary most" (Old Bridge) across the Danube River from Petrzalka to Bratislava, and drove along Sturova Street into the heart of the city, they were disappointed by what they saw. The buildings were old and grey, with the plaster falling off. What a contrast with modem, clean and dynamic Vienna! The pedestrians were dressed in what looked like I 940's clothing. It seemed to the visitors that they had entered into the "Third World." As they drove along, they looked in vain for a sign that would advertise a restaurant. When the pair drove their Volkswagen up the hill through the Square of the Slovak National Uprising, past the Church of the Holy Trinity, they noticed a large sign at its base that read "Sovietska kniha" (Soviet Bookstore), which again reminded them that they were in the communist East. Finally, as they emerged into what is now known as " Hodo:fovo namestie" (Hodza Square), the hungry couple spied a sign on the left that read "Restauracia Stefanka." Elated, they parked their car on a side road and entered the restaurant with great anticipation. A friendly waiter in a tuxedo greeted them and sat them beside a window overlooking the square. He explained that the Stefanka did not provide individual service, but they could help themselves at the buffet table. Mark and Anne were delighted to see little open-faced sandwiches, with all sorts of delicacies on them, awaiting their hungry stomachs. They ate to their heart's content. Meanwhile, they noticed that the clientele consisted mostly of older gentlemen and young women. They made nothing of it. A little later, whi le visiting Mark 's cousin Jozef Mazur in nearby Trnava, Jozef asked the couple for their first impressions of Slovakia. When they recounted their lunch at the Stefanka, Jozef burst into laughter. When Mark inquired as to what was so funny, Jozef replied, "Don't you know what the Stefanka is?" To which Mark replied , "no," to which Jozef added, "The Stefanka is SLOVAKIA 2021 125 notorious in Bratislava as the place where you go if you want to pick up a prostitute! " Upon reflection, Mark and Anne understood why they had seen so many older gentlemen and younger women at the Stefanka. They had a good laugh! After lunch on their first day in Slovakia, Mark and Anne proceeded to the offices of the Historicky ustav SAV (Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) on Klemensova Street. Here a sheepish Dr. L:udovit Holotik welcomed them and explained that he was leaving shortly on a research trip to England . He failed to mention that he had just been fired as Director of the Institute, because in the l 950 ' s he had written a defamatory book about the Slovak national hero, General Milan R. Stefanik. During the liberali z ing " Dubcek era",4 such books were frowned upon and Holotik was attacked in the now-free press.5 Holotik then introduced Mark to his successor, Dr. Julius Mesaros. The latter was initially skeptical of Mark ' s motives, but when Mark explained that he was a student of Timothy Smith, and part of a team of researchers who were coming to Slovakia to study the emigration of various ethnic groups from the former Kingdom of Hungary, Mesaros mellowed. He offered Mark and Anne some Turkish coffee, made by his secretary, which consisted of one-third coffeegrounds and two-thirds thick, dark, coffee in a demi-tasse. The Canadian couple had never before seen or tasted such coffee and slowly sipped it in order not to insult their host. Mark and Anne were raised on "cafe au lait". Apparently, the Russians had introduced "Turkish coffee" to the Eastern Bloc. After this introduction, Mesaros brought to Mark dozens of articles and books written by himself and his colleagues at the Hi storical Institute on the social history of 19 th century Slovakia.6 Once he had read them, Mark would have a good back- 4 For the Dubce k era , popularl y kn own as the " Prague Spring," see The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion of Czechoslovakia, / 968: Forty Years Later, ed. by M. Mark Sto larik (Munde lein, IL : Bo lchazy-Carducc i, 20 I 0). 1..:udovit Holotik, Stefa nikovska legenda a vznik CSR (Brati slava: Slove nska academia vied. 1958); fo r th e attacks upon Holot ik see Jan Ml ynarik , " Hi stori ci v Enckylopedii Slovenska- bilanci a neostalinskeho kadrovani a (Studia k slovenskej histori ografii )" Premeny 25 (4, 1988), 147-8. 6 Mesaros's most important publication was Rolnicka a narodnostna otazka na Slovensku, 1848-1900; k problematikef eudalnych prei itkov (Bratislava : Slovenska academia vi ed, 1959). 5 126 SLOVAKIA 2021 ground understanding of the archival sources which he would subsequently find in various Slovak state archives. After having spent their first night in the nearby Hotel Krym, Mark and Anne proceeded to the headquarters of the Slovak State Archives on the " Ulica obrancov mieru" (Street of the Defenders of Peace; today 's Stefanikova Street). There they met and befriended Dr. Frantisek Bielik, one of the archivists who was interested in the topic of Slovak immigration .7 He subsequently introduced the couple to Deputy Director Jozef Mazur who, it turned out, was Mark 's long-lost cousin on his mother's side. They had a joyful reunion during which Jozef Mazur showed Mark photos of himself visiting with Mark 's family in Turciansky Svaty Martin during the Second World War. Jozef then wrote Mark an official letter of introduction to all the Slovak State Archives scattered across the country, in which Jozef instructed the local archivists to help Mark in finding material s on Slovak emigration to North America. For the next two weeks Frantisek Bielik found such materials for Mark in the Bratislava State Archives. While Mark and Anne stayed at the nearby inexpensive Hotel Tatra, which was full of Russians, they had a curious experience. Every morning when they ate breakfast in the hotel 's dining room, they ordered the same things- ham and eggs with rolls and coffee. The total bill was always 28 crowns, which they rounded up to 30, much to the deli ght of their middle-aged waiter, who collected the money on the spot. They were not used to waiters doing this, because in North America waiters or waitresses usually submitted a bill , and the customers paid through a cashier, who controlled the amount requested and paid. One day, the middle-aged waiter took the day off and was replaced by a much younger colleague. Mark and Anne ordered the same breakfast, but the new waiter charged them 48 crowns! Not wishing to create a scene, they paid the 48 crowns and left. The next day, when the middle-aged waiter returned, they showed him the previous day's breakfast bill. He was furiou s, he apologized, did not charge them for their breakfast, and vowed that his younger colleague would never again repl ace him . Mark and Anne wondered how often waiters in 7 While Bielik started hi s career at the Slovak State Archives, he later switched to the Institute for Slovaks Abroad of the Matica slovenska and published, amon g many others things, the four- volume compendium of documents on Slovak immigrati on entitled Slovenske vystahovalectvo. Dokumenty / -4 (Bratislava: Slovenska academ ia vied, 1969- 1985). SLOVAKIA 2021 127 Slovakia (and elsewhere in Europe) cheated their customers in this way. After their stay in Bratislava, Mark and Anne drove north to the city of Trnava, to do research in the archives of the Spolok Sv. Yojtecha (Society of St. Adalbert). They stayed with the family of Jozef Mazur, who introduced Mark to the Director of the Spolok, Msgr. Jan Postenyi . The latter was delighted to meet Mark, because Postenyi had been on a tour of the USA in 193 7, and had since not met with any American Slovaks. He gladly opened his rich archive to Mark, where the latter discovered many documents pertaining to the history of the Slovak League of America during and after World War I. These included a carbon-copy of the 1915 Cleveland Agreement. 8 After a week's stay in Trnava, Mark and Anne set out for northern Slovakia, where they met additional members of their family. In Cadca they stayed with Mark 's uncle Jozef Stolarik, who took Mark to see his grandmother Anna Stolarikova and her daughter Terezia Bosakova in the hilly settlement of Dlha, near the city of Turzovka. Anna had not seen her grandson since his Christening in 1943 . Since Anna was illiterate, she wondered how Mark had managed to find her. Mark took out a road map of Europe and showed her the roads they had driven from Stuttgart to Slovakia, but it was hard for her to comprehend what he was showing. Mark, meanwhile, was amused that she was wearing black Converse sneakers. Uncle Jozef explained that it was easier for her to climb up the hill to her house in sneakers than in leather shoes. There was no road up the hill from the one below. After having visited two more aunts and their families, in midJuly, Mark and Anne set out for the city of Martin, Mark's birthplace. While driving between the city of Zilina and the ruins of castle Strecno, Mark and Anne suddenly spotted a long column of Russian military vehicles parked on the old road beside the new one. They were engaged in war games called "operation Sumava" in order to intimidate the Czechoslovak government into stopping the transformation of Czech and Slovak society into "socialism with a human face," as the first Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, 8 For the history of the Spolok Sv. Vojtecha see Stefan Hanakovic, Dejiny Spolku sviiteho Vojtecha (Trnava : Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 2005), especia ll y pages 281-84 for Postenyi ' s trip to America. The Cleve land Agreement can be found in the Archiv Spolku Svateho Vojtecha, Politika, fasc. 235 , fol. A. c.2 128 SLOVAKIA 2021 Alexander Dubcek, put it. As he made clear in hi s memo irs, he and hi s followers were trying to turn communist Czechoslovakia into a Social Democratic Czechoslovakia.9 His colleagues in the Warsaw Pact, particularly Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka and East German leader Walter Ulbricht, vehemently disapproved of the path of the so-called Prague Spring, and "operation Sumava" was a prelude to the later in vas ion of Czechoslovakia. 10 Meanwhile, when Mark saw these Soviet military veh icles, he instantly shouted at Anne to start photographing them , because he was driving and was afraid to stop the car, lest the Russians arrest him. A terrified Anne grabbed hi s 35mi llimeter camera and took several color slides of these vehicles. Russ ian military vehicles parked on the old road between Z ilina and Strecno in northern Slovakia, Jul y, 1968 9 Hope Dies Last: The Autohiography of Alexander Dubcek, ed. and trans. by Jiri Hochman (New York: Kodansha International, 1993), 277. 10 For the views of Brezhnev, Gomulka and Ulbricht, see the chapters by Mikhail Latysh, Lukasz Kaminski and Riidi ger Wenzke in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact In vasion, 1-18, 95- 128 and 137-64. SLOVAKIA 2021 129 Russian "Katyusha" rocket launchers on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July, 1969. Russian ambulance and military vehicles on old road between Zilina and Strecno, July 1968. After this harrowing experience, Mark and Anne kept driving around the Strecno pass until they reached the city of Martin. Here 130 SLOVAKIA 2021 they met Uncle Rudolf and hi s family and stayed with them for a week while Mark worked in the Literary Archive of the Matica slovenska. Here he met Dr. Jozef Telgarsky, the Director of the Slovak National Library of the Matica slovenska. The two of them agreed upon an exchange of books and other materials in the future , a promise which is still in effect. While in Martin, at the urging of Frantisek (Ferko) Bielik, Mark attended the 6th Congress of the Slovak Historical Society, where he heard Dr. Lubomir Liptak 's attack upon the "deformation" of Slovak hi story by Marxist hi storian s in the previous decades. 11 He also heard Prof. Milos Gosiorovsky' s plea for the federation of Czechoslovakia based upon the Cleveland Agreement of 1915. 12 Mark was amused by Ferko Bielik 's antics at this Congress- he lifted hi s hand in approval of various motions made, whi le shaking hi s head sideways in disapproval. He explained that the conference organizers only counted the raised hands, not the heads shaking sideways. This was a small gesture of disapproval of the conference proceedings. After their stay in Martin, at the beginning of August, the newlyweds set out for the city of Presov, to do research in the archives of the former county of Saris, from where the first immigrants had left for America. 13 In Presov they met and stayed with Anne's uncle Andrej Krasnay in the Sid lisko Dukelskych hrdinov (the Apartment Complex of the Heroes of the Duk la Pass). Shortly after their arrival , Andrej took Mark and Anne to visit her grandmother in her vi ll age for the first time, as well as other aunts and uncles. At Andrej 's condo Mark and Anne had to get used to the socialist way of life. For instance, sometimes the water flowed from the faucets in Andrej's apartment, sometimes not. Therefore, Andrej kept his tub full of water, so that he would not run out. Sometimes the water was hot. Sometimes it was not. Whenever the water flowed hot, Andrej called the couple to immediately take a bath. And, even though Presov had street li ghts, they were not turned on at night, in order to conserve electricity. When Mark went to do research in the Slovak State Archives in Presov, which was located on the Main Square, right beside the church of St. Nicholas, he had some interesting experiences. When he met 11 Cubomir Liptak, "U loha a postavenie historiografie v nasej spolocnosti, Hisloricky casopi.1· XVII , c. l , 1969, 98- 11 7. 12 Milos Gosiorovsky, "Slovaci za prvej svetovej vojny," in Slovaci a ich narodnv v;ivin, ed. Oto Takac (Brati slava: Slovenska academ ia vied, I969), 29 1-305 . 13 Slovak State Archives in Presov, county Saris, podzupan, 9809, VB, 1879. SLOVAK.IA 2021 131 Andrej Lukac, the Director of the Archive, the latter was cool to Mark's visit. He claimed that the material Mark was searching for was not yet processed and suggested that Mark return sometime in the future, when it would become available. Mark then asked if Lukac knew Jozef Mazur, to which Lukac replied, "Hej , onje moj set1'' (Of course! He's my boss.) To which Mark replied, "Hej, on je moj bratranec." (Of course! He's my cousin.) As soon as Lukac heard Mark ' s reply, he jumped into action. Lukac suggested that, since Mark could not read Magyar, and most of the documents were in that language, he hire a translator. Mark agreed and the next day Lukac introduced Mark to Mr. Grant. The latter was the descendant of a Scottish soldier who had remained in Central Europe in the 17 th century. Mr. Grant was in his 80's, he had been educated in the old Austria-Hungary, and knew Slovak, Magyar, German and Latin. He was overly polite, as such gentlemen were trained to be and, whenever he found an interesting document to translate, he would say "No, prosim Vas pekne," which means "Now, if you please," and then would proceed to translate. Lukac suggested that Mark pay Mr. Grant I 00 crowns per day, which was the going rate for such services. Mark agreed, since on the black market that would come to only $3.00 (US) a day. Mr. Grant was so intelligent that, after he had translated some documents, he grasped what Mark was looking for, and then did his translating without any more superv1s1on. Mark and Anne also did research in Kosice. Once they had exhausted their sources in Presov, they drove south to Kosice, to work in the fonner archives of Abov and Zemplin counties, which were housed in the former Abov county headquarters on Orlia Street, one block from the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth. As they drove into Kosice and approached the main square, they noticed and photographed a bust of General Milan R. Stefanik on a pedestal that was obviously erected spontaneously and hurriedly by some local patriots on the exact spot where a much larger statue of Stefanik had been erected in the l 920's. The statue was removed by communist authorities in the I 950's. (See the photo on page 133) This bust testified to the rise of Slovak nationalism during the Dubcek era. At the Slovak State Archives in Kosice Mark and Anne 132 SLOVAKIA 2021 were welcomed by the Director, Ladislav Andrasi and his assistant, Anna Fedorjakova. The latter willingly and eagerly helped Mark to translate documents from Magyar into Slovak. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne were joined by Professor Timothy Smith and another one of his graduate students, Oksana Dragan, who had both just come down from Poland in Smith's brown Volkswagen. Smith was studying Slovak Lutheran immigration from eastern Slovakia while Oksana was researching Rusyn (Ukrainian) immigration to North America. Smith then suggested to Mark that he a lso consult the Roman Catholic bishop's archives, located on Lenin Street, opposite the Cathedral. Since Anne had studied Latin for five years in High School, she volunteered to do this and was assisted by the Rev. Alojs Tkac, who was in charge of the archives. After the collapse of Communism, the latter was e levated to the post of Bishop, and later, Archbishop of Kosice. 14 Meanwhile, Professor Smith arranged a meeting with an "Action Committee" of the newly-resurrected Greek Catholic Church, led by Msgr. Jan Hirka, who, once Communism collapsed, was e levated to Eparch (Bishop) of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Presov. 15 On the evening of August 20, 1968, Mark and Anne, together with Timothy Smith and Oksana Dragan, decided to dine together. They went to the Magyar Restaurant in Kosice , where they enjoyed an exotic meal and did some dancing to the tunes of a Gypsy (Roma) orchestra. 14 Alojz Tkac was persecuted by the Communi sts durin g the period of "Normalization" ( 1970- 1989) and penned hi s memoirs in Pohl'adv z kriiovatky (Kapusany: Bens, 2004). 15 For the hi story of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia from 1968 to 1980, see Martin Lupco, "Grec kokatolick a a pravoslavna cirkev na Slovensku v rokoch 19681980," in Jaroslav Corani c- Jana Koprivnakova- Peter Sturak eds. Grekokatolicka cirkev na Slovensku vo svetle vyroci II (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 2012), 165-77. Msgr. Jan H irka published hi s memoirs in Pod ochranou Marie: Pastier v zlui be cirkvi (Presov: Presovska univerzita v Presove, 20 13 ). SLOVAKIA 2021 133 Bust of General M.R. Stefanik on the main square, Kosice, August, 1968. 134 SLOVAKIA 2021 Around 11 :00 p.m. all four researchers decided to drive back to their abodes in Presov. As Mark and Anne drove through the village of Drienov, just north of Kosice, a black cat ran in front of their car. Although they did not kill it, Mark wondered aloud if it signaled that they would have bad luck. "I hope not," Anne answered. Around 4:30 a.m. on August 21 , Mark and Anne were awakened by a very loud noise coming from the streets of Presov. At first they thought that it was the sound of jackhammers, and Mark began to curse the workers who could not wait until 8:00 a.m. to repair the streets. Then they heard a knocking on the door to the apartment. Andrej Krasnay gingerly approached the door and asked, "who ' s there?" Mark and Anne were afraid that the Secret Police had come for them, because they always came at night. Instead, it was the next-doorneighbor. He told Andrej something and Andrej then knocked on Mark and Anne's glass door, came in and announced that "The Russians, Poles, East Germans, Magyars and Bulgarians are occupying us!" 16 All three then understood that the noise from the street was not from jackhammers, but from tanks. Dazed, Mark and Anne decided to immediately dress and repair to the Hotel Dukla, where Professor Smith and Oksana Dragan were staying. It was sunrise by the time they arrived and Smith had just arisen. Mark knocked on his door and as Smith opened it, Mark blurted out "the Russians are invading us." Smith looked out his window at the tanks and remarked that he thought it was military maneuvers again . Mark assured him that it was not, that this was a real invasion . Smith then suggested that Mark go find Anne, who had gone upstairs to inform Oksana of the invasion , to come down to the dining room to discuss the situation. The four researchers, along with a young and lonely waiter, were the only customers in the dining room. While Smith ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and rolls , the three students were too frightened to eat. Smith nonchalantly remarked, " We ' re Americans. This doesn ' t concern us." He cou ldn 't have been more wrong. Mark was born in Turciansky Svaty Martin in 1943 and Oksana in Berlin in 1942. Oksana was the daughter of the editor of the 16 The East Germans did not parti cipate in the invasion . For a detailed ex planati on sec Rildi gcr Wcnzkc, "The Rol e and Acti vities of the SEO, the East German State and Its Military During th e ' Prague Spring' of 1968," in The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion, 137-64. SLOVAKIA 2021 135 pro-independence Ukrainian weekly Svoboda, published in Jersey City, New Jersey. Both were post-war refugees who, with their families, had ended up in Canada and the USA after the war. Neither the Soviet Union, nor Czechoslovakia, recognized dual citizenship at that time. Either one of these students could be detained by the authorities, whether Czechoslovak or Russian . Smith, however, was so unconcerned about the invasion that he decided that all four researchers should carry on as if nothing had happened. Thus, he instructed Mark and Oksana to go to the state archives and continue with their research. Meanwhile, he took Anne with him to serve as a translator in the Presov city archives. When Smith met with the Mayor of Presov, who was clearly shattered by the invasion, Smith asked for permission to do research in the city archives. The Mayor replied, with Anne translating, that "due to the extraordinary circumstances," the city archives were closed. Smith would not take no for an answer. He repeated his request, and Anne repeated the translation that the archives were closed. After three tries, Smith gave up and told Anne to go join Mark in the state archives. When Mark and Oksana arrived at the Slovak State Archives, they noticed that the entire staff was looking out the windows at the tanks (T55 ' s) roaring by, except Mr. Grant. The latter was nonchalantly reading and translating Magyar documents, oblivious to the noise outside. After a while Mr. Grant's behavior puzzled Mark so much that he asked Mr. Grant, "how can you continue to work while we are being invaded?" Mr. Grant smiled and replied, "This is my fifth invasion ." When Mr. Grant saw the puzzled look on Mark ' s face , he explained that the Russians had broken through the Carpathians into Hungary in the fall and winter of 1914-1915, then Bela Kun's Hungarian Red Army occupied Presov in 1919, the Germans occupied Slovakia in 1944 and the Russians in 1945, and again in 1968. " So, what's new?" he asked. "But, don't you want to see the Russian tanks?" Mark asked. Mr. Grant gestured no with his hand. Then he added, "You should have seen a German Tiger. That was a tank!" Mr. Grant then reminisced that, shortly after the Second World War had ended, he took the train from Presov to Kos ice. About half way there he spotted four destroyed tanks in a nearby field . Three were Russian T34 ' s and one was a German Tiger with its treads blown off. It was obvious what had happened. 136 SLOVAKIA 2021 After these reassuring words from Mr. Grant, Mark and Anne cairned down and decided to return to Andrej's apartment, to get their camera, and take some pictures of the invasion. After having eaten some lunch, the intrepid pair set out on Uti ca cervenej arrnady [Red Army Street] (today's Levoca Street) towards the main intersection of Presov at Utica Slovenskej republiky rad [Street of the Slovak Socialist Republic] , today 's Hlavna ulica (Main Street), right in front of the Bosak Bank. 17 There the pair saw a burning Russian military vehicle, which some tank had previously rammed. Just as they were passing by the Bosak Bank, another tank roared by and hit the burning vehicle and it lunged towards the bank . Seeing the approaching truck out of the comer of his eye, Mark shoved Anne out of the way and prepared to be crushed. Fortunately, there was a very strong guard-rail at this location, and it stopped the burning vehicle. After Mark and Anne recovered from this near-fatal mishap, they crossed the street and, upon the urging of a local, climbed up the stairs of the Ukrainian Theater and emerged onto a balcony, where they had an unobstructed view of the invasion . They started to take color slides of the Russian tanks and other vehic les. Ru ss ian military vehicles on Dukla Street, Presov, August 21, 1968. Meanwhile, in the morning they had noticed that elderly citizens had lined up outside various food stores, to "stock up" in case the 17 This bui ldi ng was erected by the American Slovak millionaire Michal Bosak in the I 920 's. He also built a school in Okruhle, hi s village of origin. For more on Bosak see Michal Bosak & Rudolf Bosa k, Michal Bosak- americkj bankar zo Sarisa (Presov, Ibi s Publishin g, 1997). SLOVAKIA 2021 137 Russian soldiers started looting, as they had done in 1945 . By noon, however, the dynamics had changed. Hundreds of students, who had been home for summer vacation, started to pour into Presov. Soon, they began marching up and down the main square, shouting " Ysetci l'udia na chodniku nemiluju republiku!" (People on the sidewalk do not love the Republic) an old communist slogan from May-day parades. Soon a few of the bravest students jumped onto the street, at the main crossing located at the Bosak Bank, and stopped the tanks! Students blocking Russian tanks at intersection of Dukla and Red Anny Streets, Presov, August 21, 1968. They held up the invasion for three hours. Finally, by mid-afternoon, a Russian military helicopter hovered overhead and must have given the driver of the lead tank orders to proceed because, at that moment, the lead tank lowered its gun and began swinging it from side-to-side, while simultaneously roaring its engine. (Photo next page). That had the desired effect, as the students jumped aside to avoid being hit by the barrel of its canon. After that the tanks proceeded closely and quickly, in order to not give the students a chance to once 138 SLOVAK.IA 2021 again jump in front and stop the tanks. On the first day of the invasion, the commander of occupation forces in Presov announced a state of Martial Law to begin at I 0:00 p.m. Instead of obeying him, the citizens of Presov hit the streets in large numbers and began to shout "Rusi domov! Rusi domov!" (Russians, go home! Russians, go home!). When an armored scout-car appeared, the people began to pelt it with bricks and bottles and it quickly fled the scene. Russian military helicopter hovering above Presov, August 21 , 1968. Russian scout car and tanks on a side street in Presov, August, 1968. SLOVAKIA 2021 139 During the day individuals posted large anti-Russian posters and placards onto shop windows. One large cartoon was Mark's favorite: It depicted a Russian soldier, who had just had a bowl movement, rising from the toilet and the reactionary communist Vasil Bil'ak was licking his ass! Mark wanted to photograph it, but was afraid to do so, because it was rumored that agents of the Russian KGB were in town, and were arresting people taking such pictures. The citizens of Presov suspected that Vasil Bil'ak, a conservative member of the Czechoslovak Politburo, was one of the traitors who had urged the Russians to invade. The citizens were right. 18 For three days the Russians hurtled through Presov in the direction of Poprad. By the end of the week, when the city was fully occupied. (See the next 5 photographs) Russian soldier guarding tank in central Presov , August, 1968. 18 Six members of the Politburo, including Vasil Bil'ak , signed such a letter of invitation to the Ru ssians just before the invasion. For a copy of this letter see Otakar Korinek, Poz;vvaci list 1968 (Bratislava: Albert Marencin PT, 2006), 82-3. 140 SLOVAKIA 2021 Russ ian soldiers talking to civili ans, Presov, August, 1968. Russ ian vehicles bes ides Post Office in Presov, August 1968 SLOVAKIA 2021 141 Russian soldiers and officers in a military vehicle, Presov, August, 1968. Russian tanks in front of Czechoslovak military barracks in Presov, August, 1968. 142 SLOVAKIA 2021 A certain professor of the Ukrainian language at the University of Presov, whom Timothy Smith knew, approached the research group from America and suggested that they leave as soon as possible, because he knew that Oksana had been born in Berlin in 1942 and was in danger of being picked up by agents of the KGB . Timothy Smith agreed and the four researchers set out in their respective Volkswagens towards Bratislava via Sabinov, Brezovicka and the Levoca forest in order to avoid the formidable Branisko Pass, where columns of Russian vehicles were moving very slowly. Between Spisske Podhradie and the city of Poprad they had to pass many slow-moving Russian vehicles. At one point, they drove by an entire column stopped by the side of the road, with Russian soldiers picking pears from the trees. Apparently the soldiers were hungry and their supply-wagons had not caught up with them. As the researchers approached the city of Poprad, they saw huge red letters that spelled DUBCEK painted vertically on the entire side of a tall apartment building. A nearby crane revealed how this was made possible. Mark would have photographed this sign, except that he had just passed a moving column of Russians. Meanwhile, Mark's Volkswagen rattled from the ruts in the road made by tank tracks, a ll the way to Bratislava. As they drove west, Mark and Anne noticed that the locals had changed all the directional signs, to try to confuse the Russians . It didn ' t work, since the Russians had good maps of Czechoslovakia, as did Mark and Anne. Meanwhile, Mark and Anne also noticed many pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian signs along the way. For instance, in the village of Brezovicka, past the city of Sabinov, someone had painted " The Whole World Supports Dubcek" on an abandoned log cabin. (First photo next page) On the meandering Vah river, between the cities of Ruzomberok and Martin, the locals had painted on the concrete abutment " DUBCEK JE NAS JANOSIK" (Dubcek is our Janosik), conjuring up Slovakia's I 8 th century social bandit. 19 On the way to Bratislava, the little caravan stopped in Martin, Cadca and Trnava, to bid farewell to family and friends . At the Matica slovenska the sympathetic workers gave Mark souvenir copies of the newly-resurrected daily Narodne noviny, which the communists had 19 For the story of Janosik see Jozef Kocis, Neznamy Jano.~ik (Marti n: Osveta, 1986). SLOVAKIA 2021 143 shut down in the l 950's, but which now fully supported the Dubcekled government. (Second photo next page) As Mark was driving past the city of Trencin, he pulled out to pass a tractor dragging a wagon of hay and suddenly found himself confronted by a Russian truck barreling down on him. Fortunately, the driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and Mark narrowly avoided colliding with him. Anne upbraided Mark for this near-miss, to which he sourly replied, "The Russians don't belong here! " The American caravan stopped briefly in Trnava and Bratislava, to bid farewell to family and friends. While in Trnava at Jozef Mazur's apartment, where they had lunch, Oksana spied a piano in the living room. She started to play some tunes on it but, when she played the World War II German song "Lily Marl ene," Jozefs wife Lola, who was a schoolteacher and afra id for her job, sc reamed at Oksana to stop, because the communists had forbidden such songs from being played. Graffiti, "The Whole World Supports Dubcek" in Brezovicka, eastern Slovakia, August, 1968. 144 SLOVAKIA 2021 Narodne no viny (Martin, August 29, 1968): " We understand and support you, comrade Dubcek. You negoti ated outside of our homeland ." Thus, even though the Dubcek era had seen the abolition of censorship, self-censorship still prevailed. Meanwhile, as in most Slovak cities and villages, Trnava also had its share of pro-Dubcek and antiRussian posters. Graffiti in central Tmava: "Not what the occupiers demanded, but what we support with Dubcek and Svoboda," August, 1968. SLOVAKIA 2021 145 The final stop of the caravan was in Bratislava. When the four researchers appeared at the Historicky ustav SA V, they were greeted by the furious but dispirited historians and their secretarial staff. After some discussion , both sides agreed that, in view of the invasion and the uncertainty of the future , it would be best to cancel the planned scholarly conference on Emigration from Eastern Europe to North America in the nearby castle of Smolen ice, which belonged to the Slovak Academy of Sciences. After they bade their farewells , the four researchers returned to their cars parked on Dostojevskeho rad (Dostojevsky Street). Fearing that The Russians would control the border, and search their car for photographs, Mark decided to photograph some more pro-Dubcek and anti-Russian graffiti painted on various buildings in the vicinity, then hide his film in a difficult-to-find spot in his car and hope the Ru ssians would not find it. (See the last 3 Photos) After thi s the American caravan approached the Old Bridge and drove past Russian tanks parked on both sides. Once they had crossed into Petrfalka they noticed what looked like a whole regiment of Russians camped in the park of Janko Kral' beside the Danube River. As they approached the border, however, they saw that Slovak soldiers were still in charge, complete with their sub-machine guns. Only one lonely Russian soldier, seated on a bench and staring at the ground, could be seen. When Mark asked the Slovak customs officers about the Russian soldier, they replied, "We're ignoring him . You should too." After perfunctorily checking their passports and visas, the customs officers bade the travelers farewell and, after the Slovak soldier lifted and pulled into Czechoslovakia the heavy cantilevered gate, the four researchers drove into Austria and freedom . August of 1968 will forever be etched into Mark 's and Anne's memories. What started out as a happy honeymoon in Europe and in Slovakia turned into the tragedy of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was a brutal reminder of how superpowers can intimidate and subjugate their much smaller and weaker neighbors. 146 SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : "Long Live Dubcek .. ." August, 1968. Graffiti in Bratislava: " ... and Svoboda" August, 1968 SLOVAKIA 2021 Graffiti in Bratislava : " Moscow" (the other way), August, 1968. 147  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 Russians are Invading Us!" Prešov, 1968 Description An account of the resource M. Mark Stolarik Slovakia, Vol. 45 (No. 84-85), 2021 pp. 121-147 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stolarik, M. Mark, 1943- Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/436cfdbe28d3ca6197b94353de0d98d1.pdf bab154704793155f65b6031dabfeeee9 PDF Text Text 24 SLOVAKIA --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 �SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, �26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: �SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- �28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was �SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also �30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- �SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton �32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the �SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 �34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. �SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL � 24 SLOVAKIA --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 �SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, �26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: �SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- �28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was �SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also �30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- �SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton �32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the �SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 �34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. �SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL � 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 1974, Vol. 24 Description An account of the resource Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974. 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 1974 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 --- -------- Tiso' s Formative Years and Early Political Career Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Dr. Jozef Tiso, like most Slovaks who attained national prominence, had very simple, humble beginnings. Tiso was born on October 13, 1887 of peasant stock in the small Slovak town of Vel'ka Bytca. Two days later he was christened a Roman Catholic with the name Jozef Gaspar. With regard to the origin of the name Tiso there is no agreement, but most likely it was derived from the Slavic word, tis, meaning yew tree. The name Tiso in Vel'ka Bytca has been traced back to 1525. Several individuals of that name achieved some distinction in Slovak history. One of them, a priest, Mikulas Tiso, was active in the Slovak national movement during the 19th century. 1 Most of Jozef Tiso's ancestors, however, were simple peasants or tradesmen. His grandfather, Jozef Tiso, also of Vel'ka Bytca, was born on August 11, 1838. In 1860 he married Veronica Fundarek, who bore him a son in 1862; he was Gaspar Tiso, father of the future leader of Slovakia. Gaspar Tiso during most of his adult life operated a butcher business in Vel'ka Bytca. He was a nationally conscious Slovak and active during most of his adult life in Slovak national and political organizations. In 1894 he founded a Catholic Circle in Vel'ka Bytca, which was dissolved by the Hungarian government in 1901 but later revived. Even after 1918 Gaspar Tiso represented the Slovak People's Party in his town. 2 On September 2, 1882 Gaspar married Terezia Budiska, a member of a well-known family of potters from Vel'ka Bytca. From this union seven children were born: Pavol, Jozef, Maria, Jan, Hanna, Jozefka, and Terezia. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso were simple people who instilled in their children the simple peasant virtues: the value of hard work and a firm belief in God. Their family mottos were: "Pray and work," and "Fellow strive and God will bless you." 3 SLOVAKIA 25 Dr. Jozef Tiso spent most of his formative years in the town of Vel'ka Bytca. Situated in the northwest corner of Slovakia, it was that area which was a traditional stronghold of Slovak nationalism. Vel'ka Bytca had withstood the onslaught of Magyarization and survived as a nationally conscious town. Reminiscing many years later Tiso said of Bytca: I am a Bytcan. If tinkers have a kingdom, well now Bytca would certainly be the chief city of this kingdom. Well, if you will, I am also a descendant of tinkers. Among us there are no differences between artisans and farmers and workers. A tinker is an artisan, but also a worker and the poorest salaried, working on a patch of land which is more rock than soil-in a word also ·a farmer.4 Tiso's family was not especially poor nor was it a rich one: it can be classified as a middle peasant family. Regarding his family's situation Tiso said: We had a decent roof over our heads, we had a clean, nice village home and always a loaf of bread on a table covered with a cloth. Thus we had what a man needs for a decent life. This was our wealth. And what we had was from work.5 Tiso began his formal education in the lower school in Bytca in 1894. At that time the Bytca school was a three language one. During the first year Slovak and Magyar were taught; in the second year, German; and in the third year all three languages were alternated. Subjects included in the curriculum were the natural scie?ces, Hungarian history, and geography. Although the purpose of the curriculum was to Magyarize, there were several nationally conscious Slovak instructors in the Bytca school: one of these, Pavel Trusina, taught Tiso the Slovak language.6 Jozef Tiso during these years of study in Bytca proved to be a good student; therefore in 1898 after the completion of his fourth year he was sent to the middle school in nearby Zilina. Gaspar and Terezia Tiso had originally planned to educate their eldest son, Pavel, but he dropped out after one year at the Zilina school to take up the family butcher trade in Bytca. Jozef Tiso soon proved to be a much better student than his brother. He won the admiration of all his professors. He did well in all his subjects and showed a special talent in mastering foreign languages. Magyar and German were mere playthings to him according to the recollections of one of his classmates.7 One professor named Bicovsky referring to Tiso allegedly told the class, 26 SLOVAKIA "You will see this boy one day will be a great man." 8 Jozef Tiso was also well liked by his fellow classmates. He was remembered as being humble, pleasant, and easygoing, always demonstrating an uncommon interest in helping his classmates with their work. 9 While in zilina Tiso lived with Anton Sturm, a friend of the family, who remembered him as a conscientious student who never had to be forced to prepare his school assignments.10 It was in zilina that Tiso made the decision to enter the priesthood. This was not an uncommon choice for Slovaks peasants. Many Slovak peasant families had a son or daughter in the Church. A clerical career was one of the few ways a Slovak peasant could raise his social status or acquire an education. Having made the decision, Tiso set off in 1902 after the completion of his fourth year at zilina for the Nitra Gymnasium. The Nitra school was much more a Magyar institution than the zilina one had been. The Nitra faculty, moreover, had a low opinion of the zilina school, regarding its curriculum in Magyar subjects particularly inferior to its ow~. Young students there were frequently ridiculed, but Tiso was not for he proved to be an exceptional student. He mastered with little difficulty the most difficult assignments in Latin and German, and remained there four years. 11 The outstanding theological students of the time were sent to Vienna to the Pazmaneum, the leading Catholic seminary in the Habsburg Empire. Tiso in 1906 was one of those chosen to complete his theological studies there. Once at the Pazmaneum, he continued his good scholastic record and came into contact with some of the leading clerics of the Empire. He received lectures from Franz Martin Schindler12 and Ignaz Seipel, leaders of the Austrian Christian Social movement. During Tiso's years of study at the Pazmaneum Pope Leo's social encyclical, Rerum Novarum was receiving wide attention. Many seminars were devoted to it and came to form an important part of Tiso's social philosophy. Tiso's training was otherwise in traditional Catholic theology and Thomistic philosophy. According to the confidential files of the Pazmaneum Tiso was an exemplary seminarian. Concerning Tiso the psychological-moral profile stated: "Natural behavior: serious; morals : exemplary; mode of conversation with superiors: SLOVAKIA 27 humble, with equals: affable; character: oustanding; application: indefatigable . Observations : behaves with a mature character." 13 The intellectual atmosphere of Vienna was very dif. ferent from what Tiso was accustomed to in Nitra and zilina. There were Socialists, Christian Socials, liberals, and others, some of them hostile to the Catholic world view that Tiso espoused. It was in Vienna in fact that Tiso had his first contact with the progressive wing of the Slovak intelligentsia, the Hlasists. Tiso opposed Hlasists thought even then; he regarded it a threat to the conservative Catholic view. Friction between Tiso and a Hlasist even took place in Tiso's home town of Bytca where he spent the holidays. The medical doctor in Bytca, Minarik, a Hlasist, accused Tiso of not being a real Slovak, when Tiso supported the parish priest, Teselsky, a member of the Hungarian People's Party and a known Magyarone. There were differences between Tiso and Teselsky, but Tiso preferred the Magyarone to the progressive minded Minarik. 14 Dr. Jozef Tiso was ordained a priest on July 14, 1910 by Bishop August Fischer-Colbr ie, and shortly thereafter said his first mass in his home parish church in Vel'ka Bytca. A year later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. Tiso's first assignment as a priest was to the small remote village of Oscadnica, a poor Slovak village. Tiso was not only concerned with the spiritual welfare of the people of Oscadnica, but also became very interested in their economic standard, their health, sanitation, and dietary habits. He organized self-help associations and tackled the problem of alcoholism which was so widespread in Slovak villages. Tiso referred to his experience in Oscadnica as his second university. 15 After about a year in Oscadnica, Tiso was transferred to another village, Rajec, where he continued his work. In Rajec he founded a Slovak peasant bank designed to strengthen the financial resources of the village and free the peasant from debts.16 Dr. Tiso was not in Rajec long before he was again transferred, this time to a larger town, Banovce nad Bebravou, located about 70 miles northwest of Bratislava. He was appointed chaplain there and in 1924 promoted to pastor, a post he held until 1945. Tiso, during the many years of his pastorate in Banovce did much for the improve- 28 SLOVAKIA ment of the town. He undertook the pavement of the town's streets and the regulation of the Bebrava River and Radisla Creek which ran near Banovce. To further the interests of the town's noted cabinet makers he organized a cooperative. He worked, too, with the city council and founded a bank to finance a sewer system and water supply. Tiso formu• lated other plans for the modernization of Banovce, such as electrification and pavement of roads to every village in the district, but these remained only in the planning stage. His primary goal remained the industrialization of Banovce. 17 Alarmed by the spread of secularism and progressive thought, Tiso also set out to strengthen Catholic education in Banovce. He revived the Catholic educational society Orol and he founded both a Catholic teachers' college and a Catholic cultural house. 18 All Tiso's work did much to make him popular in the Banovce area and to make it the center of his political strength. In 1914 Tiso was called up by the government to serve as chaplain in the Austrian army. Toward the end of 1914 he was sent to Maribor in Styria. There he became acquainted with Slovene priests and their work in organizing peasant cooperatives. He later applied some of their ideas in his work for the economic development of Banovce.19 After a year in the military service, Tiso contracted nephritis and had to be recalled from the front. Following his recovery he was appointed spiritual director at the Nitra seminary, later professor of theology, and personal secretary to the Bishop of Nitra. Tiso maintained these posts throughout the reminder of the war. Tiso was later attacked for his activity during the war and during the Slovak National Revolution, when Slovakia seceded from Hungary to join with the Czechs in the new Czecho-Slovakia (1918-19 ). His political opponents charged him with having had pro-Magyar sympathies at the time. These charges resulted from the fact that Tiso contributed to Nytramegyei Szemle, a Magyar journal in Nitra, articles glorifying Hungary's war efforts. Ivan Derer, Social Democratic Minister of Education in Czecho-Slovakia in the 1920's, largely responsible for such charges, also maintained that Tiso before 1918 spelled his Name, Tiszo, in the Magyar fashion, and that Tiso had supported the integrity of the Hungarian state. Derer wrote that Tiso, moreover, was SLOVAKIA 29 opposed to the Martin Declaration and had even served on the Magyar Nitra Council. 20 Tiso came naturally under suspicion since he served during the war as personal secretary to the Bishop, Viliam Batthanyi, of Nitra, a notorious advocate of Magyarization. Labeling a Populist a Magyarone was a favorite device of Czech and Slovak centralists used to discredit the idea of Slovak autonomy. It was done repeatedly in the twenty years of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Sometimes the charges were appropriate while at other times, as with Tiso, they had little basis in fact. Whatever pro-Magyar feelings Tiso may have had before 1918 were gone by the time the Czecho-Slovak army approached Nitra. Before 1918 Tiso belonged to the politically passive Slovak majority. He was active before October, 1918 but mainly with welfare and town improvement projects. Prior to 1918 he had neither planned to enter politics nor was he trained for such a career. 21 Tiso's rather sudden involvement in politics is difficult to explain, but very likely, much like Hlinka, Tiso was drawn into the Populist movement by the revolutionary anti-clerical character of the new state. Indeed soon after the National Revolution Tiso joined the Slovak People's Party and began to work for it in Nitra. He was largely responsible for making the whole south Nitra district a party stronghold.22 Nitra in 1918 was very much a Magyar town with only two educated Slovak leaders, Dr. Eugen Filkorn and Dr. Jozef Tiso. Both worked hard in Nitra to obliterate its Magyar character and make it Slovak once wore. They published a Slovak newspaper entitled, Nitra and organized a Slovak National Council. Meanwhile Slovak Populists under Hlinka's direction prepared themselves for the first legislative election scheduled for April, 1920. In this election Hlinka formed a common front with the Czech Populists, led by Msgr. Jan Sramek; it was known as the "Czechoslovak People's Party." The election was a great disappointment to the Slovak Populists who secured only twelve seats out of fifty-seven assigned to Slovakia in the Prague Parliament.23 The Social Democrats were the big winners there with twenty-three mandates. The revolutionary wave that swept Slovakia after the war was mainly responsible for the Social Democratic victory, though the fact that there was little in the Populist platform to attract the peasant masses of Slovakia also 30 SLOVAKIA partly explains the vote. Hlinka's main concern at the time was the progressive, anti-clerical character of the new government, not the social and economic condition of peasants. This is clear from Hlinka's decision to present a common front with Czech Catholics. Tiso in a newspaper editorial of the time attributed the success of the Social Democrats to the fact that some 200,000 Czech soldiers and officials had voted for the Social Democrats and other Czecho-Slovak parties. This gave the world a false picture of true political feelings of the Slovaks. 24 In that election Tiso won in the Trnava district but turned his post over to another candidate. Tiso remained in Nitra dividing his time between teaching and his work for the Populists. He delivered speeches, organized party activities, and contributed articles to the party's leading organ, Slovak. In 1921 he was appointed personal secretary to the new bishop in Nitra, Karol Kmet'ko, a former member of the Czecho-Slovak Revolutionary Council. For the next few years both worked together in building up the party strength in Nitra. But while Kmet'ko preferred peaceful discussion, Tiso felt the Slovak cause benefited more by demonstrations. As a result, a certain coolness developed between the two men. Even worse, Tiso's inflammatory speeches soon got him into trouble with the authorities. In 1923 Tiso was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment; of which he served two, because he delivered a fiery speech in Nitra, which was said to have incited the people. Following this episode Tiso felt it best to resign his post as secretary to Kmet'ko, knowing the bishop's feeling with regard to such activity. Tiso then in 1924 left Nitra to become pastor of the Catholic Church in Banovce.25 Meanwhile the Slovak Populists were making their recovery from the election disappointment of 1920. The fruitless union with the Czech Lidaks 26 was ended in 1921. A year later the Slovak People's Party name was changed to the Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSUS). The Centralistic policies of Prague and the economic problems in Slovakia contributed to the growth of the HSUS. Within three or four years it became a broad-based mass party. By 1923 the party could claim 876 city organiza- SLOVAKIA 31 tions, 1065 village organizations and nine newspapers. 27 But not all were content with the party's leadership. Many of the radical members in the party were displeased with what they considered Hlinka's conciliatory position toward the government. The party had approved the Constitution of 1920 and supported Masaryk in the first presidential election. But on the other hand Hlinka did keep the party in opposition throughout the first legislature, and in 1922 presented to the Prague Parliament the first proposal for Slovak autonomy. Accordingly, Czecho-Slovakia would be divided into three parts: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthe• nia, each with its own diet having authority over local administration, school, churches, justice, public welfare, and finances. 28 The proposal was rejected. In the next election in 1925 the HS~S scored its greatest success receiving 489,111 votes 29 and 23 seats in Prague. Tiso was elected deputy again and took up his seat in Parliament. At this time Tiso was not yet a leading member of the Populist party, but nevertheless one of the party's rising young stars. Much of the leadership still belonged to the predprevratovd group, those from the pre-1918 era which included besides Hlinka, Ferdis Juriga, Jozef Buday,3° Florian Tomanek to name a few. Tiso belonged to the younger group of party deputies, those between 30 and 40 years of age. Tiso was young and inexperienced when he walked into the Prague Parliament, yet within a few years had gained the reputation of being one of the most skillful representatives in the Slovak Club. Hlinka soon came to appreciate his parliamentary ability and his capacity for long, tedious work. There were considerable differences though between Tiso and Hlinka. Tiso was not as impulsive nor romantically oriented toward politics as was Hlinka; he was more a hard, cold realist when it came to appraising political situations.31 Though Tiso became frequently impassioned while speaking, his ideas always conformed to a logical pattern and were argued from a philosophical or historical point of view. In 1925-1926 the new central government of Anton 32 SLOVAKIA Svehla, in face of a renewed campaign of Hungarian revisionists, set out to broaden the government coalition by bringing in German and Slovak opposition parties. Tiso favored participating in the government. He felt something could be gained by it for Slovakia. At this critical time Hlinka departed for the United States to attend an Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In his absence a directory of five, including Tiso, ran the party. Also, before Hlinka left he designated Tiso president of the Slovak Club in Prague to manage party affairs in the parliament. Soon after Hlinka was gone a struggle developed between the old predprevratovi Populists and the younger generation. Juriga and Tomanek were offended by Hlinka's passing over them in favor of the younger Tiso to head the Slovak Club.32 The friction, however, was mild since Hlinka's authority was strong enough to prevent such inter-party squabbles from becoming serious. In Hlinka's absence it was left to Tiso to take up the whole question of HSES position with regard to the government coalition. Tiso led the negotiations with Svehla, but felt unqualified to make a final decision alone. In July, 1926 Tiso sent a letter to Hlinka urging him to return quickly from the United States so that a decision could be made.33 Hlinka at first opposed the idea of entering a coalition, but during the course of his visit to the United States he was urged by American Slovaks to try cooperation with the government. Hlinka arrived in Slovakia in October, negotiations were immediately accelerated and an agreement concluded for HSES participation in the coalition. Tiso had hoped to obtain some concessions for Slovakia as a condition for the party's participation in the government, but the party was disappointed, especially the radicals. The hated zupa law of 1923 which had centralized government administration was removed and the country was divided into three administrative units: Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia, each with krajinsky (regional) president and a council with powers to handle cultural, educational, and humanitarian affairs. The powers of the council were, however, limited, since the krajinsky president, who was nominated by the central government, had power to veto any resolution passed by the council. Furthermore, the SLOVAKIA 33 central government had powers in the selection of the council's members. 34 Tiso at first spoke out against the law, but after its passage defended it to a degree. At least, he said, with the new law there was recognition of a Slovak krajina and from this, autonomy could be built.35 The People's Party officially entered the government in January, 1927, with Tiso as Minister of Health and Marko Gazik as Minister of Unification. Tiso in his capacity accomplished much. His greatest efforts were turned toward the modernization of the health spas of Polianka, strbske Pleso, Tatranska Lomnica, Cerveny Klastor and Sliac in Slovakia. Due to Tiso's work, Sliac became the most wellknown and most frequented of all Slovak spas.36 Tiso's support of the government during these years was regarded by the radical Populists as a betrayal of party principles. These extremists, moreover, disliked the new administration law of 1928 which had replaced the 1923 one. Tiso at this time together with Jozef Buday belonged to the moderate wing of the party, while the radicals gathered around their leader, Vojtech Tuka. On January 1, 1928 Tuka published a sensational article which claimed that the declaration signed in Martin in 1918 contained a secret clause, (Vacuum Juris) stating that after ten years the Slovaks could reconsider their union with the Czechs. Tuka was subsequently put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The whole Tuka affair caused great turmoil in the country. To the opponents of Slovak autonomy Tuka was proof that the Slovak People's Party had dangerous Magyarone elements in it. Many Populists, on the other hand, made the Tuka trial into a cause celebre, regarding Tuka a martyr for the Slovak cause. Hlinka refused to condemn Tuka, and, in a gesture of disapproval at Tuka's imprisonment, pulled the party out of the government and once again put it into opposition. It lost some 85,000 votes and five seats in the Parliament in the 1929 elections.37 With the removal of Tuka from the scene, Tiso's importance and influence in the party in the next few years climbed steadily. At a Populist meeting in Ruzomberok in January, 1930, Tiso was chosen, along with Karol Mederly,38 34 SLOVAKIA one of the party's vice-presidents.39 By this time, too, Tiso had established himself as the leading ideologist in the party and one of the most articulate spokesmen for the Slovak cause. Tiso was well on his way to becoming successor to Andrej Hlinka as leader of the Slovak Populist movement. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Tiso's family and early life is taken from Konstantin l:ulen Po Sviitoplukovi druha nasa hlava (Cleveland: Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, 1947) and "Z bohateho zivota nasho prveho prezidenta": Slovak, XX:1/248 (Bratislava), October 27, 1939. 2) "Smutok pana prezidenta," Katolicke noviny (Bratislava), February 14, 1943. 3) Jozef K. Hrabovsky, "U Tisovcov vo Vel'kej Bytci," Slovak, XXXI/24, January 29, 1939. 4) Quoted in l:ulen, Po Sviitoplukovi • . . , p. 24. 5) Quoted in Ibid. , p. 29. 6) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 7) J., "Za Boha a narod: Spomienky na skolske roky prezidenta Jozefa Tisu," Slovak, XX:1/248, October 27, 1939. 8) Quoted in Ibid. 9) Tido Gaspar, Der Praesident der Slowakischen Repubiik (Pressburg: Johann 0. Petreas, 1943), p. 6. 10) "Z bohateho zivota . . . " Slovak, October 27, 1939. 11) "Za Boha a narod .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1939. 12) Franz Martin Schindler ( 1847-1922) was professor of moral theology in Vienna. He was one of the ideologists of the Christian Social movement. 13) Quoted in Milan S. f:lurica, Die slowakische Politik 1938/39 im Lichte der Staatslehre Tisos (Bonn: Emil Semmel Verlag, 1967), p. 21. 14) l:ulen, Po Svatoplukovi ... , pp. 33-34. 15) Ibid., p. 36. 16) Ibid- , pp. 37-38. 17) Albert Mistina, "Tiso-clovek," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III (Hamilton, Ontario: Franti§ek Fuga, 1967), pp. 9-12. 18) Ibid., Dr. Jan Gleiman, "Tisovo mesto," Slovenska otcina, Vol. III, pp. 20-25. 19) Jozef Tiso, Tiso o sebe, ed. Jozef Pauco (Passaic, New Jersey: Slovensky Katolicky Sokol, 1952), pp. 101-102. 20) Dr. Ivan Derer, Slovensky vyvoj a l'udacka zrada (Praha: Kvasnicka a Hampl, 1946), pp. 347-348. Imrich Stanek, Zrada a pad, Hlinkovsti separatiste a tak zvan11 siovensky stat (Praha, 1956) pp. 387-388. SLOVAKIA 35 21) Tiso o sebe, p. 122. 22) Gaspar, p. 11. Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ••. , pp. 63-66. 23) Joseph Mikus, Slovakia: A Political History, 1918-1950 (Milwaukee: The Marquette University Press, 1963), p. 16. 24) Karol Sidor, Andrej Hlinka (1864-1926) (Bratislava, 1934), p. 438. 25) Culen, Po Sviitoplukovi ... , pp. 66-67. "Z bohateho zivota . . . ," Slovak, October 27, 1939. 26) Lida.ks were the members of Sramek's "Czechoslovak People's Party." 27 ) Juraj Kramer, Slovenske autonomisticke hnutie v rokoch 1918-1929 (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1962), pp. 263-266. 28) See Karol Sidor, Slovenska politika na pode prazskeho snemu (19181938), Vol. I (Bratislava: 1943), p. 87. 29) C. A. Macar,tney, Hungary and her Successors (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 118. 30) Jozef Buday was born in 1877 in Trencin and ordained a priest in 1899. During Hlinka's imprisonment 1919-1920 he served as acting president of the party. He was deputy and senator in 1920's and 1930's. He was a leader of the Society of St. Adalbert and author of several Catholic books. He died in 1939. Jan Mest'ancik, "Jozef Buday v sluzbach cirkvi a naroda," Literarny Almanach (1970), pp. 89-106. 31) Frantisek Vnuk, Dr. Jozef Tiso (Sidney: The Association of Australian Slovaks, 1967), p. 12. 32) Sidor, Andrej Hlinka, p. 550. 33) Ibid-, pp. 550-551. 34) Sidor, Slovenska politika, I, pp. 303-304. 35) Ibid., p. 314. 36) "Z bohateho zivota .. ." Slovak, October 27, 1929. 37) Macartney, p. 118. Juriga and Tomanek left the party in protest to Hlinka's defense of Tuka and formed their own party, Juriga's People's Party. It got about 5,000 votes in the 1929 election. 38) Karol Mederly (b. 1887) - was the party's legal expert and was responsible for drawing up proposals for autonomy. He was also director of Populist press works. From 1929 he served as a party deputy and senator, and after November, 1938 vice-president of the Slovak Parliament. He was a member of the party Paesidium and the party's central court. On October 18, 1947 he was sentenced by the pro-Communist National Tribunal to six years imprisonment. Jozef Chreno, Maly slovnik slovenskeho st<itu, 1918-1945 (Bratislava, 1965), pp. 122-123. 39) L. G. Fagul'a, Andrej Hlinka (Bratislava : Generalny sekretariat HSUS, 1943) , p. 120. SLOVAKIA'S best known thermal spa (natural mineral springs), Piest'any, dedicated a new summer swimmingpooL  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 Tiso's Formative Years and Early Political Career Description An account of the resource Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 24-35 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sutherland, Anthony X. (Anthony Xavier) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/e8beb5c44a72030b96b897daa1e29d0a.pdf f3f30dae1ca0f1318fe24e344ba3c6d7 PDF Text Text 134 SLOVAKIA L' udov1t Stur and Slovak Cultural Nationalism By Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. There have been few individuals in the history of any nation who have had as much impact on the course of their nation's development than Eudovit stur, the nineteenth century Slovak nationalist, philosopher, linguist, and revolutionary leader. Considered as the principal formulator of the Slovak national ideology, his ideas on the Slovak language and nation have influenced in some way every generation of Slovaks since his death. In fact, much of Slovak history is incomprehensible without a basic knowledge of stur and his work. To some a re-examination of stur's idBas might seem unwarranted in light of the several scholarly studies on him that have appeared. Unfortunately though, most of these were written in French or in Slavic languages leaving the English reader with very little. In addition, stur has been frequently misunderstood in the West since most knowledge of him was based on his German book, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, which established him as a Russian political Panslav. Western historians have not done justice to stur, failing to research his Slavic works or examine his life in its entirety. In most East European nations nationalism appeared in two distinct phases, a cultural nationalism and a political nationalism. The first or cultural phase, lasting till about 1848, involved linguistic reform and cultural development; the second, political nationalism, beginning in 1848, was devoted to more political concerns such as the obtaining of cultural rights, economic and social reforms, as well as national independence. stur's career in Slovak national life was especially unique since, by becoming a participant in the Revolution of 1848, he was one of the first Slovak nationalists to ;move from mainly cultural concerns to active politics. Prior to the Revolution of 1848 stur completed the reform of the Slovak language creating a medium of �SLOVAKIA 135 written expression to be used by all Slovaks. Around the same time he founded the newspaper, Ndrodnje novini and its literary supplement, Orol Tatrdnsky, to defend his linguistic reform and foster the concept of the individuality of the Slovak nation. It was mainly these ideas of stur on the Slovak language and nation that have had most significance in Slovak history. stur came from a Lutheran background. 1 He was born October 29, 1815 in Uhrovec, the son of Samuel stur, director of the state schools in the Trencin district. 2 After attending local schools :Cudovit stur went to the gymnasium in Rab and then on to the Lutheran Lyceum in Bratislava. stur's studies included history, linguistics, philosophy, as well as Magyar and German. stur also came into contact with many important Slovak intellectuals as Samo Chalupka and Juraj Palkovic. stur soon became instructor of Slavic languages and history at the lyceum. In 1838-1839 stur continued his studies at the University of Halle in Germany. While at the University of Halle stur came under the influence of a certain Leopold Pee who stirred in him a love for Slavic history. These years were perhaps the most formative for the development of his thoughts. At Halle stur became acquainted with German Romanticism, especially with Herder's philosophy. He was also influenced by Hegel's philosophy, receiving lectures from the noted Hegelian, Johann E. Erdmann.3 From Hegelian philosophy stur learned the importance of the "idea" as the moving force in all history. He interpreted the Slovak national movement according to the dialectic, believing all history followed certain historical laws. stur believed in the inevitable triumph of the Slovak nation. Magyar feudal society was then in a process of disintegration and would give way to the new rising Slovak middle class who would carry on the Slovak national revival. Returning from Halle stur continued his teaching at the Lutheran Lyceum. Slovak cultural activities of stur's group were centered at this time in the Lyceum and in its Institute for Czecho-Slovak Language and Literature. During these years several societies were founded by Catholics and Protestants to promote literary development, the most famous being the Society of Lovers of Slovak Language �136 SLOVAKIA and Literature which included in its membership such great Slovak personalities as Jan Kollar and Martin Hamuljak. The principal issue confronting Slovak intellectuals at this time was the question of language. Slovaks during the first part of the nineteenth century were divided into two camps: Slovak Catholics adhered to the Slovak written language as codified by Anton Bernolak in the 1780s while Slovak Lutherans continued to use the Czech of the Kralice Bible and Hymn Book of Tranoscius used in the Lutheran Church. The question of language was a critical one for Slovak nationalism for the Slovaks could never hope to manifest any national unity while people continued to write in different literary forms . Some attempts were made to bring both schools to a working cooperation. In 1835 the almanac, Zora appeared which was intended to unify both Bernolak and Czech writers, but despite such manifestations of cooperation the language question remained unresolved. By the 1840s some members of the Bernolak school even considered returning to the use of a Slovakized Czech in their writings. 4 The movement for national unification of language was led by ~udovit stur and the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. These people felt that Slovak literature would never develop on its own but remain an insignificant part of Czech literature unless all Slovaks agreed on a common literary medium. 5 The renewed Magyarization re-enforced the need to unify the nation. In 1844 the Hungarian Parliament voted to establish Magyar as the official language of the institution. This was followed by attempts to dissolve Slovak students societies and repress Slovak national life.6 In 1844 stur was dismissed from his teaching post at the Lyceum as a result of efforts to Magyarize protestant church institutions. It was clear to stur that for the success of any political movement against Magyar suppression it was essential to have a language that could be understood by the Slovak masses. 7 Feeling there was sufficient interest at least among the Bernolak writers for cooperation on the language question, stur set out to increase his contacts with the Slovak Catholic clergy in the Pazmaneum and Trnava seminaries.8 He �SLOVAKIA 137 visited Jan Holly, the foremost Bernolak writer, and others in order to arouse interest in solving the language problem.9 In mid 1840s stur and his associates decided to begin work on linguistic reform. Philological meetings were held on the subject of codification at Hlboke in 1843 and in Mikulas in 1844. stur's philological principles were finally accepted at a meeting at cachtice in 1847. A year before, the work of codification was presented and defended in two books: Ndrecja slovenskuo a potreba pisanja v tomto ndreci (1846) and Nauka reci slovenskej (1846). stur based the new literary Slovak on the Central dialect. This dialect was chosen on the belief that it was the purest of the dialects spoken, in addition to being the one spoken in the heart of the nation. stur wrote, "This means of our literary unity cannot be more natural than this language which is spoken in the center of our nation and which, as was already shown is the most genuine type and image of the old Slovak language and the most widely used in our nation, ... it has its own real genius and is truly a Slovak language." 10 In books, articles, and letters stur strove vigorously to obtain recognition for the new written language by members of the Slovak intellectual community. These writings provided excellent arguments for the use of Slovak as a separate language. stur believed that the division of the Slovaks over the use of language had done great damage to the Slovak nation. It was a sign that the Slovak people had not "come to an awareness that they wanted to live as a nation." 11 stur maintained that the Czech used in the Lutheran Church would only "vegetate and become idle," 12 but the new Slovak would flourish and be used in schools, cities, and in all aspects of social life. 13 Perhaps stur's main argument for his reform of Slovak was that without a common literary language Slovaks could never produce their own literature. To support this stur pointed to the example of the ancient Greeks. The Greeks were able to create many great works of literature and philosophy because they expressed themselves using their _o wn dialects and were not forced to write in an artificially imposed language. Each of the famous Greek authors, stur said, wrote in his own dialect, Sappho used the Aeolic dialect, Pindar the Doric, and Hesiod the Ion- �138 SLOVAKIA ic. 14 stur repeated that the Slovak language was the key to an independent Slovak life which would enable them to produce great works. "This strong, unbreakable confidence in ourselves, in our own strength, in our own life is now expressed in our latest endeavors: to improve and raise our nation with our own dialect, with the language of our ancestors ... " 15 It did not matter if the Slovaks were small in number, they were still capable of an independent life. stur wrote, "The Greek nation was small in number, great in deeds, in acts, in glory; the Chinese nation is enormous, 350,000,000 souls, but all this enormous nation is only a small part in the span of history, so to speak, a trifle in history and humanity." 16 stur seemed to imply that a nation was of little value unless it experienced its own life as in the creation of literature. The presence of literature or other forms of culture was proof of a nation's own spirituality or intellectuality (duchovnost') and origin (kmeiwvitost'). In Narecia slovenskuo stur wrote: The origin (kmenovitost') or lineage of a nation is a beautiful, noteworthy sign for the nation, giving evidence of its powers of spirit and intellectual vitality; therefore, anyone aware of his nation's roots is granted the incentive to preserve and carefully nurture and cultivate it to the best of his ability. Such concern for a nation's origin cannot but develop the intellectual life of the nation and cause it to flower into a healthy, handsome tree.17 For stur there were different degrees of this spirituality, the highest being that which manifested itself in culture. stur suggested that nations which did not display this spirituality were not worthy of history, for "only acts and deeds belong to history." 18 All nations possess some spirituality and have the powers to develop it, stur add':)d. 13 The Slavs have 'enormous ability or potential,' but as yet have not done much with it.20 The main principle in stur's philosophy was his concept of "life." 21 stur's writings contained many references to the "life of the nation" and the "spiritual life." Whereas Hodza and Hurban talked about "love of the language" and "love of the nation," stur spoke of "life of the nation" and language.22 This notion of "life," however, did not have the simple meaning of merely something living but was used more in the orative sense, as in the production of culture. �SLOVAKIA 139 The spirit (duch), which was the "essence of everything," 23 was present only in life, thus those who wanted to cultivate their spirit had to experience "life." 24 stur's writings revealed a close resemblance to the philosophy of Herder. This relationship between Herderian ideas and those of stur have not been adequately dealt with. Dimitrij cizevskij, the foremost authority on stur's philosophy, hinted that stur's concept of "spirit" (duch) probably came from Herder. 25 A close inspection would show that many of stur's ideas, particularly those of language, display a similarity with Herder. For stur, as with Herder, language was the main repository of a nation's characteristics and spirit, and provided the connecting link with past generations of the nation. stur asked, "What is closer to us, more part of us, more accessible than the natural language, than the language in which we all began to speak to the world, in which our present generation is joined, that language in which the spirit of our fathers lives, whose melodious voices resound in our valleys and hills and radiate our feelings, our thoughts of one mind, of one sentiment?" 26 According to Herder, language was the means by which a nation became a united entity; a nation without a language was a contradiction. In Die Beschwerden und Klagen der Slawen in Ungarn (1843) stur wrote, "Every nation is in the most fervid union with its own language ... Language is then the most certain sign of the essence and individuality of every nation . . . a nation stands up as a nation only together with its language, without it, it would not be a nation; if it has its personal language, it is recognized as a nation ... " 27 Likewise, stur wrote that the Slovak language was a symbol of Slovak unity. 28 He said: No nation can stand on its own feet unless it has the will to possess its own life, unless it understands that it is one nation, one moral personality ... Our life and nation must be Slovak, the bond of this life must be the qualities and wealth of our nation, it must be then the language of our ancestors.29 The new literary Slovak was welcomed by many members of the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. stur's letters showed his confidence in the ultimate victory of Slovak in being accepted.30 Not all Slovaks, however, favorably received the new literary language. stur had to contend with several attacks on his work of codification �140 SLOVAKIA by Slovak Panslavs. stur anticipated this opposition and seemed to welcome it, seeing this as an opportunity to demonstrate the worthiness of his effort. In his essay, "Hlas proti hlasom," written in response to Kollar's attacks on Slovak, stur summarized his attitude towards the linguistic dispute. He wrote: The Czech voices against slovencina (Slovak language) have challenged us to this dispute. Everyone must defend his own things; who does not defend it, does not rely on it, does not want its victory, proves that he is not convinced of its truth. But we are highly convinced of the truth of our cause, it depends upon us that it endures, we want its victory, we are conscious of taking these steps with the most noble intentions, we accept then the dispute and with our own defense we will answer these attacks on our work. Our defense of this brings honor to our people and our nation; not to defend the honor of our nation or our honor is wickedness.al stur referred to Kollar's article, "Hlasove o potfebe jednoty spisovneho jazyka pro Cechy, Moravany, a Slovaky," attacking the literary Slovak as an "infamous disgrace of the Slovak language." 32 Nevertheless, stur denied he had any bitterness towards such opposition or desire to break off relations with them. 33 It should be remembered that stur was himself a Panslav, but whereas stur maintained there were eleven branches or tribes in the Slavic nation (Great Russians, Little Russians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Upper Lusatians, Lower Lusatians, and Slovaks), Kollar claimed there were only four: Czech, Polish, Illyrian, and Russian. To Kollar Slovak was simply a dialect of Czech, together they formed a united nation or tribe, thus the raising of Slovak to a separate literary language destroyed for Kollar natural unity of the two peoples. On several occasions stur denied that the use of a written Slovak would disrupt Slavic "mutuality" or "reciprocity" (vzdjomnost'). 34 stur did not recommend that every person write in his own local dialect but only if his dialect had its own individuality and purity.35 stur stressed Slavic unity, but wanted unity with diversity. He wrote, "Slavic life is varied as many branches on a linden tree, the nation is one, but one in diversity, so let this diversity be manifested in our spiritual life and in unity." 36 Each Slavic tribe (kmen) by developing its own potential, using its own dialect would contribute to the greater glory of Slavdom. 37 �SLOVAKIA 141 An important aspect of Shir's cultural Panslavism was the search for the nation's spirit (duch). Every nation, stur emphasized, had to find its own spirit and then cultivate it. This quest for the nation's spirit led stur to investigate all aspects of Slavic life including Slavic folk poetry and songs. 38 In 1853 stur published a major work in Slavic folklore, O ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych. stur considered the Slavs the most poetical and musical people in the world. Poetry or song was the peculiar Slavic way of expression. Whereas the Germans excelled in music, Romans in paintings, Greeks in sculpture, and Egyptians in architecture, "the Slavs poured out their soul and thought in tales, melodies and songs." 39 Poetry was viewed by stur as a higher form of art since it more perfectly expressed one's spirit ( duch) _4-0 In his book, 0 ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych, Shir presented a comparative study of Slavic folklore. One theme was selected, as love or loyalty, then was shown how it was expressed in the different Slavic dialects. stur concluded that all Slavic poetry from whatever tribe (kmen) displayed a common character and gave evidence of spirituality among the Slavs. He said they revealed a common world view, a common mind and feelings although expressed in different dialects. 41 In the late 1840s stur was drawn more into the political arena. stur's politics and activities during the Revolution of 1848 go beyond the purpose of this study, but it is important to explain how the revolution affected stur's thinking on the Slovak language and national ideology. Many of stur's writings showed his growing concern over Magyar attacks on Slovak national life. In his essay, Stary i navy vek Slovdku, stur compared the glorious past of the Slovaks in Great Moravia with the servile conditions prevalent among the Slovaks in the nineteenth century. stur wrote: "A new terrible, painful age has begun for the Slovaks. The spark of Magyar hatred against the Slovaks has inflamed more and more strongly, and after succeeding ages they have ignited a flame and in the beginning of our age this flame has exploded." 42 It is reasonablt · to assert that stur was not a real revolutionary by nature, and only when he saw the hopelessness of obtaining equality for the Slovaks did he resort to revolution. Before the revolution �142 SLOVAKIA stur worked peacefully to gain recognition for Slovak cultural rights. In 1845 stur traveled to Vienna and was favorably received by the Habsburg Archduke Louis and Austrian minister, Kolovrat. 43 Later during the revolution stur sided with Habsburg rulers against the Magyars with the expectation of receiving political and cultural equality in reward. The failure of the revolution, the disappointment in not receiving the promises of national freedom changed stur's outlook towards the Slovak problem. stur's discouragement was revealed in letters such as this. He wrote: Germans promised us national equality after the victorious struggle, Magyars are beaten but equality has become a mockery. In place of the former ruling language of Magyar all have received equal rights for their language except the Slovaks. Slovak is condemned again to the lowest levels of life ... it is relegated only to letters by the people and petitions from the people.44 The despair over the results of the revolution made stur believe that a small Slavic nation as the Slovaks could never expected the realization of its goals, thus its only salvation was to seek union with its Great Russian brothers. This was the theme of stur's book written in 1853, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, the first work of political Panslavism. In the first section of this book stur examined the situation of the Slavic peoples and found them held everywhere in slavery either by the Germans, Magyars, or Turks.45 Slavs originally had their own states as Great Moravia, Samo's Empire, and the Serbian Empire, but all of these in the end had been destroyed. 46 Under closer inspection it was seen by stur that the Slavs had always been weak and divided, for unlike the Germans, the Slavs had never developed the nation-state idea. The Slavs had been accustomed to ruling themselves democratically, and for this reason had been conquered so easily by the Huns, Petchenegs or others.47 Nevetheless, stur did not believe the situation was hopeless for the Slavs. As Hegel, stur felt all history moved in an unbroken wave of progression, and thus the Slavs would have their age of glory. He said, 'just as every plant does not bloom at the same time in nature, so every nation will have its own time under the sun.' 48 stur felt that if the Slavs were to take their place in history they would have to look for some new form of political organization. �SLOVAKIA 143 stur advanced three possibilities for the Slavs. The first possibility was a federated state with Western and South Slavs. stur rejected this alternative for several reasons. It would be impractical since many Slavs lived in areas highly mixed with non-Slavs. There would also be tension in certain regions between Slavic groups as between Poles and Russians in Galicia. 49 Religious differences could not be overlooked either. Slovaks were divided between Catholics and Lutherans, Serbs between Orthodox and Catholics.50 The second alternative of Austroslavism, mentioned by stur, was viewed as equally impractical. In an Austroslavic state stur said there would be little hope of cultural equality and a real danger of Germanization. In addition, there was always the threat of German colonization of Slavic districts. The third choice, and the one stur accepted, was the union of all Slavs into the Russian Empire. Only the Russians of all the Slavic peoples have been able to maintain their independence down through the centuries. They have been a light of hope to all other oppressed Slavs. stur asked, "Was it not Russia who enlivened our hopes, raised our sunken courage, lifted our dying desire for life? Was it not Russia who alone warded off the intolerable yoke of our peoples with positive help?" 51 Not only did he recommend political union of all Slavs in the Russian Empire but also advocated a return of all Slavs to the Orthodox Church and the acceptance of Russian as the common literary language. stur's program of political Panslavism appeared to stand in contradiction with many of his earlier thoughts. Before 1848 stur had fought for the recognition of Slovak as a separate literary language but in this book advocated the use of Russian as the common language of all Slavs. Some of stur's attachment to Russia could be explained by remembering that he had always been a Panslav to some extent. He did agree with Kollar's idea of Slavic "reciprocity" and did talk about the development of the Slovak nation in context with a greater Slavic community. This however, was merely cultural Panslavism. Perhaps the best explanation for stur's radical conversion to political Panslavism can be found in stur's own romantic nature and his disappointment over the failure of the revolution of 1848. The outcome of the revolution was viewed by stur as such a catastrophe that he saw no hope in the future �144 SLOVAKIA for an independent Slovak national life. The only viable alternative for the Slovaks if they were to survive at all would be to seek the protection of the Russians, one of the last remaining independent Slavic peoples. Had stur lived longer (stur died in 1856) it is open to question whether he would have continued to adhere to these doctrines of political Panslavism or again changed his ideas. This last phase of stur's intellectual activity was really of secondary importance, and perhaps should not be taken too seriously. His work Das Slawenthum was published in Russia in 1867 but remained unpublished in Slovakia until 1931. It was his ideas from the period before 1848 on the Slovak language and nation that have had the most bearing on the development of the Slovak national ideology. Although stur's accomplishments were wide and varied, his reform of the Slovak language was his greatest achievement and the principal event in the history of Slovak cultural nationalism. The establishment of Slovak as an acceptable literary medium enabled the Slovaks to survive as an independent ethnic group. Without a common language Slovaks would most certainly have been more easily assimilated by Czechs or succumbed to Magyarization. It was partly due to stur that language has remained the principal characteristic of Slovak national identity, overshadowing in importance even their common customs or common history. Lang11age has continued to be the critical issue in the Slovak national struggle since stur's time. stur, too, through his efforts to gain recognition for the Slovak nation and language helped turn the direction of many members of the Slovak intelligentsia from the vague, if not unrealistic Panslavism to the more practical goal of the development of the Slovak nation itself. stur's ideology made it possible for the Slovak nation to take its rightful place along side the other Slavic nations and prevented the Slovaks from remaining as insignificant part of the Czech nation. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Shir was taken from: Milan Pisut, Karol Rosenbaum, and Viktor Kochol, "Literatura narodneho obrodenia," Dejiny slovenskej literatury, vol. II (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1960), pp. 362-366. 2) Budovit Stur's father, Samuel Stur, was born March 16, 1789 in �SLOVAKIA 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11 ) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24) 25) 26) 27) 28) 29) 145 Lublin; moved to Uhrovec in 1813. He was the father of three sons, Karol, :I;udovit, and Samuel. :I;udovit Stu.r's grandfather Pavol Stur lived as a serf in Lublin. He died in 1827. Karol Golan, ":I;udovit Stur a slovenske narodne hnutie v tridsiatych rokoch 19. storocia." £udovit stur: Zivot a dielo, 1815-1856 (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), pp. 18-20. See Dr. Dimitrij Cizevskij, sturova filozofia zivota (Bratislava: Spisy slovenskej ucenej spolocnosti, 1941), p. 74. :I;udovit Holotik, and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1961), p. 517. Ibid., p. 517. Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, vol. I (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906), p. 47. Dejiny Slovenska, p. 518. Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1 848) (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 219-220. Ibid ., pp. 253-254. :I;udovit Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita Stura (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931), pp. 82-83. Ibid., p. 39. Letter of :I;udovit Stur to Frantisek Strakovic, Listy l!udovita ~ura, vol. II, ed. Dr. Jozef Ambrus (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), Letter No. 231. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," Vybor zo spisov £udovita stura, p. 39. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 40. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita stura, pp. 100-102. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., pp. 43-44. Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 102. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 36. Ibid., p . 36. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 38. Ibid., pp. 14-15. Ibid., p. 15. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," ibid., p. 111. Cizevskij, p. 40. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 41. Ibid., p. 44. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 80. Quoted in Butvin, p. 279. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 44. Ibid., p. 39-40. 30) Letter of Stur to Samo Bohdan Hrobon, Listy II, Letter No. 194, 195. Letter of Stur to Martin Hamuljak, Listy, vol. III, Letter No. 397. �146 SLOVAKIA 31) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 77. 32) Letter of Stur to Andrej Sladkovic, Listy I, Letter No. 238. 33 ) Letter of Stur to Michal M. Hodza, Listy I, Letter No. 182. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 83-84. 34) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 105-123. 35) Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 103. 36) Ibid. , pp. 103-104. Elena Varossova, "Svetonazor I.!udovita Stura," .r.udovit Stur: Zivot a dielo, pp. 102-103. Cizevskij, pp. 45-46. 37) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 84. Stur, "Narecia slovensk6," ibid., pp. 113-114. Kollar's view in this regard is very similar to Stur's. The only difference was that Kollar recognized only the Czech, Russian, Polish, and Illyrian tribe while Stur recognized eleven including Slovak. Kollar wrote, "Each dialed should create new vital powers for the other tribes, to rejuvenate, build, and enrich the other, nevertheless it would not touch the other tribe or be ,touched itself, but all the rest would continue to maintain their own free sphere." Johann Kollar, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844), p. 6. 38) Stur's own poetry was typical of cultural nationalism. His two major poetical works, Svi:itoboj and Matus z Trencina concerned old Slovak heroes. Their structure and thematic development resembled the epic poems of Jan Holly. See Pisut, pp. 372-373. L'udovit Stur, Spevy a piesne (Pre~porok, 1853), the poem Svi:itoboj, pp. 9-31 and Matus z Trencina, pp. 35-93. 39) I.!udovit Stur, O narodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych (Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1932), p. 9. 40) Ibid. , p. 16. 41) Ibid., p. 240. 42 ) I.!udovit Stur, Stary a novy vek Slovaku (Bratislava, 1935), p. 19. 43 ) Botto, p. 60. Letter of Stur to Ctiboh Zoch, Listy II, Letter No. 251. 44) Letter of Stur to Ismail Ivanovic Sreznevskij, Listy II, Letter No. 316. 45) I.!udovit Stur, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft (Bratislava, 1931), p. 19. 46) Ibid. , p. 29. 47) Ibid., p. 32. 48) Ibid., p. 49. 49) Ibid., pp. 164-165. 50) Ibid., pp. 165-167. 51) Ibid., p. 192 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. WORKS BY STOR Das Slawenthum und. die Welt der Zukunft. Bratislava, 1931. Listy .r.udovita Stura. Edited by Dr. Jozef Ambrus. 3 volumes. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954, 1956, 1960. �SLOVAKIA 147 0 narodnych povestiach a piesiiach plemien slovanskych. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matioa slovenska, 1932. Spevy a piesne. Presporok, 1853. Stary a novy vek Slovaku. Bratislava, 1935. Vybor zo spisov .Cudovita §tura. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1931. II. HISTORIES OF SLOVAK LITERATURE Mraz, Andreas, Die L i teratur der Slowaken. Berlin: Volk Verlag, 1943. Mraz, Andrej, Slovenska vlastiveda, vol. V, Literatura a jazyk. Slovenska akademia vied, 1948. Pisut, Milan; Rosenbaum, Karol; Kochol, Viktor, L iteratura obrodenia, vol. II, of Dejiny slovenskej literatury. Slovenska akademia vied, 1960. III. OTHER WORKS und Reich Bratislava: narodneho Bratislava: Bokes, Frantisek, D'ejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsich cias ai po pritomnost'. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1946. Botto, Julius, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 volumes, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Cizevskij, Dr. Dimitrij, Sturova filozofia zivota. Bratislava, 1941. Holotik, Uudovit and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske dejiny. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931. Kirschbaum, Joseph, .Cudovit Stur and His Place in the Slavic World. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Kollar, Johann, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit. Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844. Matula, Dr. Vladimir; Golan, Karol, and others, :Cudovit Stur: Zivot a dielo (1815-1856). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1956. Pauco, Dr. Jozef, .Cudovychova u sturovcov. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1943. Seton-Watson, Robert William, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1965. Yurchak, Peter, The Slovaks: Their Hi story and Traditions. Whiting, Indiana: Rev. John Lach, 1947. IV. ARTICLES Apel, Gundrum, "A Byronic Hero in Slovak Literature," Slavonic and East European Review, XXXIV (June, 1956). Butvin, Jozef, "Uudovit Stur a jeho uloha v slovenskom narodnozjednocovacom hnuti," Historicke studie, XII (1967). Petrovich, Michael, "Uudovit Stur and Russian Panslavism," Journal of Central European Affairs (April, 1952). � 134 SLOVAKIA L' udov1t Stur and Slovak Cultural Nationalism By Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. There have been few individuals in the history of any nation who have had as much impact on the course of their nation's development than Eudovit stur, the nineteenth century Slovak nationalist, philosopher, linguist, and revolutionary leader. Considered as the principal formulator of the Slovak national ideology, his ideas on the Slovak language and nation have influenced in some way every generation of Slovaks since his death. In fact, much of Slovak history is incomprehensible without a basic knowledge of stur and his work. To some a re-examination of stur's idBas might seem unwarranted in light of the several scholarly studies on him that have appeared. Unfortunately though, most of these were written in French or in Slavic languages leaving the English reader with very little. In addition, stur has been frequently misunderstood in the West since most knowledge of him was based on his German book, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, which established him as a Russian political Panslav. Western historians have not done justice to stur, failing to research his Slavic works or examine his life in its entirety. In most East European nations nationalism appeared in two distinct phases, a cultural nationalism and a political nationalism. The first or cultural phase, lasting till about 1848, involved linguistic reform and cultural development; the second, political nationalism, beginning in 1848, was devoted to more political concerns such as the obtaining of cultural rights, economic and social reforms, as well as national independence. stur's career in Slovak national life was especially unique since, by becoming a participant in the Revolution of 1848, he was one of the first Slovak nationalists to ;move from mainly cultural concerns to active politics. Prior to the Revolution of 1848 stur completed the reform of the Slovak language creating a medium of �SLOVAKIA 135 written expression to be used by all Slovaks. Around the same time he founded the newspaper, Ndrodnje novini and its literary supplement, Orol Tatrdnsky, to defend his linguistic reform and foster the concept of the individuality of the Slovak nation. It was mainly these ideas of stur on the Slovak language and nation that have had most significance in Slovak history. stur came from a Lutheran background. 1 He was born October 29, 1815 in Uhrovec, the son of Samuel stur, director of the state schools in the Trencin district. 2 After attending local schools :Cudovit stur went to the gymnasium in Rab and then on to the Lutheran Lyceum in Bratislava. stur's studies included history, linguistics, philosophy, as well as Magyar and German. stur also came into contact with many important Slovak intellectuals as Samo Chalupka and Juraj Palkovic. stur soon became instructor of Slavic languages and history at the lyceum. In 1838-1839 stur continued his studies at the University of Halle in Germany. While at the University of Halle stur came under the influence of a certain Leopold Pee who stirred in him a love for Slavic history. These years were perhaps the most formative for the development of his thoughts. At Halle stur became acquainted with German Romanticism, especially with Herder's philosophy. He was also influenced by Hegel's philosophy, receiving lectures from the noted Hegelian, Johann E. Erdmann.3 From Hegelian philosophy stur learned the importance of the "idea" as the moving force in all history. He interpreted the Slovak national movement according to the dialectic, believing all history followed certain historical laws. stur believed in the inevitable triumph of the Slovak nation. Magyar feudal society was then in a process of disintegration and would give way to the new rising Slovak middle class who would carry on the Slovak national revival. Returning from Halle stur continued his teaching at the Lutheran Lyceum. Slovak cultural activities of stur's group were centered at this time in the Lyceum and in its Institute for Czecho-Slovak Language and Literature. During these years several societies were founded by Catholics and Protestants to promote literary development, the most famous being the Society of Lovers of Slovak Language �136 SLOVAKIA and Literature which included in its membership such great Slovak personalities as Jan Kollar and Martin Hamuljak. The principal issue confronting Slovak intellectuals at this time was the question of language. Slovaks during the first part of the nineteenth century were divided into two camps: Slovak Catholics adhered to the Slovak written language as codified by Anton Bernolak in the 1780s while Slovak Lutherans continued to use the Czech of the Kralice Bible and Hymn Book of Tranoscius used in the Lutheran Church. The question of language was a critical one for Slovak nationalism for the Slovaks could never hope to manifest any national unity while people continued to write in different literary forms . Some attempts were made to bring both schools to a working cooperation. In 1835 the almanac, Zora appeared which was intended to unify both Bernolak and Czech writers, but despite such manifestations of cooperation the language question remained unresolved. By the 1840s some members of the Bernolak school even considered returning to the use of a Slovakized Czech in their writings. 4 The movement for national unification of language was led by ~udovit stur and the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. These people felt that Slovak literature would never develop on its own but remain an insignificant part of Czech literature unless all Slovaks agreed on a common literary medium. 5 The renewed Magyarization re-enforced the need to unify the nation. In 1844 the Hungarian Parliament voted to establish Magyar as the official language of the institution. This was followed by attempts to dissolve Slovak students societies and repress Slovak national life.6 In 1844 stur was dismissed from his teaching post at the Lyceum as a result of efforts to Magyarize protestant church institutions. It was clear to stur that for the success of any political movement against Magyar suppression it was essential to have a language that could be understood by the Slovak masses. 7 Feeling there was sufficient interest at least among the Bernolak writers for cooperation on the language question, stur set out to increase his contacts with the Slovak Catholic clergy in the Pazmaneum and Trnava seminaries.8 He �SLOVAKIA 137 visited Jan Holly, the foremost Bernolak writer, and others in order to arouse interest in solving the language problem.9 In mid 1840s stur and his associates decided to begin work on linguistic reform. Philological meetings were held on the subject of codification at Hlboke in 1843 and in Mikulas in 1844. stur's philological principles were finally accepted at a meeting at cachtice in 1847. A year before, the work of codification was presented and defended in two books: Ndrecja slovenskuo a potreba pisanja v tomto ndreci (1846) and Nauka reci slovenskej (1846). stur based the new literary Slovak on the Central dialect. This dialect was chosen on the belief that it was the purest of the dialects spoken, in addition to being the one spoken in the heart of the nation. stur wrote, "This means of our literary unity cannot be more natural than this language which is spoken in the center of our nation and which, as was already shown is the most genuine type and image of the old Slovak language and the most widely used in our nation, ... it has its own real genius and is truly a Slovak language." 10 In books, articles, and letters stur strove vigorously to obtain recognition for the new written language by members of the Slovak intellectual community. These writings provided excellent arguments for the use of Slovak as a separate language. stur believed that the division of the Slovaks over the use of language had done great damage to the Slovak nation. It was a sign that the Slovak people had not "come to an awareness that they wanted to live as a nation." 11 stur maintained that the Czech used in the Lutheran Church would only "vegetate and become idle," 12 but the new Slovak would flourish and be used in schools, cities, and in all aspects of social life. 13 Perhaps stur's main argument for his reform of Slovak was that without a common literary language Slovaks could never produce their own literature. To support this stur pointed to the example of the ancient Greeks. The Greeks were able to create many great works of literature and philosophy because they expressed themselves using their _o wn dialects and were not forced to write in an artificially imposed language. Each of the famous Greek authors, stur said, wrote in his own dialect, Sappho used the Aeolic dialect, Pindar the Doric, and Hesiod the Ion- �138 SLOVAKIA ic. 14 stur repeated that the Slovak language was the key to an independent Slovak life which would enable them to produce great works. "This strong, unbreakable confidence in ourselves, in our own strength, in our own life is now expressed in our latest endeavors: to improve and raise our nation with our own dialect, with the language of our ancestors ... " 15 It did not matter if the Slovaks were small in number, they were still capable of an independent life. stur wrote, "The Greek nation was small in number, great in deeds, in acts, in glory; the Chinese nation is enormous, 350,000,000 souls, but all this enormous nation is only a small part in the span of history, so to speak, a trifle in history and humanity." 16 stur seemed to imply that a nation was of little value unless it experienced its own life as in the creation of literature. The presence of literature or other forms of culture was proof of a nation's own spirituality or intellectuality (duchovnost') and origin (kmeiwvitost'). In Narecia slovenskuo stur wrote: The origin (kmenovitost') or lineage of a nation is a beautiful, noteworthy sign for the nation, giving evidence of its powers of spirit and intellectual vitality; therefore, anyone aware of his nation's roots is granted the incentive to preserve and carefully nurture and cultivate it to the best of his ability. Such concern for a nation's origin cannot but develop the intellectual life of the nation and cause it to flower into a healthy, handsome tree.17 For stur there were different degrees of this spirituality, the highest being that which manifested itself in culture. stur suggested that nations which did not display this spirituality were not worthy of history, for "only acts and deeds belong to history." 18 All nations possess some spirituality and have the powers to develop it, stur add':)d. 13 The Slavs have 'enormous ability or potential,' but as yet have not done much with it.20 The main principle in stur's philosophy was his concept of "life." 21 stur's writings contained many references to the "life of the nation" and the "spiritual life." Whereas Hodza and Hurban talked about "love of the language" and "love of the nation," stur spoke of "life of the nation" and language.22 This notion of "life," however, did not have the simple meaning of merely something living but was used more in the orative sense, as in the production of culture. �SLOVAKIA 139 The spirit (duch), which was the "essence of everything," 23 was present only in life, thus those who wanted to cultivate their spirit had to experience "life." 24 stur's writings revealed a close resemblance to the philosophy of Herder. This relationship between Herderian ideas and those of stur have not been adequately dealt with. Dimitrij cizevskij, the foremost authority on stur's philosophy, hinted that stur's concept of "spirit" (duch) probably came from Herder. 25 A close inspection would show that many of stur's ideas, particularly those of language, display a similarity with Herder. For stur, as with Herder, language was the main repository of a nation's characteristics and spirit, and provided the connecting link with past generations of the nation. stur asked, "What is closer to us, more part of us, more accessible than the natural language, than the language in which we all began to speak to the world, in which our present generation is joined, that language in which the spirit of our fathers lives, whose melodious voices resound in our valleys and hills and radiate our feelings, our thoughts of one mind, of one sentiment?" 26 According to Herder, language was the means by which a nation became a united entity; a nation without a language was a contradiction. In Die Beschwerden und Klagen der Slawen in Ungarn (1843) stur wrote, "Every nation is in the most fervid union with its own language ... Language is then the most certain sign of the essence and individuality of every nation . . . a nation stands up as a nation only together with its language, without it, it would not be a nation; if it has its personal language, it is recognized as a nation ... " 27 Likewise, stur wrote that the Slovak language was a symbol of Slovak unity. 28 He said: No nation can stand on its own feet unless it has the will to possess its own life, unless it understands that it is one nation, one moral personality ... Our life and nation must be Slovak, the bond of this life must be the qualities and wealth of our nation, it must be then the language of our ancestors.29 The new literary Slovak was welcomed by many members of the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. stur's letters showed his confidence in the ultimate victory of Slovak in being accepted.30 Not all Slovaks, however, favorably received the new literary language. stur had to contend with several attacks on his work of codification �140 SLOVAKIA by Slovak Panslavs. stur anticipated this opposition and seemed to welcome it, seeing this as an opportunity to demonstrate the worthiness of his effort. In his essay, "Hlas proti hlasom," written in response to Kollar's attacks on Slovak, stur summarized his attitude towards the linguistic dispute. He wrote: The Czech voices against slovencina (Slovak language) have challenged us to this dispute. Everyone must defend his own things; who does not defend it, does not rely on it, does not want its victory, proves that he is not convinced of its truth. But we are highly convinced of the truth of our cause, it depends upon us that it endures, we want its victory, we are conscious of taking these steps with the most noble intentions, we accept then the dispute and with our own defense we will answer these attacks on our work. Our defense of this brings honor to our people and our nation; not to defend the honor of our nation or our honor is wickedness.al stur referred to Kollar's article, "Hlasove o potfebe jednoty spisovneho jazyka pro Cechy, Moravany, a Slovaky," attacking the literary Slovak as an "infamous disgrace of the Slovak language." 32 Nevertheless, stur denied he had any bitterness towards such opposition or desire to break off relations with them. 33 It should be remembered that stur was himself a Panslav, but whereas stur maintained there were eleven branches or tribes in the Slavic nation (Great Russians, Little Russians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Upper Lusatians, Lower Lusatians, and Slovaks), Kollar claimed there were only four: Czech, Polish, Illyrian, and Russian. To Kollar Slovak was simply a dialect of Czech, together they formed a united nation or tribe, thus the raising of Slovak to a separate literary language destroyed for Kollar natural unity of the two peoples. On several occasions stur denied that the use of a written Slovak would disrupt Slavic "mutuality" or "reciprocity" (vzdjomnost'). 34 stur did not recommend that every person write in his own local dialect but only if his dialect had its own individuality and purity.35 stur stressed Slavic unity, but wanted unity with diversity. He wrote, "Slavic life is varied as many branches on a linden tree, the nation is one, but one in diversity, so let this diversity be manifested in our spiritual life and in unity." 36 Each Slavic tribe (kmen) by developing its own potential, using its own dialect would contribute to the greater glory of Slavdom. 37 �SLOVAKIA 141 An important aspect of Shir's cultural Panslavism was the search for the nation's spirit (duch). Every nation, stur emphasized, had to find its own spirit and then cultivate it. This quest for the nation's spirit led stur to investigate all aspects of Slavic life including Slavic folk poetry and songs. 38 In 1853 stur published a major work in Slavic folklore, O ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych. stur considered the Slavs the most poetical and musical people in the world. Poetry or song was the peculiar Slavic way of expression. Whereas the Germans excelled in music, Romans in paintings, Greeks in sculpture, and Egyptians in architecture, "the Slavs poured out their soul and thought in tales, melodies and songs." 39 Poetry was viewed by stur as a higher form of art since it more perfectly expressed one's spirit ( duch) _4-0 In his book, 0 ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych, Shir presented a comparative study of Slavic folklore. One theme was selected, as love or loyalty, then was shown how it was expressed in the different Slavic dialects. stur concluded that all Slavic poetry from whatever tribe (kmen) displayed a common character and gave evidence of spirituality among the Slavs. He said they revealed a common world view, a common mind and feelings although expressed in different dialects. 41 In the late 1840s stur was drawn more into the political arena. stur's politics and activities during the Revolution of 1848 go beyond the purpose of this study, but it is important to explain how the revolution affected stur's thinking on the Slovak language and national ideology. Many of stur's writings showed his growing concern over Magyar attacks on Slovak national life. In his essay, Stary i navy vek Slovdku, stur compared the glorious past of the Slovaks in Great Moravia with the servile conditions prevalent among the Slovaks in the nineteenth century. stur wrote: "A new terrible, painful age has begun for the Slovaks. The spark of Magyar hatred against the Slovaks has inflamed more and more strongly, and after succeeding ages they have ignited a flame and in the beginning of our age this flame has exploded." 42 It is reasonablt · to assert that stur was not a real revolutionary by nature, and only when he saw the hopelessness of obtaining equality for the Slovaks did he resort to revolution. Before the revolution �142 SLOVAKIA stur worked peacefully to gain recognition for Slovak cultural rights. In 1845 stur traveled to Vienna and was favorably received by the Habsburg Archduke Louis and Austrian minister, Kolovrat. 43 Later during the revolution stur sided with Habsburg rulers against the Magyars with the expectation of receiving political and cultural equality in reward. The failure of the revolution, the disappointment in not receiving the promises of national freedom changed stur's outlook towards the Slovak problem. stur's discouragement was revealed in letters such as this. He wrote: Germans promised us national equality after the victorious struggle, Magyars are beaten but equality has become a mockery. In place of the former ruling language of Magyar all have received equal rights for their language except the Slovaks. Slovak is condemned again to the lowest levels of life ... it is relegated only to letters by the people and petitions from the people.44 The despair over the results of the revolution made stur believe that a small Slavic nation as the Slovaks could never expected the realization of its goals, thus its only salvation was to seek union with its Great Russian brothers. This was the theme of stur's book written in 1853, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, the first work of political Panslavism. In the first section of this book stur examined the situation of the Slavic peoples and found them held everywhere in slavery either by the Germans, Magyars, or Turks.45 Slavs originally had their own states as Great Moravia, Samo's Empire, and the Serbian Empire, but all of these in the end had been destroyed. 46 Under closer inspection it was seen by stur that the Slavs had always been weak and divided, for unlike the Germans, the Slavs had never developed the nation-state idea. The Slavs had been accustomed to ruling themselves democratically, and for this reason had been conquered so easily by the Huns, Petchenegs or others.47 Nevetheless, stur did not believe the situation was hopeless for the Slavs. As Hegel, stur felt all history moved in an unbroken wave of progression, and thus the Slavs would have their age of glory. He said, 'just as every plant does not bloom at the same time in nature, so every nation will have its own time under the sun.' 48 stur felt that if the Slavs were to take their place in history they would have to look for some new form of political organization. �SLOVAKIA 143 stur advanced three possibilities for the Slavs. The first possibility was a federated state with Western and South Slavs. stur rejected this alternative for several reasons. It would be impractical since many Slavs lived in areas highly mixed with non-Slavs. There would also be tension in certain regions between Slavic groups as between Poles and Russians in Galicia. 49 Religious differences could not be overlooked either. Slovaks were divided between Catholics and Lutherans, Serbs between Orthodox and Catholics.50 The second alternative of Austroslavism, mentioned by stur, was viewed as equally impractical. In an Austroslavic state stur said there would be little hope of cultural equality and a real danger of Germanization. In addition, there was always the threat of German colonization of Slavic districts. The third choice, and the one stur accepted, was the union of all Slavs into the Russian Empire. Only the Russians of all the Slavic peoples have been able to maintain their independence down through the centuries. They have been a light of hope to all other oppressed Slavs. stur asked, "Was it not Russia who enlivened our hopes, raised our sunken courage, lifted our dying desire for life? Was it not Russia who alone warded off the intolerable yoke of our peoples with positive help?" 51 Not only did he recommend political union of all Slavs in the Russian Empire but also advocated a return of all Slavs to the Orthodox Church and the acceptance of Russian as the common literary language. stur's program of political Panslavism appeared to stand in contradiction with many of his earlier thoughts. Before 1848 stur had fought for the recognition of Slovak as a separate literary language but in this book advocated the use of Russian as the common language of all Slavs. Some of stur's attachment to Russia could be explained by remembering that he had always been a Panslav to some extent. He did agree with Kollar's idea of Slavic "reciprocity" and did talk about the development of the Slovak nation in context with a greater Slavic community. This however, was merely cultural Panslavism. Perhaps the best explanation for stur's radical conversion to political Panslavism can be found in stur's own romantic nature and his disappointment over the failure of the revolution of 1848. The outcome of the revolution was viewed by stur as such a catastrophe that he saw no hope in the future �144 SLOVAKIA for an independent Slovak national life. The only viable alternative for the Slovaks if they were to survive at all would be to seek the protection of the Russians, one of the last remaining independent Slavic peoples. Had stur lived longer (stur died in 1856) it is open to question whether he would have continued to adhere to these doctrines of political Panslavism or again changed his ideas. This last phase of stur's intellectual activity was really of secondary importance, and perhaps should not be taken too seriously. His work Das Slawenthum was published in Russia in 1867 but remained unpublished in Slovakia until 1931. It was his ideas from the period before 1848 on the Slovak language and nation that have had the most bearing on the development of the Slovak national ideology. Although stur's accomplishments were wide and varied, his reform of the Slovak language was his greatest achievement and the principal event in the history of Slovak cultural nationalism. The establishment of Slovak as an acceptable literary medium enabled the Slovaks to survive as an independent ethnic group. Without a common language Slovaks would most certainly have been more easily assimilated by Czechs or succumbed to Magyarization. It was partly due to stur that language has remained the principal characteristic of Slovak national identity, overshadowing in importance even their common customs or common history. Lang11age has continued to be the critical issue in the Slovak national struggle since stur's time. stur, too, through his efforts to gain recognition for the Slovak nation and language helped turn the direction of many members of the Slovak intelligentsia from the vague, if not unrealistic Panslavism to the more practical goal of the development of the Slovak nation itself. stur's ideology made it possible for the Slovak nation to take its rightful place along side the other Slavic nations and prevented the Slovaks from remaining as insignificant part of the Czech nation. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Shir was taken from: Milan Pisut, Karol Rosenbaum, and Viktor Kochol, "Literatura narodneho obrodenia," Dejiny slovenskej literatury, vol. II (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1960), pp. 362-366. 2) Budovit Stur's father, Samuel Stur, was born March 16, 1789 in �SLOVAKIA 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11 ) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24) 25) 26) 27) 28) 29) 145 Lublin; moved to Uhrovec in 1813. He was the father of three sons, Karol, :I;udovit, and Samuel. :I;udovit Stu.r's grandfather Pavol Stur lived as a serf in Lublin. He died in 1827. Karol Golan, ":I;udovit Stur a slovenske narodne hnutie v tridsiatych rokoch 19. storocia." £udovit stur: Zivot a dielo, 1815-1856 (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), pp. 18-20. See Dr. Dimitrij Cizevskij, sturova filozofia zivota (Bratislava: Spisy slovenskej ucenej spolocnosti, 1941), p. 74. :I;udovit Holotik, and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1961), p. 517. Ibid., p. 517. Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, vol. I (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906), p. 47. Dejiny Slovenska, p. 518. Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1 848) (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 219-220. Ibid ., pp. 253-254. :I;udovit Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita Stura (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931), pp. 82-83. Ibid., p. 39. Letter of :I;udovit Stur to Frantisek Strakovic, Listy l!udovita ~ura, vol. II, ed. Dr. Jozef Ambrus (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), Letter No. 231. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," Vybor zo spisov £udovita stura, p. 39. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 40. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita stura, pp. 100-102. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., pp. 43-44. Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 102. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 36. Ibid., p . 36. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 38. Ibid., pp. 14-15. Ibid., p. 15. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," ibid., p. 111. Cizevskij, p. 40. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 41. Ibid., p. 44. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 80. Quoted in Butvin, p. 279. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 44. Ibid., p. 39-40. 30) Letter of Stur to Samo Bohdan Hrobon, Listy II, Letter No. 194, 195. Letter of Stur to Martin Hamuljak, Listy, vol. III, Letter No. 397. �146 SLOVAKIA 31) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 77. 32) Letter of Stur to Andrej Sladkovic, Listy I, Letter No. 238. 33 ) Letter of Stur to Michal M. Hodza, Listy I, Letter No. 182. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 83-84. 34) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 105-123. 35) Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 103. 36) Ibid. , pp. 103-104. Elena Varossova, "Svetonazor I.!udovita Stura," .r.udovit Stur: Zivot a dielo, pp. 102-103. Cizevskij, pp. 45-46. 37) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 84. Stur, "Narecia slovensk6," ibid., pp. 113-114. Kollar's view in this regard is very similar to Stur's. The only difference was that Kollar recognized only the Czech, Russian, Polish, and Illyrian tribe while Stur recognized eleven including Slovak. Kollar wrote, "Each dialed should create new vital powers for the other tribes, to rejuvenate, build, and enrich the other, nevertheless it would not touch the other tribe or be ,touched itself, but all the rest would continue to maintain their own free sphere." Johann Kollar, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844), p. 6. 38) Stur's own poetry was typical of cultural nationalism. His two major poetical works, Svi:itoboj and Matus z Trencina concerned old Slovak heroes. Their structure and thematic development resembled the epic poems of Jan Holly. See Pisut, pp. 372-373. L'udovit Stur, Spevy a piesne (Pre~porok, 1853), the poem Svi:itoboj, pp. 9-31 and Matus z Trencina, pp. 35-93. 39) I.!udovit Stur, O narodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych (Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1932), p. 9. 40) Ibid. , p. 16. 41) Ibid., p. 240. 42 ) I.!udovit Stur, Stary a novy vek Slovaku (Bratislava, 1935), p. 19. 43 ) Botto, p. 60. Letter of Stur to Ctiboh Zoch, Listy II, Letter No. 251. 44) Letter of Stur to Ismail Ivanovic Sreznevskij, Listy II, Letter No. 316. 45) I.!udovit Stur, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft (Bratislava, 1931), p. 19. 46) Ibid. , p. 29. 47) Ibid., p. 32. 48) Ibid., p. 49. 49) Ibid., pp. 164-165. 50) Ibid., pp. 165-167. 51) Ibid., p. 192 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. WORKS BY STOR Das Slawenthum und. die Welt der Zukunft. Bratislava, 1931. Listy .r.udovita Stura. Edited by Dr. Jozef Ambrus. 3 volumes. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954, 1956, 1960. �SLOVAKIA 147 0 narodnych povestiach a piesiiach plemien slovanskych. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matioa slovenska, 1932. Spevy a piesne. Presporok, 1853. Stary a novy vek Slovaku. Bratislava, 1935. Vybor zo spisov .Cudovita §tura. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1931. II. HISTORIES OF SLOVAK LITERATURE Mraz, Andreas, Die L i teratur der Slowaken. Berlin: Volk Verlag, 1943. Mraz, Andrej, Slovenska vlastiveda, vol. V, Literatura a jazyk. Slovenska akademia vied, 1948. Pisut, Milan; Rosenbaum, Karol; Kochol, Viktor, L iteratura obrodenia, vol. II, of Dejiny slovenskej literatury. Slovenska akademia vied, 1960. III. OTHER WORKS und Reich Bratislava: narodneho Bratislava: Bokes, Frantisek, D'ejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsich cias ai po pritomnost'. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1946. Botto, Julius, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 volumes, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Cizevskij, Dr. Dimitrij, Sturova filozofia zivota. Bratislava, 1941. Holotik, Uudovit and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske dejiny. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931. Kirschbaum, Joseph, .Cudovit Stur and His Place in the Slavic World. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Kollar, Johann, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit. Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844. Matula, Dr. Vladimir; Golan, Karol, and others, :Cudovit Stur: Zivot a dielo (1815-1856). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1956. Pauco, Dr. Jozef, .Cudovychova u sturovcov. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1943. Seton-Watson, Robert William, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1965. Yurchak, Peter, The Slovaks: Their Hi story and Traditions. Whiting, Indiana: Rev. John Lach, 1947. IV. ARTICLES Apel, Gundrum, "A Byronic Hero in Slovak Literature," Slavonic and East European Review, XXXIV (June, 1956). Butvin, Jozef, "Uudovit Stur a jeho uloha v slovenskom narodnozjednocovacom hnuti," Historicke studie, XII (1967). Petrovich, Michael, "Uudovit Stur and Russian Panslavism," Journal of Central European Affairs (April, 1952). � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 134 SLOVAKIA L' udov1t Stur and Slovak Cultural Nationalism By Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. There have been few individuals in the history of any nation who have had as much impact on the course of their nation's development than Eudovit stur, the nineteenth century Slovak nationalist, philosopher, linguist, and revolutionary leader. Considered as the principal formulator of the Slovak national ideology, his ideas on the Slovak language and nation have influenced in some way every generation of Slovaks since his death. In fact, much of Slovak history is incomprehensible without a basic knowledge of stur and his work. To some a re-examination of stur's idBas might seem unwarranted in light of the several scholarly studies on him that have appeared. Unfortunately though, most of these were written in French or in Slavic languages leaving the English reader with very little. In addition, stur has been frequently misunderstood in the West since most knowledge of him was based on his German book, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, which established him as a Russian political Panslav. Western historians have not done justice to stur, failing to research his Slavic works or examine his life in its entirety. In most East European nations nationalism appeared in two distinct phases, a cultural nationalism and a political nationalism. The first or cultural phase, lasting till about 1848, involved linguistic reform and cultural development; the second, political nationalism, beginning in 1848, was devoted to more political concerns such as the obtaining of cultural rights, economic and social reforms, as well as national independence. stur's career in Slovak national life was especially unique since, by becoming a participant in the Revolution of 1848, he was one of the first Slovak nationalists to ;move from mainly cultural concerns to active politics. Prior to the Revolution of 1848 stur completed the reform of the Slovak language creating a medium of SLOVAKIA 135 written expression to be used by all Slovaks. Around the same time he founded the newspaper, Ndrodnje novini and its literary supplement, Orol Tatrdnsky, to defend his linguistic reform and foster the concept of the individuality of the Slovak nation. It was mainly these ideas of stur on the Slovak language and nation that have had most significance in Slovak history. stur came from a Lutheran background. 1 He was born October 29, 1815 in Uhrovec, the son of Samuel stur, director of the state schools in the Trencin district. 2 After attending local schools :Cudovit stur went to the gymnasium in Rab and then on to the Lutheran Lyceum in Bratislava. stur's studies included history, linguistics, philosophy, as well as Magyar and German. stur also came into contact with many important Slovak intellectuals as Samo Chalupka and Juraj Palkovic. stur soon became instructor of Slavic languages and history at the lyceum. In 1838-1839 stur continued his studies at the University of Halle in Germany. While at the University of Halle stur came under the influence of a certain Leopold Pee who stirred in him a love for Slavic history. These years were perhaps the most formative for the development of his thoughts. At Halle stur became acquainted with German Romanticism, especially with Herder's philosophy. He was also influenced by Hegel's philosophy, receiving lectures from the noted Hegelian, Johann E. Erdmann.3 From Hegelian philosophy stur learned the importance of the "idea" as the moving force in all history. He interpreted the Slovak national movement according to the dialectic, believing all history followed certain historical laws. stur believed in the inevitable triumph of the Slovak nation. Magyar feudal society was then in a process of disintegration and would give way to the new rising Slovak middle class who would carry on the Slovak national revival. Returning from Halle stur continued his teaching at the Lutheran Lyceum. Slovak cultural activities of stur's group were centered at this time in the Lyceum and in its Institute for Czecho-Slovak Language and Literature. During these years several societies were founded by Catholics and Protestants to promote literary development, the most famous being the Society of Lovers of Slovak Language 136 SLOVAKIA and Literature which included in its membership such great Slovak personalities as Jan Kollar and Martin Hamuljak. The principal issue confronting Slovak intellectuals at this time was the question of language. Slovaks during the first part of the nineteenth century were divided into two camps: Slovak Catholics adhered to the Slovak written language as codified by Anton Bernolak in the 1780s while Slovak Lutherans continued to use the Czech of the Kralice Bible and Hymn Book of Tranoscius used in the Lutheran Church. The question of language was a critical one for Slovak nationalism for the Slovaks could never hope to manifest any national unity while people continued to write in different literary forms . Some attempts were made to bring both schools to a working cooperation. In 1835 the almanac, Zora appeared which was intended to unify both Bernolak and Czech writers, but despite such manifestations of cooperation the language question remained unresolved. By the 1840s some members of the Bernolak school even considered returning to the use of a Slovakized Czech in their writings. 4 The movement for national unification of language was led by ~udovit stur and the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. These people felt that Slovak literature would never develop on its own but remain an insignificant part of Czech literature unless all Slovaks agreed on a common literary medium. 5 The renewed Magyarization re-enforced the need to unify the nation. In 1844 the Hungarian Parliament voted to establish Magyar as the official language of the institution. This was followed by attempts to dissolve Slovak students societies and repress Slovak national life.6 In 1844 stur was dismissed from his teaching post at the Lyceum as a result of efforts to Magyarize protestant church institutions. It was clear to stur that for the success of any political movement against Magyar suppression it was essential to have a language that could be understood by the Slovak masses. 7 Feeling there was sufficient interest at least among the Bernolak writers for cooperation on the language question, stur set out to increase his contacts with the Slovak Catholic clergy in the Pazmaneum and Trnava seminaries.8 He SLOVAKIA 137 visited Jan Holly, the foremost Bernolak writer, and others in order to arouse interest in solving the language problem.9 In mid 1840s stur and his associates decided to begin work on linguistic reform. Philological meetings were held on the subject of codification at Hlboke in 1843 and in Mikulas in 1844. stur's philological principles were finally accepted at a meeting at cachtice in 1847. A year before, the work of codification was presented and defended in two books: Ndrecja slovenskuo a potreba pisanja v tomto ndreci (1846) and Nauka reci slovenskej (1846). stur based the new literary Slovak on the Central dialect. This dialect was chosen on the belief that it was the purest of the dialects spoken, in addition to being the one spoken in the heart of the nation. stur wrote, "This means of our literary unity cannot be more natural than this language which is spoken in the center of our nation and which, as was already shown is the most genuine type and image of the old Slovak language and the most widely used in our nation, ... it has its own real genius and is truly a Slovak language." 10 In books, articles, and letters stur strove vigorously to obtain recognition for the new written language by members of the Slovak intellectual community. These writings provided excellent arguments for the use of Slovak as a separate language. stur believed that the division of the Slovaks over the use of language had done great damage to the Slovak nation. It was a sign that the Slovak people had not "come to an awareness that they wanted to live as a nation." 11 stur maintained that the Czech used in the Lutheran Church would only "vegetate and become idle," 12 but the new Slovak would flourish and be used in schools, cities, and in all aspects of social life. 13 Perhaps stur's main argument for his reform of Slovak was that without a common literary language Slovaks could never produce their own literature. To support this stur pointed to the example of the ancient Greeks. The Greeks were able to create many great works of literature and philosophy because they expressed themselves using their _o wn dialects and were not forced to write in an artificially imposed language. Each of the famous Greek authors, stur said, wrote in his own dialect, Sappho used the Aeolic dialect, Pindar the Doric, and Hesiod the Ion- 138 SLOVAKIA ic. 14 stur repeated that the Slovak language was the key to an independent Slovak life which would enable them to produce great works. "This strong, unbreakable confidence in ourselves, in our own strength, in our own life is now expressed in our latest endeavors: to improve and raise our nation with our own dialect, with the language of our ancestors ... " 15 It did not matter if the Slovaks were small in number, they were still capable of an independent life. stur wrote, "The Greek nation was small in number, great in deeds, in acts, in glory; the Chinese nation is enormous, 350,000,000 souls, but all this enormous nation is only a small part in the span of history, so to speak, a trifle in history and humanity." 16 stur seemed to imply that a nation was of little value unless it experienced its own life as in the creation of literature. The presence of literature or other forms of culture was proof of a nation's own spirituality or intellectuality (duchovnost') and origin (kmeiwvitost'). In Narecia slovenskuo stur wrote: The origin (kmenovitost') or lineage of a nation is a beautiful, noteworthy sign for the nation, giving evidence of its powers of spirit and intellectual vitality; therefore, anyone aware of his nation's roots is granted the incentive to preserve and carefully nurture and cultivate it to the best of his ability. Such concern for a nation's origin cannot but develop the intellectual life of the nation and cause it to flower into a healthy, handsome tree.17 For stur there were different degrees of this spirituality, the highest being that which manifested itself in culture. stur suggested that nations which did not display this spirituality were not worthy of history, for "only acts and deeds belong to history." 18 All nations possess some spirituality and have the powers to develop it, stur add':)d. 13 The Slavs have 'enormous ability or potential,' but as yet have not done much with it.20 The main principle in stur's philosophy was his concept of "life." 21 stur's writings contained many references to the "life of the nation" and the "spiritual life." Whereas Hodza and Hurban talked about "love of the language" and "love of the nation," stur spoke of "life of the nation" and language.22 This notion of "life," however, did not have the simple meaning of merely something living but was used more in the orative sense, as in the production of culture. SLOVAKIA 139 The spirit (duch), which was the "essence of everything," 23 was present only in life, thus those who wanted to cultivate their spirit had to experience "life." 24 stur's writings revealed a close resemblance to the philosophy of Herder. This relationship between Herderian ideas and those of stur have not been adequately dealt with. Dimitrij cizevskij, the foremost authority on stur's philosophy, hinted that stur's concept of "spirit" (duch) probably came from Herder. 25 A close inspection would show that many of stur's ideas, particularly those of language, display a similarity with Herder. For stur, as with Herder, language was the main repository of a nation's characteristics and spirit, and provided the connecting link with past generations of the nation. stur asked, "What is closer to us, more part of us, more accessible than the natural language, than the language in which we all began to speak to the world, in which our present generation is joined, that language in which the spirit of our fathers lives, whose melodious voices resound in our valleys and hills and radiate our feelings, our thoughts of one mind, of one sentiment?" 26 According to Herder, language was the means by which a nation became a united entity; a nation without a language was a contradiction. In Die Beschwerden und Klagen der Slawen in Ungarn (1843) stur wrote, "Every nation is in the most fervid union with its own language ... Language is then the most certain sign of the essence and individuality of every nation . . . a nation stands up as a nation only together with its language, without it, it would not be a nation; if it has its personal language, it is recognized as a nation ... " 27 Likewise, stur wrote that the Slovak language was a symbol of Slovak unity. 28 He said: No nation can stand on its own feet unless it has the will to possess its own life, unless it understands that it is one nation, one moral personality ... Our life and nation must be Slovak, the bond of this life must be the qualities and wealth of our nation, it must be then the language of our ancestors.29 The new literary Slovak was welcomed by many members of the younger generation of Slovak intellectuals. stur's letters showed his confidence in the ultimate victory of Slovak in being accepted.30 Not all Slovaks, however, favorably received the new literary language. stur had to contend with several attacks on his work of codification 140 SLOVAKIA by Slovak Panslavs. stur anticipated this opposition and seemed to welcome it, seeing this as an opportunity to demonstrate the worthiness of his effort. In his essay, "Hlas proti hlasom," written in response to Kollar's attacks on Slovak, stur summarized his attitude towards the linguistic dispute. He wrote: The Czech voices against slovencina (Slovak language) have challenged us to this dispute. Everyone must defend his own things; who does not defend it, does not rely on it, does not want its victory, proves that he is not convinced of its truth. But we are highly convinced of the truth of our cause, it depends upon us that it endures, we want its victory, we are conscious of taking these steps with the most noble intentions, we accept then the dispute and with our own defense we will answer these attacks on our work. Our defense of this brings honor to our people and our nation; not to defend the honor of our nation or our honor is wickedness.al stur referred to Kollar's article, "Hlasove o potfebe jednoty spisovneho jazyka pro Cechy, Moravany, a Slovaky," attacking the literary Slovak as an "infamous disgrace of the Slovak language." 32 Nevertheless, stur denied he had any bitterness towards such opposition or desire to break off relations with them. 33 It should be remembered that stur was himself a Panslav, but whereas stur maintained there were eleven branches or tribes in the Slavic nation (Great Russians, Little Russians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Upper Lusatians, Lower Lusatians, and Slovaks), Kollar claimed there were only four: Czech, Polish, Illyrian, and Russian. To Kollar Slovak was simply a dialect of Czech, together they formed a united nation or tribe, thus the raising of Slovak to a separate literary language destroyed for Kollar natural unity of the two peoples. On several occasions stur denied that the use of a written Slovak would disrupt Slavic "mutuality" or "reciprocity" (vzdjomnost'). 34 stur did not recommend that every person write in his own local dialect but only if his dialect had its own individuality and purity.35 stur stressed Slavic unity, but wanted unity with diversity. He wrote, "Slavic life is varied as many branches on a linden tree, the nation is one, but one in diversity, so let this diversity be manifested in our spiritual life and in unity." 36 Each Slavic tribe (kmen) by developing its own potential, using its own dialect would contribute to the greater glory of Slavdom. 37 SLOVAKIA 141 An important aspect of Shir's cultural Panslavism was the search for the nation's spirit (duch). Every nation, stur emphasized, had to find its own spirit and then cultivate it. This quest for the nation's spirit led stur to investigate all aspects of Slavic life including Slavic folk poetry and songs. 38 In 1853 stur published a major work in Slavic folklore, O ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych. stur considered the Slavs the most poetical and musical people in the world. Poetry or song was the peculiar Slavic way of expression. Whereas the Germans excelled in music, Romans in paintings, Greeks in sculpture, and Egyptians in architecture, "the Slavs poured out their soul and thought in tales, melodies and songs." 39 Poetry was viewed by stur as a higher form of art since it more perfectly expressed one's spirit ( duch) _4-0 In his book, 0 ndrodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych, Shir presented a comparative study of Slavic folklore. One theme was selected, as love or loyalty, then was shown how it was expressed in the different Slavic dialects. stur concluded that all Slavic poetry from whatever tribe (kmen) displayed a common character and gave evidence of spirituality among the Slavs. He said they revealed a common world view, a common mind and feelings although expressed in different dialects. 41 In the late 1840s stur was drawn more into the political arena. stur's politics and activities during the Revolution of 1848 go beyond the purpose of this study, but it is important to explain how the revolution affected stur's thinking on the Slovak language and national ideology. Many of stur's writings showed his growing concern over Magyar attacks on Slovak national life. In his essay, Stary i navy vek Slovdku, stur compared the glorious past of the Slovaks in Great Moravia with the servile conditions prevalent among the Slovaks in the nineteenth century. stur wrote: "A new terrible, painful age has begun for the Slovaks. The spark of Magyar hatred against the Slovaks has inflamed more and more strongly, and after succeeding ages they have ignited a flame and in the beginning of our age this flame has exploded." 42 It is reasonablt · to assert that stur was not a real revolutionary by nature, and only when he saw the hopelessness of obtaining equality for the Slovaks did he resort to revolution. Before the revolution 142 SLOVAKIA stur worked peacefully to gain recognition for Slovak cultural rights. In 1845 stur traveled to Vienna and was favorably received by the Habsburg Archduke Louis and Austrian minister, Kolovrat. 43 Later during the revolution stur sided with Habsburg rulers against the Magyars with the expectation of receiving political and cultural equality in reward. The failure of the revolution, the disappointment in not receiving the promises of national freedom changed stur's outlook towards the Slovak problem. stur's discouragement was revealed in letters such as this. He wrote: Germans promised us national equality after the victorious struggle, Magyars are beaten but equality has become a mockery. In place of the former ruling language of Magyar all have received equal rights for their language except the Slovaks. Slovak is condemned again to the lowest levels of life ... it is relegated only to letters by the people and petitions from the people.44 The despair over the results of the revolution made stur believe that a small Slavic nation as the Slovaks could never expected the realization of its goals, thus its only salvation was to seek union with its Great Russian brothers. This was the theme of stur's book written in 1853, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, the first work of political Panslavism. In the first section of this book stur examined the situation of the Slavic peoples and found them held everywhere in slavery either by the Germans, Magyars, or Turks.45 Slavs originally had their own states as Great Moravia, Samo's Empire, and the Serbian Empire, but all of these in the end had been destroyed. 46 Under closer inspection it was seen by stur that the Slavs had always been weak and divided, for unlike the Germans, the Slavs had never developed the nation-state idea. The Slavs had been accustomed to ruling themselves democratically, and for this reason had been conquered so easily by the Huns, Petchenegs or others.47 Nevetheless, stur did not believe the situation was hopeless for the Slavs. As Hegel, stur felt all history moved in an unbroken wave of progression, and thus the Slavs would have their age of glory. He said, 'just as every plant does not bloom at the same time in nature, so every nation will have its own time under the sun.' 48 stur felt that if the Slavs were to take their place in history they would have to look for some new form of political organization. SLOVAKIA 143 stur advanced three possibilities for the Slavs. The first possibility was a federated state with Western and South Slavs. stur rejected this alternative for several reasons. It would be impractical since many Slavs lived in areas highly mixed with non-Slavs. There would also be tension in certain regions between Slavic groups as between Poles and Russians in Galicia. 49 Religious differences could not be overlooked either. Slovaks were divided between Catholics and Lutherans, Serbs between Orthodox and Catholics.50 The second alternative of Austroslavism, mentioned by stur, was viewed as equally impractical. In an Austroslavic state stur said there would be little hope of cultural equality and a real danger of Germanization. In addition, there was always the threat of German colonization of Slavic districts. The third choice, and the one stur accepted, was the union of all Slavs into the Russian Empire. Only the Russians of all the Slavic peoples have been able to maintain their independence down through the centuries. They have been a light of hope to all other oppressed Slavs. stur asked, "Was it not Russia who enlivened our hopes, raised our sunken courage, lifted our dying desire for life? Was it not Russia who alone warded off the intolerable yoke of our peoples with positive help?" 51 Not only did he recommend political union of all Slavs in the Russian Empire but also advocated a return of all Slavs to the Orthodox Church and the acceptance of Russian as the common literary language. stur's program of political Panslavism appeared to stand in contradiction with many of his earlier thoughts. Before 1848 stur had fought for the recognition of Slovak as a separate literary language but in this book advocated the use of Russian as the common language of all Slavs. Some of stur's attachment to Russia could be explained by remembering that he had always been a Panslav to some extent. He did agree with Kollar's idea of Slavic "reciprocity" and did talk about the development of the Slovak nation in context with a greater Slavic community. This however, was merely cultural Panslavism. Perhaps the best explanation for stur's radical conversion to political Panslavism can be found in stur's own romantic nature and his disappointment over the failure of the revolution of 1848. The outcome of the revolution was viewed by stur as such a catastrophe that he saw no hope in the future 144 SLOVAKIA for an independent Slovak national life. The only viable alternative for the Slovaks if they were to survive at all would be to seek the protection of the Russians, one of the last remaining independent Slavic peoples. Had stur lived longer (stur died in 1856) it is open to question whether he would have continued to adhere to these doctrines of political Panslavism or again changed his ideas. This last phase of stur's intellectual activity was really of secondary importance, and perhaps should not be taken too seriously. His work Das Slawenthum was published in Russia in 1867 but remained unpublished in Slovakia until 1931. It was his ideas from the period before 1848 on the Slovak language and nation that have had the most bearing on the development of the Slovak national ideology. Although stur's accomplishments were wide and varied, his reform of the Slovak language was his greatest achievement and the principal event in the history of Slovak cultural nationalism. The establishment of Slovak as an acceptable literary medium enabled the Slovaks to survive as an independent ethnic group. Without a common language Slovaks would most certainly have been more easily assimilated by Czechs or succumbed to Magyarization. It was partly due to stur that language has remained the principal characteristic of Slovak national identity, overshadowing in importance even their common customs or common history. Lang11age has continued to be the critical issue in the Slovak national struggle since stur's time. stur, too, through his efforts to gain recognition for the Slovak nation and language helped turn the direction of many members of the Slovak intelligentsia from the vague, if not unrealistic Panslavism to the more practical goal of the development of the Slovak nation itself. stur's ideology made it possible for the Slovak nation to take its rightful place along side the other Slavic nations and prevented the Slovaks from remaining as insignificant part of the Czech nation. FOOTNOTES 1) Most of the biographical information on Shir was taken from: Milan Pisut, Karol Rosenbaum, and Viktor Kochol, "Literatura narodneho obrodenia," Dejiny slovenskej literatury, vol. II (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1960), pp. 362-366. 2) Budovit Stur's father, Samuel Stur, was born March 16, 1789 in SLOVAKIA 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11 ) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24) 25) 26) 27) 28) 29) 145 Lublin; moved to Uhrovec in 1813. He was the father of three sons, Karol, :I;udovit, and Samuel. :I;udovit Stu.r's grandfather Pavol Stur lived as a serf in Lublin. He died in 1827. Karol Golan, ":I;udovit Stur a slovenske narodne hnutie v tridsiatych rokoch 19. storocia." £udovit stur: Zivot a dielo, 1815-1856 (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), pp. 18-20. See Dr. Dimitrij Cizevskij, sturova filozofia zivota (Bratislava: Spisy slovenskej ucenej spolocnosti, 1941), p. 74. :I;udovit Holotik, and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1961), p. 517. Ibid., p. 517. Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, vol. I (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906), p. 47. Dejiny Slovenska, p. 518. Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1 848) (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 219-220. Ibid ., pp. 253-254. :I;udovit Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita Stura (Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931), pp. 82-83. Ibid., p. 39. Letter of :I;udovit Stur to Frantisek Strakovic, Listy l!udovita ~ura, vol. II, ed. Dr. Jozef Ambrus (Bratislava: Slovenskii akademia vied, 1956), Letter No. 231. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," Vybor zo spisov £udovita stura, p. 39. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 40. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," Vybor zo spisov l!udovita stura, pp. 100-102. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., pp. 38-39. Ibid., pp. 43-44. Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 102. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 36. Ibid., p . 36. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 38. Ibid., pp. 14-15. Ibid., p. 15. Stur, "Niirecia slovensko," ibid., p. 111. Cizevskij, p. 40. Quoted in Cizevskij, p. 41. Ibid., p. 44. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 80. Quoted in Butvin, p. 279. Stur, "Neopust'ajme sa," ibid., p. 44. Ibid., p. 39-40. 30) Letter of Stur to Samo Bohdan Hrobon, Listy II, Letter No. 194, 195. Letter of Stur to Martin Hamuljak, Listy, vol. III, Letter No. 397. 146 SLOVAKIA 31) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 77. 32) Letter of Stur to Andrej Sladkovic, Listy I, Letter No. 238. 33 ) Letter of Stur to Michal M. Hodza, Listy I, Letter No. 182. Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 83-84. 34) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., pp. 105-123. 35) Stur, "Narecia slovensko," ibid., p. 103. 36) Ibid. , pp. 103-104. Elena Varossova, "Svetonazor I.!udovita Stura," .r.udovit Stur: Zivot a dielo, pp. 102-103. Cizevskij, pp. 45-46. 37) Stur, "Hlas proti hlasom," ibid., p. 84. Stur, "Narecia slovensk6," ibid., pp. 113-114. Kollar's view in this regard is very similar to Stur's. The only difference was that Kollar recognized only the Czech, Russian, Polish, and Illyrian tribe while Stur recognized eleven including Slovak. Kollar wrote, "Each dialed should create new vital powers for the other tribes, to rejuvenate, build, and enrich the other, nevertheless it would not touch the other tribe or be ,touched itself, but all the rest would continue to maintain their own free sphere." Johann Kollar, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844), p. 6. 38) Stur's own poetry was typical of cultural nationalism. His two major poetical works, Svi:itoboj and Matus z Trencina concerned old Slovak heroes. Their structure and thematic development resembled the epic poems of Jan Holly. See Pisut, pp. 372-373. L'udovit Stur, Spevy a piesne (Pre~porok, 1853), the poem Svi:itoboj, pp. 9-31 and Matus z Trencina, pp. 35-93. 39) I.!udovit Stur, O narodnych povestiach a piesnach plemien slovanskych (Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1932), p. 9. 40) Ibid. , p. 16. 41) Ibid., p. 240. 42 ) I.!udovit Stur, Stary a novy vek Slovaku (Bratislava, 1935), p. 19. 43 ) Botto, p. 60. Letter of Stur to Ctiboh Zoch, Listy II, Letter No. 251. 44) Letter of Stur to Ismail Ivanovic Sreznevskij, Listy II, Letter No. 316. 45) I.!udovit Stur, Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft (Bratislava, 1931), p. 19. 46) Ibid. , p. 29. 47) Ibid., p. 32. 48) Ibid., p. 49. 49) Ibid., pp. 164-165. 50) Ibid., pp. 165-167. 51) Ibid., p. 192 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. WORKS BY STOR Das Slawenthum und. die Welt der Zukunft. Bratislava, 1931. Listy .r.udovita Stura. Edited by Dr. Jozef Ambrus. 3 volumes. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954, 1956, 1960. SLOVAKIA 147 0 narodnych povestiach a piesiiach plemien slovanskych. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matioa slovenska, 1932. Spevy a piesne. Presporok, 1853. Stary a novy vek Slovaku. Bratislava, 1935. Vybor zo spisov .Cudovita §tura. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1931. II. HISTORIES OF SLOVAK LITERATURE Mraz, Andreas, Die L i teratur der Slowaken. Berlin: Volk Verlag, 1943. Mraz, Andrej, Slovenska vlastiveda, vol. V, Literatura a jazyk. Slovenska akademia vied, 1948. Pisut, Milan; Rosenbaum, Karol; Kochol, Viktor, L iteratura obrodenia, vol. II, of Dejiny slovenskej literatury. Slovenska akademia vied, 1960. III. OTHER WORKS und Reich Bratislava: narodneho Bratislava: Bokes, Frantisek, D'ejiny Slovakov a Slovenska od najstarsich cias ai po pritomnost'. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1946. Botto, Julius, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 volumes, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Cizevskij, Dr. Dimitrij, Sturova filozofia zivota. Bratislava, 1941. Holotik, Uudovit and others, Dejiny Slovenska, vol. I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske dejiny. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1931. Kirschbaum, Joseph, .Cudovit Stur and His Place in the Slavic World. Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1958. Kollar, Johann, Ueber die literarische Wechselseitigkeit. Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1844. Matula, Dr. Vladimir; Golan, Karol, and others, :Cudovit Stur: Zivot a dielo (1815-1856). Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1956. Pauco, Dr. Jozef, .Cudovychova u sturovcov. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica slovenska, 1943. Seton-Watson, Robert William, A History of the Czechs and Slovaks. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1965. Yurchak, Peter, The Slovaks: Their Hi story and Traditions. Whiting, Indiana: Rev. John Lach, 1947. IV. ARTICLES Apel, Gundrum, "A Byronic Hero in Slovak Literature," Slavonic and East European Review, XXXIV (June, 1956). Butvin, Jozef, "Uudovit Stur a jeho uloha v slovenskom narodnozjednocovacom hnuti," Historicke studie, XII (1967). Petrovich, Michael, "Uudovit Stur and Russian Panslavism," Journal of Central European Affairs (April, 1952).  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 Ľudovít Štúr and Slovak Cultural Nationalism Description An account of the resource Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 134-147 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sutherland, Anthony X. (Anthony Xavier) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a0356df7d5acc926bee53942a5e7e969.pdf d5b14100e3148a65d1eb9b0e3cd93226 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 59 Anthony X. S u t he r la n d, Ph.D.: Juraj Fondly: An Introduction to His Life and Work It is regrettable that in the writings of Western historians on Slavic history little attention has been devoted to the 18th century Slovak writer and nationalist, Juraj Fandly. Yet there was much in Fandly's career to warrant a deeper analysis than has been offered to date. Fandly was not only an important member of the Bernolak school of writers but also the foremost representative of the French Enlightenment in Slovakia and a pioneer in the development of the Slovak national ideology. It is hoped that this short study will serve as an introduction and be a stimulus for a more deeper analysis in the future of this important Slovak intellectual. There is almost no satisfactory account of Fandly in English. Most Western historians, if they mention Fandly at all, usually discuss him very briefly or in a line or phrase included in a greater description of the Slovak Renaissance. Included among the best works on Fandly are a monograph by Imrich Kotvan published in 1946 and a selection of his writings, Vyber z diela, edited by Jan Tibensky in 1954. This anthology, Vyber z diela, contains sizable excerpts from Fandly's works as well as having an excellent introduction to his career and writings. The details on Fandly's life have remained sketchy.1 Juraj 1<1 andly was born October 21, 1750 in casta in Western Slovakia to Jan a Maria Fandly. 2 Following the death of Jan Fandly, Maria Fandly moved her family to Ompital. There young Juraj began his studies at school. Little has come down to us concerning Fandly's early school years. It was noted that he was a good student but seemed to suffer from poor health, thus forcing him to frequently break off his schooling. In 1771 Juraj Fandly started his theological studies for the Catholic priesthood at the Seminary in Budin, and in 1773 went to complete his training at the Seminary of St. Stephen in Trnava. There in 1776 he was ordained a Catholic priest. �60 SLOVAKIA His first assignment as a priest was to Sered' where he remained for three years before being transferred to Lukacovce. In 1780 he was appointed as pastor in Nahac, where he remained for twenty-seven years, from 1780 to 1807. An excellent characterization of Fandly as a pastor was provided in an ecclesiastical report dated September 5, 1782: He is of tall stature, slim, reddish in the face, strong fingers, strong temperament, a humble spirit, held in great respect among the farmers and foreigners, wears his hair according to local custom, does not smoke, bears no weapons, drinks wine only occasionally, is not given to excursions or farming, performs correctly all his pastoral obligations, says Mass everyday, under his administration no one has died without the sacraments; the church is not in debt, performs his breviary and canonical hours carefully; there is no grounds for him to be removed from office.3 In 1807 Fandly departed to Ompital to rest and recuperate from failing health. There he died March 7, 1811. Juraj Fandly was a real product of the 18th century, that century of the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. The writings of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were spread to all parts of Europe bringing new ideas of the supremacy of reason, the equality of nations, and the necessity for church and social reforms, thus resulting in a challenge to the very fabric of feudal society. The Habsburg Empire, being among the most backward in Europe, was fertile soil for the reception of these new progressive concepts. Several "enlightened" writers emerged in Hungary during this time who transmitted the ideas of the French Enlightenment to Slovak society. They included Adam Kollar, Jozef Ignac Bajza, Samuel Tesedik, Daniel Lehocky, as well as Juraj Fandly. The French Enlightenment also affected the nature of the rule of the European monarchs. The notion of the "enlightened ruler," one who uses reason and efficiency in his administration became the basis of the reigns of several European rulers. Josef II of Austria, 1780-1790, was perhaps the best example of the "Enlightened Despot." Josef II undertook many reforms to modernize and centralize the empire in order to make it more efficient and to bring it more directly under his rule. Included in these reforms were some church reforms intended to curtail the power �SLOVAKIA 61 of the church. The number of theologians who could study outside the empire was reduced, the international power of the monasteries was attacked in a attempt to make monastic orders more subservient to local bishops, and finally some 350 monasteries were destroyed, their lands sold or leased out. 4 Fandly was in basic agreement with these church reforms. He believed that monasteries had become too worldly, and were remnants of medievalism that endangered both the church and society. His first work, Duwernd zmluwa mezi mnichom a didblom o prwnich pocdtkoch staroddwnich ag o wculagsich premendch reholnickich, pub- lished in 1789, was a defense of Josef's ecclesiastical reforms. It was written in the form of a humorous, satirical dialogue between a monk, Athanazius and the devil, Titinillus. In it Fandly attacked the decadence of the monasteries, explaining that their great accumulation of wealth had caused their decline. In the first section of the discussion between the monk and the devil Fandly traced the history of the monastic orders to show how the original intention of their founders to provide an atmosphere fo~ men to live in prayerful solitude had changed. 5 Fandly then listed seven reasons for the deterioration of the cloistered life: the increase learning of the monks, the great number of monks, the increase in the number of mendicant monks, the trickery or roguery of monks, the relaxation of moral standards, the new monastic devotions, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars. 6 The great concern for education, Fandly wrote, allowed the more intelligent monks to write books while forcing the others to perform manual work. In addition, he said, the great number of monks forced many to become idlers or beggars, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars created friction in the monasteries. To remedy these problems Fandly recommended a return to more spiritual concerns and a surrendering of all unnecessary wealth.7 The publication of Duwernd zmluwa was a cause for a great debate among Fandly's contemporaries. Fandly was reprimaded by his ecclesiastical superiors for the book. The General Vicar, Jozef Vilt, in a letter dated August 13, 1789 condemned Duwernd zmluwa. Jozef Ignac Bajza, using �62 SLOVAKIA the pseudonym, Anton Kubovic, published a sharp rebuke on Fancily and the Bernolak movement in a book entitled, Anti-F<indly aneb duverne Rozmluw<ini medzi svatokaterinskym kucharom Theodolusem Zelenicom a Jurajem F<indli. This attack forced Anton Bernolak to respond with a pamphlet, Toto Malicke Pismo ma sa P<inowi Anti-F<indlymu do Geho wlastnich Ruk odewzdat', in defense of Fandly.8 It is not to be concluded that Fandly was a deist or anti-monastic but merely a believer in a more puritanical faith free from any religious emptiness that characterized many monasteries at that time. 9 It is also not to be forgotten that Duwern<i zmluwa was not only the first book written in the Bernolak's Slovak but remained the classic example of Enlightenment literature in Slovakia. Fandly did not employ all his energies only to monastic reforms but was actively concerned with the plight of the Slovak peasantry. While at Nahac Fandly was the village doctor, herbalist, as well as priest. There he was able to view first hand the misery of the people. He attributed Slovak poverty in part to the peasants' general ignorance of agricultural technology. To aid the Slovak peasants in their farming Fancily wrote a reference book on agriculture called, Pil'ni pol'ni a domagsi hospodar. 10 In it Fandly urged the use of the new alternating planting system in preference to the traditional three field system. He gave instructions on the use of fertilizers, showed the need of growing fodder for livestock and tried to show the advantage of potato cultivation recently introduced to Hungary.11 Fancily's interest in agriculture was shared by several other writers of his generation including Cudovit Mitterpacher, writer of lectures, Elementa rei rusticae and Matej Pankl, author of the agricultural textoook, Compendium oeconomiae. These writings coincided with the general efforts of Josef II to upgrade Austrian agriculture. He encouraged the cultivation of new crops such as tobacco, corn, flax, indigo, silk, hemp, and potatoes. Fandly's work in agriculture arose more from a deep concern for the welfare of the Slovak peasantry than from a purely scientific interest. An important element not to be overlooked in Fandly's writings was his Slovak nationalism. In his works Fandly tried to instill feelings of pride in the Slovak nation, in its �SLOVAKIA 63 language and history. He wrote in the introduction to Pil'nf Hospoddr: "Carefully recall how glorious our Slovak nation was, when in ancient times it was victorious many times over the powerful courageous Romans when they occupied this territory." 12 With the same national spirit Fandly traced the etymology of the word, "Slav", and found it to come from the word, sldva, meaning glory or fame, thus indicating the glorious past of the ancient Slovaks. He wrote: Let us consider a little, from what do we get the name Slovaks? From this praise worthy word sl.tiva; from those many and frequent victories over the fearful foreign nations, not only over the Romans, but also over many other enemies which our nation was very frequently in ancient times gloriously victorious, therefore our nation always, everywhere when it drew its weapons was given and attributed with the praiseworthy sltiva. Therefore it has named itself the glorious nation ; this is tlle source of the word for the Slovak nation.13 Fandly was credited with making a major contribution to the development of the Slovak language by the writing of Duwernd zmluwa in the literary Slovak based on Bernolak's codification of Slovak using the Western dialect. On several occasions Fandly extolled the Slovak language and tried to foster its literary growth. Fandly's hope for a great future for the Slovak language was seen in the preface to his work, Zelinkdr. He said: "In a few years the educated world will see that the Slovak language and its written form will always be compared with great praise with the other languages of Europe in their spiritual and secular books." 14 In 1793 Fandly helped establish the Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo, an organization centered in Trnava, devoted to the publication of books in the new Bernolak Slovak.15 For some time Fandly served as the institution's secretary and director of its branch offices in Nitra, Vienna, Banska Bystrica, and other places. Fandly was also instrumental in reviving the CyriloMethodian tradition in Slovakia. In Kdzne, published in 1796, he glorified the mission of SS. Cyril and Methodius to the Slovaks. They were interpreted by Fandly as the greatest Slovak apostles who fulfilled the divine command to bring the gospels to all nations, and by firmly establishing the Church in Slovakia made Christianity an integral part of the Slovak national character. 16 In Kazne Fandly wrote: �64 SLOVAKIA SS. Cyril and Methodius are worthy of this celebration and of this laudable praise for their great apostolic work performed for the salvation of our Slovak nation. Therefore they are for our generation of Slovak men, our laudable and spiritual ancestors, our greatest Slovak apostles .... remember that you will hear qf the honor and praise for our great patron saints which we Slovaks hold to God the greatest thanks, for our glorious natio11 / has believed and strongly preserved for many hundreds of years to the single saving Catholic truths. Blessed be the eyes of our first Catholic Slovaks who saw our first greatest bishops; blessed be the ears who heard them.17 Any introduction to Fandly would be incomplete without a few words on his work as a historian. Fandly was the last of the great Slovak historians of the 18th century which included Jan Baltazar Magin, Samuel Timon, Matej Bel, Jan Severiny, Juraj Papanek, Juraj Rohany, Adam Kollar, and Juraj Sklenar. The glorification of the past was for Fandly, along with language and literature, the principle ways of stimulating feelings of national pride. For Fandly history had also a great morally instructive purpose, presenting people with historical figures to imitate lessons to be learned. He wrote: You are educated with various praiseworthy sciences whose foundations are the natural law, God's given and society's laws; these all show us direction for the good and happy life. But let us enkindle in us a torch by the reading and knowledge of historical events for the deeds of long ago. History will educate people as a mirror of how it was. For a great many learned men have named history's motherly virtues and called it a teacher of a good life.1s Although all his works contain references to the Slovak past his major historical effort was a history of the Slovaks written in Latin entitled, Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae. The work, however, was not completely original but a revised edition of a similar history by Juraj Papanek. In this work Fandly traced the history of Great Moravia, relating the exploits of its rulers, its wars and its defeat by the Magyars. 19 The repeated references in the work to Svatopluk, the 9th century Moravian ruler, as "King of the Slovaks", and the identification of Great Moravia as an ancient Slovak state gave further evidence of Fandly's developed national feelings. Fandly shared some relationship to later Slovak nationalists because of his national consciousness and more particularly because of his recognition of the Slovak nation as a separate entity having its own distinct language. It is safe to say that Fandly was a forerunner to the Slovak leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. �SLOVAKIA 65 In the final analysis it would have to be argued that Fandly was of extraordinary importance to Slovak history. He was the first true 'Slovak' intellectual and the first Slovak writer who did not represent any exclusive upper class but who wrote for the common people. In his works be combined a Slovak nationalism with a concern over the economic conditions of the Slovak peasants. Throughout his active life Fandly was an advocate of political reform, being especially critical of serfdom which he believed hindered the peasants' economic progress. Marxists historians have correctly labeled Fandly a "progressive" for his condemnation of feudalism and his efforts to awaken the class consciousness of the Slovak peasants.20 In summary then, Fandly's insight into Slovak problem, his efforts to improve the lot of the common people, and his stiring of the national consciousness have earned him a deserving place among the intellectuals of the Slovak Renaissance. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FANDLY'S IMPORTANT WORKS 178J 1. Duwerna Zmluwa mezi Mnichom a Diablom o prwnich Pocatkoch, starodciwnich, ag o wculagsich Premencich Reholnickich. Witlafona z Nakladom tich istich mladich Knazow. Z Dowolenim Cisarskeg Kralowskeg Censuri. W Presporku, Z Literami Gana Michala Landerera . Uro eniho z Fi ';tulcu . l ',' 89 2. Druhci Stranka duwerneg Zmluwi mezi Mnichom a Diablom obsahugic sedem Pricin starodawnich ag wculagsich reholnickich Premen. 7 1790 Kazdodenne rozgimani smrti. V Presporku 1790. 1792 1. Pil'ni domagsi a polni Hospodar · • . Witlaceni z Utratami Panow Predplatitelow w Trnawe u Waclawa Gelinka, mestskeho Knihotlacara Roku 1792. 2. Druhci Stranka w ktoreg po Smrti prwneho, druhi Pil'ni Hospodar Wikladci newedomemu Hospodcirowi, a leniweg Gazd'ine, gake ma Prcice pres celi rok w kazdem Mesici, a gakim Spusobom wikonawat'? Trnawa, 1792. 1793 1. Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae ... Tyrnaviae, Typis Wenceslai Jelinek. Ex pensis D. D. Praenumerantium, Literatae Slavicae Societatis sociorum 1793. 2. Zelinkar, z welkich zel'inkarskich Knih wit'ahnuti, wikladagicf, kratke, ale zretedelne, a welmi uzitecne Radi z obicagnimi Zelinkami, prot'i iilemocam obidwogeho ludskeho Pokolena. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z U- tratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Knihtlacara, Roku 1793. �SLOVAKIA 66 1795 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne, od mnohowelebneho Pana Fandli Gura nahticskeho Fartira zloiene ai ktizane. Prwni Zwazek. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z utratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Ki\.ihtlacara, Roku 1795. 1796 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne ... Druhi Zwazek, Trnawa, 1796. 1798 Pobozne Pesnicki k ienskim Prtidktim, tes ke chlapskim Wecernagsim Schtidsktim prichistane. W Trnawe, witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka, 1798. 1800 Tre t'ti Strtinka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira .•. 0 Planettich, na kolko Wedomost a pozorowtini o nich, gest Hospodtirowi potrebne. Trnava, 1800. Stwrtti Stranka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira . .• 0 Opaternost'i zdraweg, ai o Wilecenu nezdraweg rozneg Lichwi. Trnava, 1800. 1802 0 Uhor,och ai Wceltich Rozmluwtini Mezi Uradskima a Ri chttirom, kesthelskeg hospodtirskeg Skoli Nauceni wikltidagicim. W Trnawe, Witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Kiiihtlacara. 1802. Slowenski Wceltir . .. W Trnawe, Witlaceni u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Knihtlacara. 1802. 1808 Kaidodennti Pamtitka Smrti a pobointi Modlitba za Obdritini scastZiweg Smrti. W Trnawe 1808. Witlacena u Waclawa Gelinka. UNPUBLISHED WORKS Patti Strtinka Pil'ne ho Hospodtira o Konoch. W Trnawe 1810. Sestti Strtinka Pil'neho Hospodtira o Owctich. Sedemti Strtinka O Opatrnosti mladich ai starich Swin . . . Osmti Strtinka O Opatrnost'i wseligakeho mladeho, ai stareho kridelneho Hidu . . • 5. Historica Dissertatw De Oppido Ottenthal, Et de ejus Memorabilibus. 1. 2. 3. 4. Conscripta per Adm. Rendum Georgium Fandly, Emeritum Parochum Nahacsiensem, In Patria Ottenthalensi cum Pensione Qviescentem. Additamentum. Folio 61 Promissum. Exponens qvinqve Rebelliones, olim in Hungaria, excitatas. Anno 1810. 6. Defensio Germanorum in Hungaria habitantium. FOOTNOTES 1) The facts on Fandly's life were abstracted from: Dr. Imrich Kotvan, Juraj Ftindly (1750-1811), (Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946) , pp. 16-23; and Jan Tibensky (ed.), Juraj Ftindly: Vyber z diela, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954), pp. 7-9. 2) Until 1937 it was believed that Fandly was born in Ompital. This has now been disproven. Kotvan, p. 17. 3) Kotvan, p. 23. �SLOVAKIA 67 4) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 12-18. C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), pp. 120-121. 5) Vyber z diela, "Duwerna zmluwa", pp. 103-114. 6) Ibid., pp. 115-116. 7) Ibid., pp. 178-185. 8) Ibid., pp. 23-27. Kotvan, pp. 44-45. 9) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", p. 19. 10) Altogether there are four volumes of Pil'ni hospodar. Two have been published and two remain in manuscript form. 11) Vyber z diela, "Pil'ni hospodar", pp. 258-267. 12) Ibid., p. 250. 13) Ibid., pp. 250-251. 14) Vyber z diela, "Zelinkar", p. 332. Also quoted in Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, Vol. I. (Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1906), p. 36. 15) See Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (17801848) , (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 48-62. and Boris Balent, "K organizacii a vydavatel'skej cinnosti Slovenskeho uceneho tovarisstva", K pociatkom slovenskeho narodneho obrodenia, ed. Jan Tibensky, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964), pp. 189-200. 16) Vyber z diela, "Kazne", pp. 343-355. 17) Ibid., pp. 340-341. 18) Vyber z diela, "Historia Gentis Slavae", p. 360. 19) Ibid., pp. 362-378. 20 ) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 28-56. BIBLIOGRAPHY Botto, Julius.Kratka hist6ria Slovakov. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1914. Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 vols. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef. Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848) . Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Gogolak, Ludwig. Beitrage zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volkes. Milnchen, 1963. Holotik, I.:udovit and Tibensky, Jan. (ed.) Dejiny Slovenska. Vol I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Kotvan, Imrich. Juraj Fandly (1750-1811). Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946. Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. Prazak, Dr. Albert. Dejiny slovenske literatury. Praha, 1950. Rekem, Dr. John. Slovak Literature and National Consciousness Before Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1964. Tibensky, Jan, (ed.). Juraj Fandly: Vyber z diela. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954. (ed.) . K pociatkom slovenskeh-0 narodneho obrodenia. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964. � SLOVAKIA 59 Anthony X. S u t he r la n d, Ph.D.: Juraj Fondly: An Introduction to His Life and Work It is regrettable that in the writings of Western historians on Slavic history little attention has been devoted to the 18th century Slovak writer and nationalist, Juraj Fandly. Yet there was much in Fandly's career to warrant a deeper analysis than has been offered to date. Fandly was not only an important member of the Bernolak school of writers but also the foremost representative of the French Enlightenment in Slovakia and a pioneer in the development of the Slovak national ideology. It is hoped that this short study will serve as an introduction and be a stimulus for a more deeper analysis in the future of this important Slovak intellectual. There is almost no satisfactory account of Fandly in English. Most Western historians, if they mention Fandly at all, usually discuss him very briefly or in a line or phrase included in a greater description of the Slovak Renaissance. Included among the best works on Fandly are a monograph by Imrich Kotvan published in 1946 and a selection of his writings, Vyber z diela, edited by Jan Tibensky in 1954. This anthology, Vyber z diela, contains sizable excerpts from Fandly's works as well as having an excellent introduction to his career and writings. The details on Fandly's life have remained sketchy.1 Juraj 1<1 andly was born October 21, 1750 in casta in Western Slovakia to Jan a Maria Fandly. 2 Following the death of Jan Fandly, Maria Fandly moved her family to Ompital. There young Juraj began his studies at school. Little has come down to us concerning Fandly's early school years. It was noted that he was a good student but seemed to suffer from poor health, thus forcing him to frequently break off his schooling. In 1771 Juraj Fandly started his theological studies for the Catholic priesthood at the Seminary in Budin, and in 1773 went to complete his training at the Seminary of St. Stephen in Trnava. There in 1776 he was ordained a Catholic priest. �60 SLOVAKIA His first assignment as a priest was to Sered' where he remained for three years before being transferred to Lukacovce. In 1780 he was appointed as pastor in Nahac, where he remained for twenty-seven years, from 1780 to 1807. An excellent characterization of Fandly as a pastor was provided in an ecclesiastical report dated September 5, 1782: He is of tall stature, slim, reddish in the face, strong fingers, strong temperament, a humble spirit, held in great respect among the farmers and foreigners, wears his hair according to local custom, does not smoke, bears no weapons, drinks wine only occasionally, is not given to excursions or farming, performs correctly all his pastoral obligations, says Mass everyday, under his administration no one has died without the sacraments; the church is not in debt, performs his breviary and canonical hours carefully; there is no grounds for him to be removed from office.3 In 1807 Fandly departed to Ompital to rest and recuperate from failing health. There he died March 7, 1811. Juraj Fandly was a real product of the 18th century, that century of the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. The writings of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were spread to all parts of Europe bringing new ideas of the supremacy of reason, the equality of nations, and the necessity for church and social reforms, thus resulting in a challenge to the very fabric of feudal society. The Habsburg Empire, being among the most backward in Europe, was fertile soil for the reception of these new progressive concepts. Several "enlightened" writers emerged in Hungary during this time who transmitted the ideas of the French Enlightenment to Slovak society. They included Adam Kollar, Jozef Ignac Bajza, Samuel Tesedik, Daniel Lehocky, as well as Juraj Fandly. The French Enlightenment also affected the nature of the rule of the European monarchs. The notion of the "enlightened ruler," one who uses reason and efficiency in his administration became the basis of the reigns of several European rulers. Josef II of Austria, 1780-1790, was perhaps the best example of the "Enlightened Despot." Josef II undertook many reforms to modernize and centralize the empire in order to make it more efficient and to bring it more directly under his rule. Included in these reforms were some church reforms intended to curtail the power �SLOVAKIA 61 of the church. The number of theologians who could study outside the empire was reduced, the international power of the monasteries was attacked in a attempt to make monastic orders more subservient to local bishops, and finally some 350 monasteries were destroyed, their lands sold or leased out. 4 Fandly was in basic agreement with these church reforms. He believed that monasteries had become too worldly, and were remnants of medievalism that endangered both the church and society. His first work, Duwernd zmluwa mezi mnichom a didblom o prwnich pocdtkoch staroddwnich ag o wculagsich premendch reholnickich, pub- lished in 1789, was a defense of Josef's ecclesiastical reforms. It was written in the form of a humorous, satirical dialogue between a monk, Athanazius and the devil, Titinillus. In it Fandly attacked the decadence of the monasteries, explaining that their great accumulation of wealth had caused their decline. In the first section of the discussion between the monk and the devil Fandly traced the history of the monastic orders to show how the original intention of their founders to provide an atmosphere fo~ men to live in prayerful solitude had changed. 5 Fandly then listed seven reasons for the deterioration of the cloistered life: the increase learning of the monks, the great number of monks, the increase in the number of mendicant monks, the trickery or roguery of monks, the relaxation of moral standards, the new monastic devotions, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars. 6 The great concern for education, Fandly wrote, allowed the more intelligent monks to write books while forcing the others to perform manual work. In addition, he said, the great number of monks forced many to become idlers or beggars, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars created friction in the monasteries. To remedy these problems Fandly recommended a return to more spiritual concerns and a surrendering of all unnecessary wealth.7 The publication of Duwernd zmluwa was a cause for a great debate among Fandly's contemporaries. Fandly was reprimaded by his ecclesiastical superiors for the book. The General Vicar, Jozef Vilt, in a letter dated August 13, 1789 condemned Duwernd zmluwa. Jozef Ignac Bajza, using �62 SLOVAKIA the pseudonym, Anton Kubovic, published a sharp rebuke on Fancily and the Bernolak movement in a book entitled, Anti-F<indly aneb duverne Rozmluw<ini medzi svatokaterinskym kucharom Theodolusem Zelenicom a Jurajem F<indli. This attack forced Anton Bernolak to respond with a pamphlet, Toto Malicke Pismo ma sa P<inowi Anti-F<indlymu do Geho wlastnich Ruk odewzdat', in defense of Fandly.8 It is not to be concluded that Fandly was a deist or anti-monastic but merely a believer in a more puritanical faith free from any religious emptiness that characterized many monasteries at that time. 9 It is also not to be forgotten that Duwern<i zmluwa was not only the first book written in the Bernolak's Slovak but remained the classic example of Enlightenment literature in Slovakia. Fandly did not employ all his energies only to monastic reforms but was actively concerned with the plight of the Slovak peasantry. While at Nahac Fandly was the village doctor, herbalist, as well as priest. There he was able to view first hand the misery of the people. He attributed Slovak poverty in part to the peasants' general ignorance of agricultural technology. To aid the Slovak peasants in their farming Fancily wrote a reference book on agriculture called, Pil'ni pol'ni a domagsi hospodar. 10 In it Fandly urged the use of the new alternating planting system in preference to the traditional three field system. He gave instructions on the use of fertilizers, showed the need of growing fodder for livestock and tried to show the advantage of potato cultivation recently introduced to Hungary.11 Fancily's interest in agriculture was shared by several other writers of his generation including Cudovit Mitterpacher, writer of lectures, Elementa rei rusticae and Matej Pankl, author of the agricultural textoook, Compendium oeconomiae. These writings coincided with the general efforts of Josef II to upgrade Austrian agriculture. He encouraged the cultivation of new crops such as tobacco, corn, flax, indigo, silk, hemp, and potatoes. Fandly's work in agriculture arose more from a deep concern for the welfare of the Slovak peasantry than from a purely scientific interest. An important element not to be overlooked in Fandly's writings was his Slovak nationalism. In his works Fandly tried to instill feelings of pride in the Slovak nation, in its �SLOVAKIA 63 language and history. He wrote in the introduction to Pil'nf Hospoddr: "Carefully recall how glorious our Slovak nation was, when in ancient times it was victorious many times over the powerful courageous Romans when they occupied this territory." 12 With the same national spirit Fandly traced the etymology of the word, "Slav", and found it to come from the word, sldva, meaning glory or fame, thus indicating the glorious past of the ancient Slovaks. He wrote: Let us consider a little, from what do we get the name Slovaks? From this praise worthy word sl.tiva; from those many and frequent victories over the fearful foreign nations, not only over the Romans, but also over many other enemies which our nation was very frequently in ancient times gloriously victorious, therefore our nation always, everywhere when it drew its weapons was given and attributed with the praiseworthy sltiva. Therefore it has named itself the glorious nation ; this is tlle source of the word for the Slovak nation.13 Fandly was credited with making a major contribution to the development of the Slovak language by the writing of Duwernd zmluwa in the literary Slovak based on Bernolak's codification of Slovak using the Western dialect. On several occasions Fandly extolled the Slovak language and tried to foster its literary growth. Fandly's hope for a great future for the Slovak language was seen in the preface to his work, Zelinkdr. He said: "In a few years the educated world will see that the Slovak language and its written form will always be compared with great praise with the other languages of Europe in their spiritual and secular books." 14 In 1793 Fandly helped establish the Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo, an organization centered in Trnava, devoted to the publication of books in the new Bernolak Slovak.15 For some time Fandly served as the institution's secretary and director of its branch offices in Nitra, Vienna, Banska Bystrica, and other places. Fandly was also instrumental in reviving the CyriloMethodian tradition in Slovakia. In Kdzne, published in 1796, he glorified the mission of SS. Cyril and Methodius to the Slovaks. They were interpreted by Fandly as the greatest Slovak apostles who fulfilled the divine command to bring the gospels to all nations, and by firmly establishing the Church in Slovakia made Christianity an integral part of the Slovak national character. 16 In Kazne Fandly wrote: �64 SLOVAKIA SS. Cyril and Methodius are worthy of this celebration and of this laudable praise for their great apostolic work performed for the salvation of our Slovak nation. Therefore they are for our generation of Slovak men, our laudable and spiritual ancestors, our greatest Slovak apostles .... remember that you will hear qf the honor and praise for our great patron saints which we Slovaks hold to God the greatest thanks, for our glorious natio11 / has believed and strongly preserved for many hundreds of years to the single saving Catholic truths. Blessed be the eyes of our first Catholic Slovaks who saw our first greatest bishops; blessed be the ears who heard them.17 Any introduction to Fandly would be incomplete without a few words on his work as a historian. Fandly was the last of the great Slovak historians of the 18th century which included Jan Baltazar Magin, Samuel Timon, Matej Bel, Jan Severiny, Juraj Papanek, Juraj Rohany, Adam Kollar, and Juraj Sklenar. The glorification of the past was for Fandly, along with language and literature, the principle ways of stimulating feelings of national pride. For Fandly history had also a great morally instructive purpose, presenting people with historical figures to imitate lessons to be learned. He wrote: You are educated with various praiseworthy sciences whose foundations are the natural law, God's given and society's laws; these all show us direction for the good and happy life. But let us enkindle in us a torch by the reading and knowledge of historical events for the deeds of long ago. History will educate people as a mirror of how it was. For a great many learned men have named history's motherly virtues and called it a teacher of a good life.1s Although all his works contain references to the Slovak past his major historical effort was a history of the Slovaks written in Latin entitled, Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae. The work, however, was not completely original but a revised edition of a similar history by Juraj Papanek. In this work Fandly traced the history of Great Moravia, relating the exploits of its rulers, its wars and its defeat by the Magyars. 19 The repeated references in the work to Svatopluk, the 9th century Moravian ruler, as "King of the Slovaks", and the identification of Great Moravia as an ancient Slovak state gave further evidence of Fandly's developed national feelings. Fandly shared some relationship to later Slovak nationalists because of his national consciousness and more particularly because of his recognition of the Slovak nation as a separate entity having its own distinct language. It is safe to say that Fandly was a forerunner to the Slovak leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. �SLOVAKIA 65 In the final analysis it would have to be argued that Fandly was of extraordinary importance to Slovak history. He was the first true 'Slovak' intellectual and the first Slovak writer who did not represent any exclusive upper class but who wrote for the common people. In his works be combined a Slovak nationalism with a concern over the economic conditions of the Slovak peasants. Throughout his active life Fandly was an advocate of political reform, being especially critical of serfdom which he believed hindered the peasants' economic progress. Marxists historians have correctly labeled Fandly a "progressive" for his condemnation of feudalism and his efforts to awaken the class consciousness of the Slovak peasants.20 In summary then, Fandly's insight into Slovak problem, his efforts to improve the lot of the common people, and his stiring of the national consciousness have earned him a deserving place among the intellectuals of the Slovak Renaissance. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FANDLY'S IMPORTANT WORKS 178J 1. Duwerna Zmluwa mezi Mnichom a Diablom o prwnich Pocatkoch, starodciwnich, ag o wculagsich Premencich Reholnickich. Witlafona z Nakladom tich istich mladich Knazow. Z Dowolenim Cisarskeg Kralowskeg Censuri. W Presporku, Z Literami Gana Michala Landerera . Uro eniho z Fi ';tulcu . l ',' 89 2. Druhci Stranka duwerneg Zmluwi mezi Mnichom a Diablom obsahugic sedem Pricin starodawnich ag wculagsich reholnickich Premen. 7 1790 Kazdodenne rozgimani smrti. V Presporku 1790. 1792 1. Pil'ni domagsi a polni Hospodar · • . Witlaceni z Utratami Panow Predplatitelow w Trnawe u Waclawa Gelinka, mestskeho Knihotlacara Roku 1792. 2. Druhci Stranka w ktoreg po Smrti prwneho, druhi Pil'ni Hospodar Wikladci newedomemu Hospodcirowi, a leniweg Gazd'ine, gake ma Prcice pres celi rok w kazdem Mesici, a gakim Spusobom wikonawat'? Trnawa, 1792. 1793 1. Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae ... Tyrnaviae, Typis Wenceslai Jelinek. Ex pensis D. D. Praenumerantium, Literatae Slavicae Societatis sociorum 1793. 2. Zelinkar, z welkich zel'inkarskich Knih wit'ahnuti, wikladagicf, kratke, ale zretedelne, a welmi uzitecne Radi z obicagnimi Zelinkami, prot'i iilemocam obidwogeho ludskeho Pokolena. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z U- tratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Knihtlacara, Roku 1793. �SLOVAKIA 66 1795 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne, od mnohowelebneho Pana Fandli Gura nahticskeho Fartira zloiene ai ktizane. Prwni Zwazek. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z utratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Ki\.ihtlacara, Roku 1795. 1796 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne ... Druhi Zwazek, Trnawa, 1796. 1798 Pobozne Pesnicki k ienskim Prtidktim, tes ke chlapskim Wecernagsim Schtidsktim prichistane. W Trnawe, witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka, 1798. 1800 Tre t'ti Strtinka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira .•. 0 Planettich, na kolko Wedomost a pozorowtini o nich, gest Hospodtirowi potrebne. Trnava, 1800. Stwrtti Stranka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira . .• 0 Opaternost'i zdraweg, ai o Wilecenu nezdraweg rozneg Lichwi. Trnava, 1800. 1802 0 Uhor,och ai Wceltich Rozmluwtini Mezi Uradskima a Ri chttirom, kesthelskeg hospodtirskeg Skoli Nauceni wikltidagicim. W Trnawe, Witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Kiiihtlacara. 1802. Slowenski Wceltir . .. W Trnawe, Witlaceni u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Knihtlacara. 1802. 1808 Kaidodennti Pamtitka Smrti a pobointi Modlitba za Obdritini scastZiweg Smrti. W Trnawe 1808. Witlacena u Waclawa Gelinka. UNPUBLISHED WORKS Patti Strtinka Pil'ne ho Hospodtira o Konoch. W Trnawe 1810. Sestti Strtinka Pil'neho Hospodtira o Owctich. Sedemti Strtinka O Opatrnosti mladich ai starich Swin . . . Osmti Strtinka O Opatrnost'i wseligakeho mladeho, ai stareho kridelneho Hidu . . • 5. Historica Dissertatw De Oppido Ottenthal, Et de ejus Memorabilibus. 1. 2. 3. 4. Conscripta per Adm. Rendum Georgium Fandly, Emeritum Parochum Nahacsiensem, In Patria Ottenthalensi cum Pensione Qviescentem. Additamentum. Folio 61 Promissum. Exponens qvinqve Rebelliones, olim in Hungaria, excitatas. Anno 1810. 6. Defensio Germanorum in Hungaria habitantium. FOOTNOTES 1) The facts on Fandly's life were abstracted from: Dr. Imrich Kotvan, Juraj Ftindly (1750-1811), (Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946) , pp. 16-23; and Jan Tibensky (ed.), Juraj Ftindly: Vyber z diela, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954), pp. 7-9. 2) Until 1937 it was believed that Fandly was born in Ompital. This has now been disproven. Kotvan, p. 17. 3) Kotvan, p. 23. �SLOVAKIA 67 4) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 12-18. C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), pp. 120-121. 5) Vyber z diela, "Duwerna zmluwa", pp. 103-114. 6) Ibid., pp. 115-116. 7) Ibid., pp. 178-185. 8) Ibid., pp. 23-27. Kotvan, pp. 44-45. 9) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", p. 19. 10) Altogether there are four volumes of Pil'ni hospodar. Two have been published and two remain in manuscript form. 11) Vyber z diela, "Pil'ni hospodar", pp. 258-267. 12) Ibid., p. 250. 13) Ibid., pp. 250-251. 14) Vyber z diela, "Zelinkar", p. 332. Also quoted in Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, Vol. I. (Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1906), p. 36. 15) See Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (17801848) , (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 48-62. and Boris Balent, "K organizacii a vydavatel'skej cinnosti Slovenskeho uceneho tovarisstva", K pociatkom slovenskeho narodneho obrodenia, ed. Jan Tibensky, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964), pp. 189-200. 16) Vyber z diela, "Kazne", pp. 343-355. 17) Ibid., pp. 340-341. 18) Vyber z diela, "Historia Gentis Slavae", p. 360. 19) Ibid., pp. 362-378. 20 ) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 28-56. BIBLIOGRAPHY Botto, Julius.Kratka hist6ria Slovakov. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1914. Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 vols. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef. Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848) . Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Gogolak, Ludwig. Beitrage zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volkes. Milnchen, 1963. Holotik, I.:udovit and Tibensky, Jan. (ed.) Dejiny Slovenska. Vol I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Kotvan, Imrich. Juraj Fandly (1750-1811). Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946. Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. Prazak, Dr. Albert. Dejiny slovenske literatury. Praha, 1950. Rekem, Dr. John. Slovak Literature and National Consciousness Before Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1964. Tibensky, Jan, (ed.). Juraj Fandly: Vyber z diela. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954. (ed.) . K pociatkom slovenskeh-0 narodneho obrodenia. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964. � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 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 59 Anthony X. S u t he r la n d, Ph.D.: Juraj Fondly: An Introduction to His Life and Work It is regrettable that in the writings of Western historians on Slavic history little attention has been devoted to the 18th century Slovak writer and nationalist, Juraj Fandly. Yet there was much in Fandly's career to warrant a deeper analysis than has been offered to date. Fandly was not only an important member of the Bernolak school of writers but also the foremost representative of the French Enlightenment in Slovakia and a pioneer in the development of the Slovak national ideology. It is hoped that this short study will serve as an introduction and be a stimulus for a more deeper analysis in the future of this important Slovak intellectual. There is almost no satisfactory account of Fandly in English. Most Western historians, if they mention Fandly at all, usually discuss him very briefly or in a line or phrase included in a greater description of the Slovak Renaissance. Included among the best works on Fandly are a monograph by Imrich Kotvan published in 1946 and a selection of his writings, Vyber z diela, edited by Jan Tibensky in 1954. This anthology, Vyber z diela, contains sizable excerpts from Fandly's works as well as having an excellent introduction to his career and writings. The details on Fandly's life have remained sketchy.1 Juraj 1<1 andly was born October 21, 1750 in casta in Western Slovakia to Jan a Maria Fandly. 2 Following the death of Jan Fandly, Maria Fandly moved her family to Ompital. There young Juraj began his studies at school. Little has come down to us concerning Fandly's early school years. It was noted that he was a good student but seemed to suffer from poor health, thus forcing him to frequently break off his schooling. In 1771 Juraj Fandly started his theological studies for the Catholic priesthood at the Seminary in Budin, and in 1773 went to complete his training at the Seminary of St. Stephen in Trnava. There in 1776 he was ordained a Catholic priest. 60 SLOVAKIA His first assignment as a priest was to Sered' where he remained for three years before being transferred to Lukacovce. In 1780 he was appointed as pastor in Nahac, where he remained for twenty-seven years, from 1780 to 1807. An excellent characterization of Fandly as a pastor was provided in an ecclesiastical report dated September 5, 1782: He is of tall stature, slim, reddish in the face, strong fingers, strong temperament, a humble spirit, held in great respect among the farmers and foreigners, wears his hair according to local custom, does not smoke, bears no weapons, drinks wine only occasionally, is not given to excursions or farming, performs correctly all his pastoral obligations, says Mass everyday, under his administration no one has died without the sacraments; the church is not in debt, performs his breviary and canonical hours carefully; there is no grounds for him to be removed from office.3 In 1807 Fandly departed to Ompital to rest and recuperate from failing health. There he died March 7, 1811. Juraj Fandly was a real product of the 18th century, that century of the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. The writings of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were spread to all parts of Europe bringing new ideas of the supremacy of reason, the equality of nations, and the necessity for church and social reforms, thus resulting in a challenge to the very fabric of feudal society. The Habsburg Empire, being among the most backward in Europe, was fertile soil for the reception of these new progressive concepts. Several "enlightened" writers emerged in Hungary during this time who transmitted the ideas of the French Enlightenment to Slovak society. They included Adam Kollar, Jozef Ignac Bajza, Samuel Tesedik, Daniel Lehocky, as well as Juraj Fandly. The French Enlightenment also affected the nature of the rule of the European monarchs. The notion of the "enlightened ruler," one who uses reason and efficiency in his administration became the basis of the reigns of several European rulers. Josef II of Austria, 1780-1790, was perhaps the best example of the "Enlightened Despot." Josef II undertook many reforms to modernize and centralize the empire in order to make it more efficient and to bring it more directly under his rule. Included in these reforms were some church reforms intended to curtail the power SLOVAKIA 61 of the church. The number of theologians who could study outside the empire was reduced, the international power of the monasteries was attacked in a attempt to make monastic orders more subservient to local bishops, and finally some 350 monasteries were destroyed, their lands sold or leased out. 4 Fandly was in basic agreement with these church reforms. He believed that monasteries had become too worldly, and were remnants of medievalism that endangered both the church and society. His first work, Duwernd zmluwa mezi mnichom a didblom o prwnich pocdtkoch staroddwnich ag o wculagsich premendch reholnickich, pub- lished in 1789, was a defense of Josef's ecclesiastical reforms. It was written in the form of a humorous, satirical dialogue between a monk, Athanazius and the devil, Titinillus. In it Fandly attacked the decadence of the monasteries, explaining that their great accumulation of wealth had caused their decline. In the first section of the discussion between the monk and the devil Fandly traced the history of the monastic orders to show how the original intention of their founders to provide an atmosphere fo~ men to live in prayerful solitude had changed. 5 Fandly then listed seven reasons for the deterioration of the cloistered life: the increase learning of the monks, the great number of monks, the increase in the number of mendicant monks, the trickery or roguery of monks, the relaxation of moral standards, the new monastic devotions, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars. 6 The great concern for education, Fandly wrote, allowed the more intelligent monks to write books while forcing the others to perform manual work. In addition, he said, the great number of monks forced many to become idlers or beggars, and the division of the clergy into monks and friars created friction in the monasteries. To remedy these problems Fandly recommended a return to more spiritual concerns and a surrendering of all unnecessary wealth.7 The publication of Duwernd zmluwa was a cause for a great debate among Fandly's contemporaries. Fandly was reprimaded by his ecclesiastical superiors for the book. The General Vicar, Jozef Vilt, in a letter dated August 13, 1789 condemned Duwernd zmluwa. Jozef Ignac Bajza, using 62 SLOVAKIA the pseudonym, Anton Kubovic, published a sharp rebuke on Fancily and the Bernolak movement in a book entitled, Anti-F<indly aneb duverne Rozmluw<ini medzi svatokaterinskym kucharom Theodolusem Zelenicom a Jurajem F<indli. This attack forced Anton Bernolak to respond with a pamphlet, Toto Malicke Pismo ma sa P<inowi Anti-F<indlymu do Geho wlastnich Ruk odewzdat', in defense of Fandly.8 It is not to be concluded that Fandly was a deist or anti-monastic but merely a believer in a more puritanical faith free from any religious emptiness that characterized many monasteries at that time. 9 It is also not to be forgotten that Duwern<i zmluwa was not only the first book written in the Bernolak's Slovak but remained the classic example of Enlightenment literature in Slovakia. Fandly did not employ all his energies only to monastic reforms but was actively concerned with the plight of the Slovak peasantry. While at Nahac Fandly was the village doctor, herbalist, as well as priest. There he was able to view first hand the misery of the people. He attributed Slovak poverty in part to the peasants' general ignorance of agricultural technology. To aid the Slovak peasants in their farming Fancily wrote a reference book on agriculture called, Pil'ni pol'ni a domagsi hospodar. 10 In it Fandly urged the use of the new alternating planting system in preference to the traditional three field system. He gave instructions on the use of fertilizers, showed the need of growing fodder for livestock and tried to show the advantage of potato cultivation recently introduced to Hungary.11 Fancily's interest in agriculture was shared by several other writers of his generation including Cudovit Mitterpacher, writer of lectures, Elementa rei rusticae and Matej Pankl, author of the agricultural textoook, Compendium oeconomiae. These writings coincided with the general efforts of Josef II to upgrade Austrian agriculture. He encouraged the cultivation of new crops such as tobacco, corn, flax, indigo, silk, hemp, and potatoes. Fandly's work in agriculture arose more from a deep concern for the welfare of the Slovak peasantry than from a purely scientific interest. An important element not to be overlooked in Fandly's writings was his Slovak nationalism. In his works Fandly tried to instill feelings of pride in the Slovak nation, in its SLOVAKIA 63 language and history. He wrote in the introduction to Pil'nf Hospoddr: "Carefully recall how glorious our Slovak nation was, when in ancient times it was victorious many times over the powerful courageous Romans when they occupied this territory." 12 With the same national spirit Fandly traced the etymology of the word, "Slav", and found it to come from the word, sldva, meaning glory or fame, thus indicating the glorious past of the ancient Slovaks. He wrote: Let us consider a little, from what do we get the name Slovaks? From this praise worthy word sl.tiva; from those many and frequent victories over the fearful foreign nations, not only over the Romans, but also over many other enemies which our nation was very frequently in ancient times gloriously victorious, therefore our nation always, everywhere when it drew its weapons was given and attributed with the praiseworthy sltiva. Therefore it has named itself the glorious nation ; this is tlle source of the word for the Slovak nation.13 Fandly was credited with making a major contribution to the development of the Slovak language by the writing of Duwernd zmluwa in the literary Slovak based on Bernolak's codification of Slovak using the Western dialect. On several occasions Fandly extolled the Slovak language and tried to foster its literary growth. Fandly's hope for a great future for the Slovak language was seen in the preface to his work, Zelinkdr. He said: "In a few years the educated world will see that the Slovak language and its written form will always be compared with great praise with the other languages of Europe in their spiritual and secular books." 14 In 1793 Fandly helped establish the Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo, an organization centered in Trnava, devoted to the publication of books in the new Bernolak Slovak.15 For some time Fandly served as the institution's secretary and director of its branch offices in Nitra, Vienna, Banska Bystrica, and other places. Fandly was also instrumental in reviving the CyriloMethodian tradition in Slovakia. In Kdzne, published in 1796, he glorified the mission of SS. Cyril and Methodius to the Slovaks. They were interpreted by Fandly as the greatest Slovak apostles who fulfilled the divine command to bring the gospels to all nations, and by firmly establishing the Church in Slovakia made Christianity an integral part of the Slovak national character. 16 In Kazne Fandly wrote: 64 SLOVAKIA SS. Cyril and Methodius are worthy of this celebration and of this laudable praise for their great apostolic work performed for the salvation of our Slovak nation. Therefore they are for our generation of Slovak men, our laudable and spiritual ancestors, our greatest Slovak apostles .... remember that you will hear qf the honor and praise for our great patron saints which we Slovaks hold to God the greatest thanks, for our glorious natio11 / has believed and strongly preserved for many hundreds of years to the single saving Catholic truths. Blessed be the eyes of our first Catholic Slovaks who saw our first greatest bishops; blessed be the ears who heard them.17 Any introduction to Fandly would be incomplete without a few words on his work as a historian. Fandly was the last of the great Slovak historians of the 18th century which included Jan Baltazar Magin, Samuel Timon, Matej Bel, Jan Severiny, Juraj Papanek, Juraj Rohany, Adam Kollar, and Juraj Sklenar. The glorification of the past was for Fandly, along with language and literature, the principle ways of stimulating feelings of national pride. For Fandly history had also a great morally instructive purpose, presenting people with historical figures to imitate lessons to be learned. He wrote: You are educated with various praiseworthy sciences whose foundations are the natural law, God's given and society's laws; these all show us direction for the good and happy life. But let us enkindle in us a torch by the reading and knowledge of historical events for the deeds of long ago. History will educate people as a mirror of how it was. For a great many learned men have named history's motherly virtues and called it a teacher of a good life.1s Although all his works contain references to the Slovak past his major historical effort was a history of the Slovaks written in Latin entitled, Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae. The work, however, was not completely original but a revised edition of a similar history by Juraj Papanek. In this work Fandly traced the history of Great Moravia, relating the exploits of its rulers, its wars and its defeat by the Magyars. 19 The repeated references in the work to Svatopluk, the 9th century Moravian ruler, as "King of the Slovaks", and the identification of Great Moravia as an ancient Slovak state gave further evidence of Fandly's developed national feelings. Fandly shared some relationship to later Slovak nationalists because of his national consciousness and more particularly because of his recognition of the Slovak nation as a separate entity having its own distinct language. It is safe to say that Fandly was a forerunner to the Slovak leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. SLOVAKIA 65 In the final analysis it would have to be argued that Fandly was of extraordinary importance to Slovak history. He was the first true 'Slovak' intellectual and the first Slovak writer who did not represent any exclusive upper class but who wrote for the common people. In his works be combined a Slovak nationalism with a concern over the economic conditions of the Slovak peasants. Throughout his active life Fandly was an advocate of political reform, being especially critical of serfdom which he believed hindered the peasants' economic progress. Marxists historians have correctly labeled Fandly a "progressive" for his condemnation of feudalism and his efforts to awaken the class consciousness of the Slovak peasants.20 In summary then, Fandly's insight into Slovak problem, his efforts to improve the lot of the common people, and his stiring of the national consciousness have earned him a deserving place among the intellectuals of the Slovak Renaissance. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FANDLY'S IMPORTANT WORKS 178J 1. Duwerna Zmluwa mezi Mnichom a Diablom o prwnich Pocatkoch, starodciwnich, ag o wculagsich Premencich Reholnickich. Witlafona z Nakladom tich istich mladich Knazow. Z Dowolenim Cisarskeg Kralowskeg Censuri. W Presporku, Z Literami Gana Michala Landerera . Uro eniho z Fi ';tulcu . l ',' 89 2. Druhci Stranka duwerneg Zmluwi mezi Mnichom a Diablom obsahugic sedem Pricin starodawnich ag wculagsich reholnickich Premen. 7 1790 Kazdodenne rozgimani smrti. V Presporku 1790. 1792 1. Pil'ni domagsi a polni Hospodar · • . Witlaceni z Utratami Panow Predplatitelow w Trnawe u Waclawa Gelinka, mestskeho Knihotlacara Roku 1792. 2. Druhci Stranka w ktoreg po Smrti prwneho, druhi Pil'ni Hospodar Wikladci newedomemu Hospodcirowi, a leniweg Gazd'ine, gake ma Prcice pres celi rok w kazdem Mesici, a gakim Spusobom wikonawat'? Trnawa, 1792. 1793 1. Compendiata Historia Gentis Slavae ... Tyrnaviae, Typis Wenceslai Jelinek. Ex pensis D. D. Praenumerantium, Literatae Slavicae Societatis sociorum 1793. 2. Zelinkar, z welkich zel'inkarskich Knih wit'ahnuti, wikladagicf, kratke, ale zretedelne, a welmi uzitecne Radi z obicagnimi Zelinkami, prot'i iilemocam obidwogeho ludskeho Pokolena. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z U- tratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Knihtlacara, Roku 1793. SLOVAKIA 66 1795 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne, od mnohowelebneho Pana Fandli Gura nahticskeho Fartira zloiene ai ktizane. Prwni Zwazek. W Trnawe, Witlaceni z utratami Panow Predplat'itelow u Waclawa Gelinka, Pravil. Ki\.ihtlacara, Roku 1795. 1796 Prihodne a Swtitecne Ktizne ... Druhi Zwazek, Trnawa, 1796. 1798 Pobozne Pesnicki k ienskim Prtidktim, tes ke chlapskim Wecernagsim Schtidsktim prichistane. W Trnawe, witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka, 1798. 1800 Tre t'ti Strtinka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira .•. 0 Planettich, na kolko Wedomost a pozorowtini o nich, gest Hospodtirowi potrebne. Trnava, 1800. Stwrtti Stranka pil'neho domagseho a polneho Hospodtira . .• 0 Opaternost'i zdraweg, ai o Wilecenu nezdraweg rozneg Lichwi. Trnava, 1800. 1802 0 Uhor,och ai Wceltich Rozmluwtini Mezi Uradskima a Ri chttirom, kesthelskeg hospodtirskeg Skoli Nauceni wikltidagicim. W Trnawe, Witlacene u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Kiiihtlacara. 1802. Slowenski Wceltir . .. W Trnawe, Witlaceni u Waclawa Gelinka privil. Knihtlacara. 1802. 1808 Kaidodennti Pamtitka Smrti a pobointi Modlitba za Obdritini scastZiweg Smrti. W Trnawe 1808. Witlacena u Waclawa Gelinka. UNPUBLISHED WORKS Patti Strtinka Pil'ne ho Hospodtira o Konoch. W Trnawe 1810. Sestti Strtinka Pil'neho Hospodtira o Owctich. Sedemti Strtinka O Opatrnosti mladich ai starich Swin . . . Osmti Strtinka O Opatrnost'i wseligakeho mladeho, ai stareho kridelneho Hidu . . • 5. Historica Dissertatw De Oppido Ottenthal, Et de ejus Memorabilibus. 1. 2. 3. 4. Conscripta per Adm. Rendum Georgium Fandly, Emeritum Parochum Nahacsiensem, In Patria Ottenthalensi cum Pensione Qviescentem. Additamentum. Folio 61 Promissum. Exponens qvinqve Rebelliones, olim in Hungaria, excitatas. Anno 1810. 6. Defensio Germanorum in Hungaria habitantium. FOOTNOTES 1) The facts on Fandly's life were abstracted from: Dr. Imrich Kotvan, Juraj Ftindly (1750-1811), (Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946) , pp. 16-23; and Jan Tibensky (ed.), Juraj Ftindly: Vyber z diela, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954), pp. 7-9. 2) Until 1937 it was believed that Fandly was born in Ompital. This has now been disproven. Kotvan, p. 17. 3) Kotvan, p. 23. SLOVAKIA 67 4) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 12-18. C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), pp. 120-121. 5) Vyber z diela, "Duwerna zmluwa", pp. 103-114. 6) Ibid., pp. 115-116. 7) Ibid., pp. 178-185. 8) Ibid., pp. 23-27. Kotvan, pp. 44-45. 9) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", p. 19. 10) Altogether there are four volumes of Pil'ni hospodar. Two have been published and two remain in manuscript form. 11) Vyber z diela, "Pil'ni hospodar", pp. 258-267. 12) Ibid., p. 250. 13) Ibid., pp. 250-251. 14) Vyber z diela, "Zelinkar", p. 332. Also quoted in Julius Botto, Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, Vol. I. (Turciansky Svaty Martin, 1906), p. 36. 15) See Jozef Butvin, Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (17801848) , (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965), pp. 48-62. and Boris Balent, "K organizacii a vydavatel'skej cinnosti Slovenskeho uceneho tovarisstva", K pociatkom slovenskeho narodneho obrodenia, ed. Jan Tibensky, (Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964), pp. 189-200. 16) Vyber z diela, "Kazne", pp. 343-355. 17) Ibid., pp. 340-341. 18) Vyber z diela, "Historia Gentis Slavae", p. 360. 19) Ibid., pp. 362-378. 20 ) Vyber z diela, "Introduction", pp. 28-56. BIBLIOGRAPHY Botto, Julius.Kratka hist6ria Slovakov. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1914. Slovaci: Vyvin ich narodneho povedomia, 2 vols. Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1906. Butvin, Jozef. Slovenske narodnozjednocovacie hnutie (1780-1848) . Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1965. Gogolak, Ludwig. Beitrage zur Geschichte des slowakischen Volkes. Milnchen, 1963. Holotik, I.:udovit and Tibensky, Jan. (ed.) Dejiny Slovenska. Vol I. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1961. Kotvan, Imrich. Juraj Fandly (1750-1811). Trnava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1946. Macartney, C. A. The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. Prazak, Dr. Albert. Dejiny slovenske literatury. Praha, 1950. Rekem, Dr. John. Slovak Literature and National Consciousness Before Anton Bernolak (1762-1813). Cleveland: Slovak Institute, 1964. Tibensky, Jan, (ed.). Juraj Fandly: Vyber z diela. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1954. (ed.) . K pociatkom slovenskeh-0 narodneho obrodenia. Bratislava: Slovenska akademia vied, 1964.  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 Juraj Fándly: An Introduction to His Life and Work Description An account of the resource Anthony X. Sutherland, Ph.D. Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 59-67 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sutherland, Anthony X. (Anthony Xavier) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/18b3bde70493d2466a2d646ebd4dfc79.pdf c76c37a8411a35935f83972174612cc6 PDF Text Text 76 SLOVAKIA The Ideas of the Hlasist Movement BY ANTHONY SUTHERLAND The Slovak National Revolution of 1918 followed in the wake of the First World War and the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire. It achieved for the Slovaks the first period of political freedom after one thousand years under Magyar domination. Much of the thought and leadership for this liberation came from a small but effective intellectual circle commonly known as the ' 'hlasists ' ' . (1) Named after their periodical, Hlas, the group originated in the mid 1890s among several young Slovak intellectuals who sought new directions for the Slovak national movement . They borrowed from the realism of Thomas Masaryk and the philosophies of Herbert Spencer, William James and others. Although always a minority and never an organized political party, the ' 'hlasists'' had an impact on Slovak political and intellectual history far exceeding their numbers. Besides being a main impetus in the Slovak National Revolution, they provided much of the Slovak leadership in the subsequent First Czecho-Slovak Republic. They represented the first Slovak intellectual movement based on English philosophy. Slovak national politics until then had been dominated largely by the Slovak National Party, a small Lutheran intellectual group headed by the renouned poet-nationalist, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Rooted strongly in German romanticism, the Nationalists sought primarily cultural freedom from Budapest while look4lg to the Russian Empire for assistance and eventual liberation. The "ltlasists" rejected both the outlook and apparent passivity of the Nationalists and insisted on a program of action joined with economic and social reforms. Salvation for the Slovaks, the "hlasists" believed, would come not from Russia but from Western Europe, particularly England, and from close cooperation with the Czechs. In a similar manner, the Czech national movement was influenced by romanticism and marked by vague concepts of Pan Slavism. Thomas Masaryk, the father of Czecho-Slovakia, saw the inadequacy of the Czech politics and so searched for a new political philosophy that would bring about tangible results. In his book Ceska Otazka, Masaryk expressed the need for active politics, education and self-consciousness while criticizing the negativism of the Czech national movement. He added the need for social reform and humanism. (2) The founders and probably best exponents of Slovak realism were Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho. Srobar was born in 1867 in Liskova, the fourth of twelve children. After attending local schools, he went to the University of Prague to prepare for a career in medicine. While in �SLOVAKIA 77 Prague, Srobar, through the Slavic society, "Detvan", came into contact with Masaryk and his philosophy of realism. (3) Until this time, Srobar was a romantic nationalist clinging to the traditional ideals of Svetozar Hurban-Vajansky and other Nationalists . In 1899 he was even invited by Ambor Pietor to become an editor of Narodne noviny, the voice of the Slovak Nationalist Party, but turned down the offer feeling unfit for the task at that time. (4) Srobar soon began to have doubts about the leadership and direction of the national movement. He became increasingly critical of the Slovak National Party's unrealistic faith in tsarist Russia and the former' s apparent inability to achieve any substantial gains for the Slovak cause. Pavel Blaho (1867-1927), in a similar way, began as a romantic nationalist and ended as a follower of Masaryk's realism. Born in Skalica and educated at the University of Vienna, Blaho became a close collaborator of Srobar and the new generation of Slovak intellectuals. By 1894, both men had been completely converted to Masaryk's realism and were determined to translate realistic principles into Slovakia. One of the first goals of the ''hlasists'' was the publication of a new political review, one completely independent from the Narodne noviny and one which would reflect the new progressive ideals of realism. (5) At a meeting of young Slovak intellectuals held in Turc. Sv. Martin on August 4, 1897, the decision was made to prepare for a new periodical, and at another conference four weeks later the title, Hlas, was selected. (6) During several succeeding conferences the aims and ideology of the new school of realism were put forth and debated. At the yearly conference of 1898 Srobar talked of the ideals and principles of realism but in such vague generalities that he left the one hundred people who attended uncertain over the actual nature of the new philosophy. (7) The 1899 conference in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, attended by some sixty people including such notables as Andrej Hlinka and Karol Kmet'ko, was of far greater practical value. Here Srobar elaborated on the realistic principles placing emphasis on the need for education and performance of 'small deeds' for the people. (8) The "hlasists" had many aims and ideas, some challenging traditional Slovak nationalism, others seemingly impractical or idealistic. Throughout ''hlasist'' thought there was a clear faith in science, in the pragmatic, positivist philosophy and distrust of the methods of the conservative, national movement. Srobar believed that pragmatism and the ability to act were the reasons for America's success. (9) Such a belief in pragmatism, for Srobar, necessitated a knowledge of the truth. The notion of truth was borrowed from Masaryk who once said, "Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, hold on to the truth, defend the truth to the death." (10) Truth to Srobar must replace lies, work was to replace laziness, and love to replace hatred. (11) In the search for truth nothing was held to be too sacred, not national custom, literature, songs or �78 SLOVAKIA anything. (12) Milan Hodza, one of the most gifted members of the "hlasist" group, wrote in Hl,as that Slovak history had to be examined objectively with no preconceived notions or feelings. (13) Once the truth was ascertained, then appropriate action could be taken to produce progress in the national movement. The primacy of truth, according to Srobar, demanded the '' regeneration in the morality of the Slovak man'' (14) but left it unclear as to the exact meaning of this morality . (15) By being better in the moral sense it was hoped the Slovak people would somehow be better equipped to deflect the onslaught of Magyarization. (16) Throughout the history of the ''hlasist'' movement, education was made a paramount objective. Self-enlightenment was the sine qua non of all progress for the "hlasists". It had to be democratic, not limited to the privileged few or for city dwellers but to all levels of society, including farmers, tradesmen, and workers . (17) Blaho emphasized the need for regional specialization in education . Blaho, the author of regionalism in the ''hlasist'' movement, proposed that every district have its own local newspaper to meet local needs as well as to supply information on national events. (18) "Hlasists" believed that national education rather than education for a selected few was necessary for a national movement. Blaho wrote, '' A nation that learns to want and demand begins also to fight and struggle." (19) Blaho, too, along with Hodza believed that with education came economic liberation, another precondition for national liberation. Blaho later wrote, "We want to liberate the people from spiritual darkness, from economic slavery, we want to restore Slovak elementary schools, we want to teach the people the intensive and technical cultivation of the soil. We want to teach them in a trade, to improve production, to teach them to work in business, to work in a cooperative society, we want to teach them to sacrifice for themselves, for their goals, their needs. '' (20) Education of the masses and moral regeneration could be accomplished, according to the "hlasists", dnly by 'work' or by the performance of small deeds, (drobnci prcica). (21) Pragmatism and science possessed little value unless they were translated into action. (22) "Work and only work for the people, for without work it is impossible to imagine a cultural life for the Slovaks," (23) Blaho wrote: "Look, we stand under the protection of the great power which maintains and directs the whole world, we stand under the patronage of abstract work . The entire universe is built on work . ... We fulfill the great law of life when we work.'' The ''hlasist'' virtue of work, although never really explained beyond a general sense, stood in contradiction to the apparent inactivity of traditional Slovak politics. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the "hlasist" movement was the criticism leveled against the Slovak National Party. Since the closing of the Matica Slovenska, the nationalists had accomplished little and it seemed to the "hlasists" �SLOVAKIA 79 that they were resigned to their fate. Milan Hodfa charged that the National Party had no real political program. The memorandums of 1848 and 1861 contained only the "Alpha and Omega" of Slovak demands (25) but ignor~d specific economic and social needs. He concluded that nationaliSln alone was insufficient as the basis for national politics. (26) ' ' Hlasists'' concentrated their sharpest attacks on the leader of the National Party, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Vajansky was the recognized leader of the nation, the interpreter of national tradition. As the son of the famous Jozef M. Hurban, the 1848 revolutionary leader and pioneer in the work of establishing a separate written Slovak language, his authority not only in literature but in politics went often unquestioned . (27) Vajansky's political and spiritual ideas were based on romanticism and Russian Slavophilism. He believed Slovakia's salvation would come not from the West which he distributed for its materialism and atheism, but from Russia. (28) "Hlasists" saw in Vajansky's philosophy and politics a dangerous fatalism. Liberation would not come from tsarist Russia, Srobar felt, and even if it did, it would lead only to ''tsarist despotism.'' (29) Srobar once wrote, "Hurban is not an active politician yet directs Slovak politics; he likes to judge and condemn. Hurban is a spiritual leader of the nation; his powerful artistic talent is known to implant the soul of the Slovak intelligentsia, its thoughts, desires, ideals. Hurban personifies the entire Slovak intelligentsia." (30) Srobar reacted strongly to Vajansky's statement, ''We are the nation - pars pro toto (a part of the whole),'' (31) making the intelligentsia the national elite. Srobar answered, ''We are not the nation, we are crumbs in the nation, we are servants and not these haughty lords, elite of the nation, but we are the worst part of the nation.'' (32) The nation, Srobar continued, was to be found among the "honest workers, the hand-calloused laborers, among the soiled peasants and tenant farmers ." (33) Hodfa agreed with Srobar that the nation could not be found among a few intellectuals. He wrote in Hlas in 1904: "The nation is the people with all its needs and desires . The nation must be something concrete, calculable and not some fictitious ideal. Therefore then, national culture must not be limited to the intelligentsia; it deserves the name 'national' culture only if it penetrates and inspires all levels of the nation." (34) Srobar was particularly concerned over the direction that Vajansky seemed to be leading Slovak politics. The Slovaks were politically isolated, Srobar recalled, with no real allies or ties with any strong state. (35) Since a continuation of the Nationalist's Russophile policy was out of the question the only ' realistic' alternative the "hlasists" had was to develop closer relations with the Czechs, their closest Slavic neighbor. (36) Although Czech-Slovak cooperation was no invention of Srobar or the other "hlasists", it was their efforts that prepared the way for collaboration during the First World War. �80 SLOVAKIA On the question of Czech-Slovak unity, Srobar was cautiously silent. (37) He said only that it was impossible at this time to talk about political unification with the Czechs. "We reject emphatically all debate a priori about unification of us with the Czech nation in the political sense. There can be no unification in language but only in spirit." (38) Later in 1920, Srobar acknowledged the close cultural and political ties that existed between the two nations. ''The origin of a new written language in Slovakia did not interrupt the conscious tribal (kmen) unity of the Czecho-Slovaks even for one moment. The desire for close cultural, economic, and political unity increased year after year in proportion to the growth of a brutal Magyar suppression.'' (39) Many Slovaks anxiously awaited Vajansky's reaction to "hlasist" attacks, but were left somewhat disappointed. For a long time he said little. (40) In a series of articles appearing in the Narodne noviny Vajansky made references to the youth movement, meaning the "hlasists", as "trivial and childish." (41) It was known that Vajansky was opposed to the Czech orientation and to the placing of economic reforms before political goals. (42) But the most controversial feature of ''hlasist'' views was their critical position taken against the Catholic Church and clerical influence in Slovak society. Srobar attacked the Slovak priesthood as corrupt, materialistic and Magyar in spirit. (43) Since his student days Srobar had begun to question Church authority. (44) Much of this questioning attitude towards the Church was taken from Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy taught that the organized Church had corrupted and formalized Christianity to the extent that it was necessary to return to a primitive type of Christianity as was found in the early Church. In Tolstoy Srobar also discovered support for his idea of truth as the most important element in dealing with social problems. Tolstoy said all the revolutions of the nineteenth century lacked this principle of truth. It is not necessary to merely proclaim truth but to act on it. (45) Srobar looked at the Slovak problem as largely a religious problem. (46) Slovaks, he said, cared for little else but religion. Art, science, politics concerned them only to the extent that they served religious needs. (47) Slovak Catholics, Srobar believed, although sincere and pious, were infected with superstition and f~talism. He wrote: ''Great masses of the Slovak people designate thems~lves, 'I am a Catholic' or 'I am a Lutheran', but the faiths of the Slovaks are not joined in one unit but left divided. The faith of Slovaks is pure, sincere, but the content of their faith is completely pagan, fetishistic, superstitious, fatalistic . . . . Here is where I expect the guarantee of our fall. All our people have fallen to this decadent Catholicism." (48) It would be a mistake, however, to label Srobar at this time as an atheist or an irreverent Christian, for many of his early writings reveal a sincere religious faith. His disagreement was not with Catholicism but with the adverse influence it seemed to have on the development of �SLOVAKIA 81 the nation. Srobar was opposed to anything resembling a theocratic type state and one which did not permit freedom of thought and expression. His arguments for freedom of conscience were founded in Christ's teaching, "Seek the truth and the truth will free you," adding that one who did not support the free search for truth was in violation of divine teaching. (49) Freedom of conscience, for Srobar, was a precondition for all progress, economic and social. To stifle the free quest for truth would ~ot only stagnate a society's growth but ultimately destroy that society. (50) He wrote: Without freedom of conscience and conviction there is no life for a dignified man, only the animal in man remains, in one degree of development. A man must teach and educate himself every day, that is seek and know the truth because who seeks the truth enriches his knowledge and becomes more learned than one who does not seek the truth. And if this law is applicable for the individual, that he educate and perfect himself, then it is even important for the entire nation. Free and educated nations enslave backward and uncultured nations. And he who cries and calls names at progress in a nation is the greatest enemy of his nation because he wants his nation to remain in darkness and ignorance so that nothing new is passed or begun. (51) At the same time, Srobar did not deny the necessity of good religious and moral standards for a healthy society. Srobar traced the evolution of moral standards. In primitive societies customs comprised the moral code. During the " age of faith" religious laws provided this same code . Later, in the age of democracy, faith and customs had lost their value, thus moral feelings of men had to be "more sincere, one had to perform voluntarily what he was once forced to do." (52) A man committed to religious ideals, Srobar continued, would be better able to serve the state than one lacking any religious conviction. (53) Srobar felt the neglect of moral faith was the foremost weakness of modern times . He wrote: Religious feelings, because they are developed from morality and fear of God have directed and controlled the natural impulses of man from time immemorial. A devout, religious man better performs his obligations towards himself, his family, and all society than a man without principles, without religion, or a man standing purely on materialism. Modern times forget the harmonious cultivation of reason and feeling and so becomes one-sided and superficial. A wise democracy expends all its efforts so that this harmonious culture among its citizenry is not forgotten. (54) �82 SLOVAKIA But, while Srobar did not completely reject organized religion, he did advocate that its activity be limited to purely spiritual concerns while leaving material questions to politicians. (55) Both church and state should exist, in Srobar's view, in a harmonious union but they had to remain separated. Srobar warned against religious intolerance which he defined as "hatred and anger against one's neighbor," (56) and against clericalism. Every unhappy nation, Srobar added, has a clerical leader at its head, and no class or political prejudice is as dangerous as religious intolerance. (57) "Every Slovak who holds dear freedom and independence for his homeland, who desires that we not remain under Magyar enslavement, who wants to rule himself, will avoid clerical slavery." (58) Such assaults on the Church caused the expected reaction and probably accounted for the defection of most of the clerical leaders from the " hlasist" camp. During the first few years of "hlasist" activity, the response by many Catholic priests was favorable . Several Catholic priests corresponded regularly with the "hlasists". Jozef Buday, a noted priest in the People's Party, complimented Blaho in 1898 on Hlas for exposing the nation's weaknesses . In a letter to Blaho of July 14, 1898, Buday wrote, " Therefore, with unspeakable joy I wish the periodical Hlas the most beautiful secure future, and I welcome you as its author, as its intrepid fighter for the development of the Slovak nation and as a sacrificing leader of Slovak youth on the thorny, spiral path of national life." (59) The following year Buday submitted an article for Hlas in which he recommended that priests not turn their backs on modem science and progress but take part in modem movements. The famous priest Ferdis Juriga supported the movement of Hlas towards moral regeneration. (60) But perhaps the most enthusiastic clerical supporter of Hlas was the priest and later Magyarone, Frantisek Jehlicka. He eagerly volunteered to work to obtain subscriptions for Hlas, telling Blaho, ''I want to become an eternal subscriber to Hlas." (61) Soon, however, many priests including Jehlicka became disillusioned with "hlasist" radicalism and seemingly irreligious attitudes. Many Slovak clerics were no doubt faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they supported the progressivism of the "hlasists", but on the other hand, they could not accept their questioning attitude towards Church authority. Leaders in the Lutheran Church were in ~ similar position. They praised the '' hlasists'' but also cautioned them about condemning the entire old intelligentsia. They warned them against looking abroad for foreign ideas to follow, when good ideas could be found at home. (62) Reassuring the Lutheran hierarchy, Blaho said, " ... we want to reform by work and not destroy the work of our fathers, not attack the church in dogma, ... we want to be better." (63) The "hlasists" remained a small, disorganized group of men possessing a variety of ideas. Despite all the alleged radicalism at- �SLOVAKIA 83 tributed to them , the "hlasists" were quite traditional in many respects, at least during the first few years of their activity. There was never an attempt to break completely from the past but efforts were made to reconcile realistic principles with Slovak tradition, with the ideas of Stur and other leaders. The spiritual nature found throughout the works of Slovak nationalists was unmistakably evident in many "hlasist" writings, particularly those of Srobar. A good portion of "hlasist" thinking involved introspection or analysis of the nation's soul or character. In this respect "hlasists" were no different from the generations of Slovak thinkers that came before them. Even in their 'Czechoslovak' position, they were at first moderate . They were admirers of the Czechs and their culture, but they did not deny Slovak national individuality. Cooperation with the Czechs was viewed as the only realistic alternative, the only politically expedient course. Later, however, many "hlasists" became zealous supporters of Prague centralism, and some even adhered to the fictitious idea of the 'Czechoslovak' nation. Their Czechoslovak orientation before 1914 guaranteed the "hlasists" several leadership posts in the First Czecho-Slovak Republic. Srobar was chosen Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia during the first months of the republic, while other "hlasists" dominated the remaining Slovak posts. During the critical years of the First World War it was often the '' hlasists'' rather than the Nationalists or Populists who took the decisive action calling for national conferences, issuing declarations of independence, or working with foreign governments. Hlinka and others often hesitated, moved more cautiously, thus possibly losing some of the leadership in the new republic. Although popular at first, the "hlasists" gradually lost support from many quarters. Buday, Juriga and other priests lost all confidence in the ''hlasists'' because of their increasing radicalism, their free thinking, and their Czechoslovakism. The main significance of the ''hlasist'' movement, though, was in providing a journal and an atmosphere for critical, secular thought in Slovakia. This brought some progress, it might be argued; on the other hand, it meant tragedy for the Slovak nation. The ''hlasists'' seriously divided the Slovak national intelligentsia before 1914 and brought an end to the once united national movement. FOOTNOTES Included in the hlasist group were: Vavro Srobar, Pavel Blaho, Milan Hodia, Anton Stefanek. (2) Stefan Jansak, .Zivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Vol. I (Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947), pp. 129-130. (1) �84 SLOVAKIA (3) Srobar related in his memoirs how he became acquainted with Masaryk . What especially impressed him was Masaryk's statement that in religious questions, realism " stood on Christian principles." Vavro Srobar, Z m6jho iivota (Praha: Fr. Borovy , 1946) , p . 181. (4) Ibid ., p. 162 . (5) Jansak, pp . 138 and 141. (6) Ibid., pp . 145-147. An eleven-member editorial board was chosen: Srobar , Blaho, Hodfa , Me dvecky, Zathurecky, Rath, Minarik, Ivanko, Dohnany, Ziak-Somolicky and Jesensky. (7) Ibid., pp. 302-303. (8) Ibid . , pp. 306-307. (9) Ibid. , pp. 208-209 . (10) Ibid., p. 200 . (11) Ibid. , p . 198 Quoted in Anton Stefanek, Slovensko pred prevratom a poi!as prevratu (Praha , 1923), p. 35. (12) Srobar disagreed with Blaho over the national individuality found in Slovak weddings, songs, and costumes . Srobar attacked what he considered to be the backwardness and primitivism of Slovak weddings. He said, "In our weddings, individuals drink and eat to excess . It is necessary to improve and refine the people so that they can be convinced that they can enjoy themselves without becoming inebriated.'' Jansak, p. 259. (13) Milan Hodfa, " Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI (1904) p . 294 . (14) Jansak, p . 197. (15) Ibid., p. 198. (16) Ibid., p. 198 (17) Ibid., pp. 209-210 . Vavro Srobar, Via.do l'udu v demokracii (Praha, 1920), p. 125. (18) Jansak, p. 211. (19) Pavel Blaho , Obrodenie slovenskeho zci.padu (Praha, n .d .) p . 22. (20) Ibid., p . 31. (21) Jansak, p . 306. (22) Ibid . , p . 205 (23) Ibid., p. 206 (24) Ibid . , p. 206. (25) Milan Hodfa "K aktivite slovenskej narodnej strany," Clanky, reti, ~tudie I (Praha, 1935) , pp. 176-177. (26) Hodfa "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI, p. 162. (27) Jansak, p . 330. See Ignotus (Milan Hodfa) Nacionalizmus je slepy," Hlas, V (1903) 97-99 . (28) Vavro Srobar, Politicky problem Slovenska (Praha, 1926) pp. 4-5. (29) Srobar, z m6jho iivota, p. 402 . (30) Ibid ., p . 360. (31) Jansak, p. 335 . (32) Ibid. , p . 335. (33) Ibid . , p. 335. (34) Hodfa, "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI , pp. 295-296. �SLOVAKIA 85 (35) Srobar, Z mojho iivota , pp. 361-362 . (36) Ibid ., p. 362. Jansak, p. 221. (37) Jansak, p . 221. (38) Ibid ., pp. 221-222 . (39) Vavro Srobar, Osvobodene Slovensko (Praha , 1928) . p . 11. (40) Jansak, p. 332. (41) Ibid ., p . 334. (42) See Jansak, p. 217. (43) Vavro Srobar, Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (1914-1918) (Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho, 1922), pp. 177-178. (44) See Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p. 221. (45) Jansak, pp. 200-201. (46) Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p . 36'1 . Srobar, Pamiitizvojnyaz viizenia, p . 176. (47) Srobar, Pamati z vojny a z viizenia, pp. 176-177. (48) Ibid ., pp . 176-177. (49) Srobar, Vldda l'udu v demokracii, p. 88. (50) Ibid. , pp. 87-89. (51) Ibid., p. 92 . (52) Ibid., p . 94 . (53) Ibid ., p. 95. (54) Ibid., p . 95 . (55) Ibid., pp. 95 and 100. (56) Ibid ., p . 106. (57) Ibid ., p. 106. (58) Ibid ., p . 107. (59) Jansak, p . 342. (60) Ibid., pp. 294-295. (61) Ibid ., p. 297. (62) Ibid ., pp . 346-347. (63) Ibid ., p . 347. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blaho, Pavel. Obrodenie slovenskeho zcipadu (The Rebirth of the Slovak West). Praha: Ostredny vybor prednaskovy, n.d. Hlas (The Voice) V, VI, (Ruzomberok), 1903, 1904. Hodia , Milan . Clcinky, re<!i,. studie (Articles, Speeches, Studies). Vol. I, Praha, 1930. Jansak , Stefan . Zivot Dr. Pavla Blaha, (The Life of Dr. Paul Blaho). Vol. I. Trnava: Spolok sv . Vojtecha, 1947 . Srobar, Vavro. Osvobodenie Slovensko (Liberated Slovakia) . Praho, 1928. - - - · Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (Memoirs from the War and from Prison). Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho , 1921. �86 SLOVAKIA _ _ _ . Politicky problem Slovenska (The Political Problem of Slovakia). Praha, 1926. _ _ _ . Vlcida l'udu v demokracii (Government of the People in a Democracy). Praha, 1920. _ _ _ , Z m6jho iivota (From My Life). Praha: Fr. Borovy, 1946. Stefimek, Anton. Slovensko pred prevratom a pot!as prevratu (Slovakia Before 1918 and During 1918). Praha, 1923. � 76 SLOVAKIA The Ideas of the Hlasist Movement BY ANTHONY SUTHERLAND The Slovak National Revolution of 1918 followed in the wake of the First World War and the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire. It achieved for the Slovaks the first period of political freedom after one thousand years under Magyar domination. Much of the thought and leadership for this liberation came from a small but effective intellectual circle commonly known as the ' 'hlasists ' ' . (1) Named after their periodical, Hlas, the group originated in the mid 1890s among several young Slovak intellectuals who sought new directions for the Slovak national movement . They borrowed from the realism of Thomas Masaryk and the philosophies of Herbert Spencer, William James and others. Although always a minority and never an organized political party, the ' 'hlasists'' had an impact on Slovak political and intellectual history far exceeding their numbers. Besides being a main impetus in the Slovak National Revolution, they provided much of the Slovak leadership in the subsequent First Czecho-Slovak Republic. They represented the first Slovak intellectual movement based on English philosophy. Slovak national politics until then had been dominated largely by the Slovak National Party, a small Lutheran intellectual group headed by the renouned poet-nationalist, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Rooted strongly in German romanticism, the Nationalists sought primarily cultural freedom from Budapest while look4lg to the Russian Empire for assistance and eventual liberation. The "ltlasists" rejected both the outlook and apparent passivity of the Nationalists and insisted on a program of action joined with economic and social reforms. Salvation for the Slovaks, the "hlasists" believed, would come not from Russia but from Western Europe, particularly England, and from close cooperation with the Czechs. In a similar manner, the Czech national movement was influenced by romanticism and marked by vague concepts of Pan Slavism. Thomas Masaryk, the father of Czecho-Slovakia, saw the inadequacy of the Czech politics and so searched for a new political philosophy that would bring about tangible results. In his book Ceska Otazka, Masaryk expressed the need for active politics, education and self-consciousness while criticizing the negativism of the Czech national movement. He added the need for social reform and humanism. (2) The founders and probably best exponents of Slovak realism were Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho. Srobar was born in 1867 in Liskova, the fourth of twelve children. After attending local schools, he went to the University of Prague to prepare for a career in medicine. While in �SLOVAKIA 77 Prague, Srobar, through the Slavic society, "Detvan", came into contact with Masaryk and his philosophy of realism. (3) Until this time, Srobar was a romantic nationalist clinging to the traditional ideals of Svetozar Hurban-Vajansky and other Nationalists . In 1899 he was even invited by Ambor Pietor to become an editor of Narodne noviny, the voice of the Slovak Nationalist Party, but turned down the offer feeling unfit for the task at that time. (4) Srobar soon began to have doubts about the leadership and direction of the national movement. He became increasingly critical of the Slovak National Party's unrealistic faith in tsarist Russia and the former' s apparent inability to achieve any substantial gains for the Slovak cause. Pavel Blaho (1867-1927), in a similar way, began as a romantic nationalist and ended as a follower of Masaryk's realism. Born in Skalica and educated at the University of Vienna, Blaho became a close collaborator of Srobar and the new generation of Slovak intellectuals. By 1894, both men had been completely converted to Masaryk's realism and were determined to translate realistic principles into Slovakia. One of the first goals of the ''hlasists'' was the publication of a new political review, one completely independent from the Narodne noviny and one which would reflect the new progressive ideals of realism. (5) At a meeting of young Slovak intellectuals held in Turc. Sv. Martin on August 4, 1897, the decision was made to prepare for a new periodical, and at another conference four weeks later the title, Hlas, was selected. (6) During several succeeding conferences the aims and ideology of the new school of realism were put forth and debated. At the yearly conference of 1898 Srobar talked of the ideals and principles of realism but in such vague generalities that he left the one hundred people who attended uncertain over the actual nature of the new philosophy. (7) The 1899 conference in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, attended by some sixty people including such notables as Andrej Hlinka and Karol Kmet'ko, was of far greater practical value. Here Srobar elaborated on the realistic principles placing emphasis on the need for education and performance of 'small deeds' for the people. (8) The "hlasists" had many aims and ideas, some challenging traditional Slovak nationalism, others seemingly impractical or idealistic. Throughout ''hlasist'' thought there was a clear faith in science, in the pragmatic, positivist philosophy and distrust of the methods of the conservative, national movement. Srobar believed that pragmatism and the ability to act were the reasons for America's success. (9) Such a belief in pragmatism, for Srobar, necessitated a knowledge of the truth. The notion of truth was borrowed from Masaryk who once said, "Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, hold on to the truth, defend the truth to the death." (10) Truth to Srobar must replace lies, work was to replace laziness, and love to replace hatred. (11) In the search for truth nothing was held to be too sacred, not national custom, literature, songs or �78 SLOVAKIA anything. (12) Milan Hodza, one of the most gifted members of the "hlasist" group, wrote in Hl,as that Slovak history had to be examined objectively with no preconceived notions or feelings. (13) Once the truth was ascertained, then appropriate action could be taken to produce progress in the national movement. The primacy of truth, according to Srobar, demanded the '' regeneration in the morality of the Slovak man'' (14) but left it unclear as to the exact meaning of this morality . (15) By being better in the moral sense it was hoped the Slovak people would somehow be better equipped to deflect the onslaught of Magyarization. (16) Throughout the history of the ''hlasist'' movement, education was made a paramount objective. Self-enlightenment was the sine qua non of all progress for the "hlasists". It had to be democratic, not limited to the privileged few or for city dwellers but to all levels of society, including farmers, tradesmen, and workers . (17) Blaho emphasized the need for regional specialization in education . Blaho, the author of regionalism in the ''hlasist'' movement, proposed that every district have its own local newspaper to meet local needs as well as to supply information on national events. (18) "Hlasists" believed that national education rather than education for a selected few was necessary for a national movement. Blaho wrote, '' A nation that learns to want and demand begins also to fight and struggle." (19) Blaho, too, along with Hodza believed that with education came economic liberation, another precondition for national liberation. Blaho later wrote, "We want to liberate the people from spiritual darkness, from economic slavery, we want to restore Slovak elementary schools, we want to teach the people the intensive and technical cultivation of the soil. We want to teach them in a trade, to improve production, to teach them to work in business, to work in a cooperative society, we want to teach them to sacrifice for themselves, for their goals, their needs. '' (20) Education of the masses and moral regeneration could be accomplished, according to the "hlasists", dnly by 'work' or by the performance of small deeds, (drobnci prcica). (21) Pragmatism and science possessed little value unless they were translated into action. (22) "Work and only work for the people, for without work it is impossible to imagine a cultural life for the Slovaks," (23) Blaho wrote: "Look, we stand under the protection of the great power which maintains and directs the whole world, we stand under the patronage of abstract work . The entire universe is built on work . ... We fulfill the great law of life when we work.'' The ''hlasist'' virtue of work, although never really explained beyond a general sense, stood in contradiction to the apparent inactivity of traditional Slovak politics. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the "hlasist" movement was the criticism leveled against the Slovak National Party. Since the closing of the Matica Slovenska, the nationalists had accomplished little and it seemed to the "hlasists" �SLOVAKIA 79 that they were resigned to their fate. Milan Hodfa charged that the National Party had no real political program. The memorandums of 1848 and 1861 contained only the "Alpha and Omega" of Slovak demands (25) but ignor~d specific economic and social needs. He concluded that nationaliSln alone was insufficient as the basis for national politics. (26) ' ' Hlasists'' concentrated their sharpest attacks on the leader of the National Party, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Vajansky was the recognized leader of the nation, the interpreter of national tradition. As the son of the famous Jozef M. Hurban, the 1848 revolutionary leader and pioneer in the work of establishing a separate written Slovak language, his authority not only in literature but in politics went often unquestioned . (27) Vajansky's political and spiritual ideas were based on romanticism and Russian Slavophilism. He believed Slovakia's salvation would come not from the West which he distributed for its materialism and atheism, but from Russia. (28) "Hlasists" saw in Vajansky's philosophy and politics a dangerous fatalism. Liberation would not come from tsarist Russia, Srobar felt, and even if it did, it would lead only to ''tsarist despotism.'' (29) Srobar once wrote, "Hurban is not an active politician yet directs Slovak politics; he likes to judge and condemn. Hurban is a spiritual leader of the nation; his powerful artistic talent is known to implant the soul of the Slovak intelligentsia, its thoughts, desires, ideals. Hurban personifies the entire Slovak intelligentsia." (30) Srobar reacted strongly to Vajansky's statement, ''We are the nation - pars pro toto (a part of the whole),'' (31) making the intelligentsia the national elite. Srobar answered, ''We are not the nation, we are crumbs in the nation, we are servants and not these haughty lords, elite of the nation, but we are the worst part of the nation.'' (32) The nation, Srobar continued, was to be found among the "honest workers, the hand-calloused laborers, among the soiled peasants and tenant farmers ." (33) Hodfa agreed with Srobar that the nation could not be found among a few intellectuals. He wrote in Hlas in 1904: "The nation is the people with all its needs and desires . The nation must be something concrete, calculable and not some fictitious ideal. Therefore then, national culture must not be limited to the intelligentsia; it deserves the name 'national' culture only if it penetrates and inspires all levels of the nation." (34) Srobar was particularly concerned over the direction that Vajansky seemed to be leading Slovak politics. The Slovaks were politically isolated, Srobar recalled, with no real allies or ties with any strong state. (35) Since a continuation of the Nationalist's Russophile policy was out of the question the only ' realistic' alternative the "hlasists" had was to develop closer relations with the Czechs, their closest Slavic neighbor. (36) Although Czech-Slovak cooperation was no invention of Srobar or the other "hlasists", it was their efforts that prepared the way for collaboration during the First World War. �80 SLOVAKIA On the question of Czech-Slovak unity, Srobar was cautiously silent. (37) He said only that it was impossible at this time to talk about political unification with the Czechs. "We reject emphatically all debate a priori about unification of us with the Czech nation in the political sense. There can be no unification in language but only in spirit." (38) Later in 1920, Srobar acknowledged the close cultural and political ties that existed between the two nations. ''The origin of a new written language in Slovakia did not interrupt the conscious tribal (kmen) unity of the Czecho-Slovaks even for one moment. The desire for close cultural, economic, and political unity increased year after year in proportion to the growth of a brutal Magyar suppression.'' (39) Many Slovaks anxiously awaited Vajansky's reaction to "hlasist" attacks, but were left somewhat disappointed. For a long time he said little. (40) In a series of articles appearing in the Narodne noviny Vajansky made references to the youth movement, meaning the "hlasists", as "trivial and childish." (41) It was known that Vajansky was opposed to the Czech orientation and to the placing of economic reforms before political goals. (42) But the most controversial feature of ''hlasist'' views was their critical position taken against the Catholic Church and clerical influence in Slovak society. Srobar attacked the Slovak priesthood as corrupt, materialistic and Magyar in spirit. (43) Since his student days Srobar had begun to question Church authority. (44) Much of this questioning attitude towards the Church was taken from Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy taught that the organized Church had corrupted and formalized Christianity to the extent that it was necessary to return to a primitive type of Christianity as was found in the early Church. In Tolstoy Srobar also discovered support for his idea of truth as the most important element in dealing with social problems. Tolstoy said all the revolutions of the nineteenth century lacked this principle of truth. It is not necessary to merely proclaim truth but to act on it. (45) Srobar looked at the Slovak problem as largely a religious problem. (46) Slovaks, he said, cared for little else but religion. Art, science, politics concerned them only to the extent that they served religious needs. (47) Slovak Catholics, Srobar believed, although sincere and pious, were infected with superstition and f~talism. He wrote: ''Great masses of the Slovak people designate thems~lves, 'I am a Catholic' or 'I am a Lutheran', but the faiths of the Slovaks are not joined in one unit but left divided. The faith of Slovaks is pure, sincere, but the content of their faith is completely pagan, fetishistic, superstitious, fatalistic . . . . Here is where I expect the guarantee of our fall. All our people have fallen to this decadent Catholicism." (48) It would be a mistake, however, to label Srobar at this time as an atheist or an irreverent Christian, for many of his early writings reveal a sincere religious faith. His disagreement was not with Catholicism but with the adverse influence it seemed to have on the development of �SLOVAKIA 81 the nation. Srobar was opposed to anything resembling a theocratic type state and one which did not permit freedom of thought and expression. His arguments for freedom of conscience were founded in Christ's teaching, "Seek the truth and the truth will free you," adding that one who did not support the free search for truth was in violation of divine teaching. (49) Freedom of conscience, for Srobar, was a precondition for all progress, economic and social. To stifle the free quest for truth would ~ot only stagnate a society's growth but ultimately destroy that society. (50) He wrote: Without freedom of conscience and conviction there is no life for a dignified man, only the animal in man remains, in one degree of development. A man must teach and educate himself every day, that is seek and know the truth because who seeks the truth enriches his knowledge and becomes more learned than one who does not seek the truth. And if this law is applicable for the individual, that he educate and perfect himself, then it is even important for the entire nation. Free and educated nations enslave backward and uncultured nations. And he who cries and calls names at progress in a nation is the greatest enemy of his nation because he wants his nation to remain in darkness and ignorance so that nothing new is passed or begun. (51) At the same time, Srobar did not deny the necessity of good religious and moral standards for a healthy society. Srobar traced the evolution of moral standards. In primitive societies customs comprised the moral code. During the " age of faith" religious laws provided this same code . Later, in the age of democracy, faith and customs had lost their value, thus moral feelings of men had to be "more sincere, one had to perform voluntarily what he was once forced to do." (52) A man committed to religious ideals, Srobar continued, would be better able to serve the state than one lacking any religious conviction. (53) Srobar felt the neglect of moral faith was the foremost weakness of modern times . He wrote: Religious feelings, because they are developed from morality and fear of God have directed and controlled the natural impulses of man from time immemorial. A devout, religious man better performs his obligations towards himself, his family, and all society than a man without principles, without religion, or a man standing purely on materialism. Modern times forget the harmonious cultivation of reason and feeling and so becomes one-sided and superficial. A wise democracy expends all its efforts so that this harmonious culture among its citizenry is not forgotten. (54) �82 SLOVAKIA But, while Srobar did not completely reject organized religion, he did advocate that its activity be limited to purely spiritual concerns while leaving material questions to politicians. (55) Both church and state should exist, in Srobar's view, in a harmonious union but they had to remain separated. Srobar warned against religious intolerance which he defined as "hatred and anger against one's neighbor," (56) and against clericalism. Every unhappy nation, Srobar added, has a clerical leader at its head, and no class or political prejudice is as dangerous as religious intolerance. (57) "Every Slovak who holds dear freedom and independence for his homeland, who desires that we not remain under Magyar enslavement, who wants to rule himself, will avoid clerical slavery." (58) Such assaults on the Church caused the expected reaction and probably accounted for the defection of most of the clerical leaders from the " hlasist" camp. During the first few years of "hlasist" activity, the response by many Catholic priests was favorable . Several Catholic priests corresponded regularly with the "hlasists". Jozef Buday, a noted priest in the People's Party, complimented Blaho in 1898 on Hlas for exposing the nation's weaknesses . In a letter to Blaho of July 14, 1898, Buday wrote, " Therefore, with unspeakable joy I wish the periodical Hlas the most beautiful secure future, and I welcome you as its author, as its intrepid fighter for the development of the Slovak nation and as a sacrificing leader of Slovak youth on the thorny, spiral path of national life." (59) The following year Buday submitted an article for Hlas in which he recommended that priests not turn their backs on modem science and progress but take part in modem movements. The famous priest Ferdis Juriga supported the movement of Hlas towards moral regeneration. (60) But perhaps the most enthusiastic clerical supporter of Hlas was the priest and later Magyarone, Frantisek Jehlicka. He eagerly volunteered to work to obtain subscriptions for Hlas, telling Blaho, ''I want to become an eternal subscriber to Hlas." (61) Soon, however, many priests including Jehlicka became disillusioned with "hlasist" radicalism and seemingly irreligious attitudes. Many Slovak clerics were no doubt faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they supported the progressivism of the "hlasists", but on the other hand, they could not accept their questioning attitude towards Church authority. Leaders in the Lutheran Church were in ~ similar position. They praised the '' hlasists'' but also cautioned them about condemning the entire old intelligentsia. They warned them against looking abroad for foreign ideas to follow, when good ideas could be found at home. (62) Reassuring the Lutheran hierarchy, Blaho said, " ... we want to reform by work and not destroy the work of our fathers, not attack the church in dogma, ... we want to be better." (63) The "hlasists" remained a small, disorganized group of men possessing a variety of ideas. Despite all the alleged radicalism at- �SLOVAKIA 83 tributed to them , the "hlasists" were quite traditional in many respects, at least during the first few years of their activity. There was never an attempt to break completely from the past but efforts were made to reconcile realistic principles with Slovak tradition, with the ideas of Stur and other leaders. The spiritual nature found throughout the works of Slovak nationalists was unmistakably evident in many "hlasist" writings, particularly those of Srobar. A good portion of "hlasist" thinking involved introspection or analysis of the nation's soul or character. In this respect "hlasists" were no different from the generations of Slovak thinkers that came before them. Even in their 'Czechoslovak' position, they were at first moderate . They were admirers of the Czechs and their culture, but they did not deny Slovak national individuality. Cooperation with the Czechs was viewed as the only realistic alternative, the only politically expedient course. Later, however, many "hlasists" became zealous supporters of Prague centralism, and some even adhered to the fictitious idea of the 'Czechoslovak' nation. Their Czechoslovak orientation before 1914 guaranteed the "hlasists" several leadership posts in the First Czecho-Slovak Republic. Srobar was chosen Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia during the first months of the republic, while other "hlasists" dominated the remaining Slovak posts. During the critical years of the First World War it was often the '' hlasists'' rather than the Nationalists or Populists who took the decisive action calling for national conferences, issuing declarations of independence, or working with foreign governments. Hlinka and others often hesitated, moved more cautiously, thus possibly losing some of the leadership in the new republic. Although popular at first, the "hlasists" gradually lost support from many quarters. Buday, Juriga and other priests lost all confidence in the ''hlasists'' because of their increasing radicalism, their free thinking, and their Czechoslovakism. The main significance of the ''hlasist'' movement, though, was in providing a journal and an atmosphere for critical, secular thought in Slovakia. This brought some progress, it might be argued; on the other hand, it meant tragedy for the Slovak nation. The ''hlasists'' seriously divided the Slovak national intelligentsia before 1914 and brought an end to the once united national movement. FOOTNOTES Included in the hlasist group were: Vavro Srobar, Pavel Blaho, Milan Hodia, Anton Stefanek. (2) Stefan Jansak, .Zivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Vol. I (Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947), pp. 129-130. (1) �84 SLOVAKIA (3) Srobar related in his memoirs how he became acquainted with Masaryk . What especially impressed him was Masaryk's statement that in religious questions, realism " stood on Christian principles." Vavro Srobar, Z m6jho iivota (Praha: Fr. Borovy , 1946) , p . 181. (4) Ibid ., p. 162 . (5) Jansak, pp . 138 and 141. (6) Ibid., pp . 145-147. An eleven-member editorial board was chosen: Srobar , Blaho, Hodfa , Me dvecky, Zathurecky, Rath, Minarik, Ivanko, Dohnany, Ziak-Somolicky and Jesensky. (7) Ibid., pp. 302-303. (8) Ibid . , pp. 306-307. (9) Ibid. , pp. 208-209 . (10) Ibid., p. 200 . (11) Ibid. , p . 198 Quoted in Anton Stefanek, Slovensko pred prevratom a poi!as prevratu (Praha , 1923), p. 35. (12) Srobar disagreed with Blaho over the national individuality found in Slovak weddings, songs, and costumes . Srobar attacked what he considered to be the backwardness and primitivism of Slovak weddings. He said, "In our weddings, individuals drink and eat to excess . It is necessary to improve and refine the people so that they can be convinced that they can enjoy themselves without becoming inebriated.'' Jansak, p. 259. (13) Milan Hodfa, " Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI (1904) p . 294 . (14) Jansak, p . 197. (15) Ibid., p. 198. (16) Ibid., p. 198 (17) Ibid., pp. 209-210 . Vavro Srobar, Via.do l'udu v demokracii (Praha, 1920), p. 125. (18) Jansak, p. 211. (19) Pavel Blaho , Obrodenie slovenskeho zci.padu (Praha, n .d .) p . 22. (20) Ibid., p . 31. (21) Jansak, p . 306. (22) Ibid . , p . 205 (23) Ibid., p. 206 (24) Ibid . , p. 206. (25) Milan Hodfa "K aktivite slovenskej narodnej strany," Clanky, reti, ~tudie I (Praha, 1935) , pp. 176-177. (26) Hodfa "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI, p. 162. (27) Jansak, p . 330. See Ignotus (Milan Hodfa) Nacionalizmus je slepy," Hlas, V (1903) 97-99 . (28) Vavro Srobar, Politicky problem Slovenska (Praha, 1926) pp. 4-5. (29) Srobar, z m6jho iivota, p. 402 . (30) Ibid ., p . 360. (31) Jansak, p. 335 . (32) Ibid. , p . 335. (33) Ibid . , p. 335. (34) Hodfa, "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI , pp. 295-296. �SLOVAKIA 85 (35) Srobar, Z mojho iivota , pp. 361-362 . (36) Ibid ., p. 362. Jansak, p. 221. (37) Jansak, p . 221. (38) Ibid ., pp. 221-222 . (39) Vavro Srobar, Osvobodene Slovensko (Praha , 1928) . p . 11. (40) Jansak, p. 332. (41) Ibid ., p . 334. (42) See Jansak, p. 217. (43) Vavro Srobar, Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (1914-1918) (Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho, 1922), pp. 177-178. (44) See Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p. 221. (45) Jansak, pp. 200-201. (46) Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p . 36'1 . Srobar, Pamiitizvojnyaz viizenia, p . 176. (47) Srobar, Pamati z vojny a z viizenia, pp. 176-177. (48) Ibid ., pp . 176-177. (49) Srobar, Vldda l'udu v demokracii, p. 88. (50) Ibid. , pp. 87-89. (51) Ibid., p. 92 . (52) Ibid., p . 94 . (53) Ibid ., p. 95. (54) Ibid., p . 95 . (55) Ibid., pp. 95 and 100. (56) Ibid ., p . 106. (57) Ibid ., p. 106. (58) Ibid ., p . 107. (59) Jansak, p . 342. (60) Ibid., pp. 294-295. (61) Ibid ., p. 297. (62) Ibid ., pp . 346-347. (63) Ibid ., p . 347. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blaho, Pavel. Obrodenie slovenskeho zcipadu (The Rebirth of the Slovak West). Praha: Ostredny vybor prednaskovy, n.d. Hlas (The Voice) V, VI, (Ruzomberok), 1903, 1904. Hodia , Milan . Clcinky, re<!i,. studie (Articles, Speeches, Studies). Vol. I, Praha, 1930. Jansak , Stefan . Zivot Dr. Pavla Blaha, (The Life of Dr. Paul Blaho). Vol. I. Trnava: Spolok sv . Vojtecha, 1947 . Srobar, Vavro. Osvobodenie Slovensko (Liberated Slovakia) . Praho, 1928. - - - · Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (Memoirs from the War and from Prison). Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho , 1921. �86 SLOVAKIA _ _ _ . Politicky problem Slovenska (The Political Problem of Slovakia). Praha, 1926. _ _ _ . Vlcida l'udu v demokracii (Government of the People in a Democracy). Praha, 1920. _ _ _ , Z m6jho iivota (From My Life). Praha: Fr. Borovy, 1946. Stefimek, Anton. Slovensko pred prevratom a pot!as prevratu (Slovakia Before 1918 and During 1918). Praha, 1923. � 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 1976, Vol. 26 Description An account of the resource Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976. 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 1976 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 76 SLOVAKIA The Ideas of the Hlasist Movement BY ANTHONY SUTHERLAND The Slovak National Revolution of 1918 followed in the wake of the First World War and the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire. It achieved for the Slovaks the first period of political freedom after one thousand years under Magyar domination. Much of the thought and leadership for this liberation came from a small but effective intellectual circle commonly known as the ' 'hlasists ' ' . (1) Named after their periodical, Hlas, the group originated in the mid 1890s among several young Slovak intellectuals who sought new directions for the Slovak national movement . They borrowed from the realism of Thomas Masaryk and the philosophies of Herbert Spencer, William James and others. Although always a minority and never an organized political party, the ' 'hlasists'' had an impact on Slovak political and intellectual history far exceeding their numbers. Besides being a main impetus in the Slovak National Revolution, they provided much of the Slovak leadership in the subsequent First Czecho-Slovak Republic. They represented the first Slovak intellectual movement based on English philosophy. Slovak national politics until then had been dominated largely by the Slovak National Party, a small Lutheran intellectual group headed by the renouned poet-nationalist, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Rooted strongly in German romanticism, the Nationalists sought primarily cultural freedom from Budapest while look4lg to the Russian Empire for assistance and eventual liberation. The "ltlasists" rejected both the outlook and apparent passivity of the Nationalists and insisted on a program of action joined with economic and social reforms. Salvation for the Slovaks, the "hlasists" believed, would come not from Russia but from Western Europe, particularly England, and from close cooperation with the Czechs. In a similar manner, the Czech national movement was influenced by romanticism and marked by vague concepts of Pan Slavism. Thomas Masaryk, the father of Czecho-Slovakia, saw the inadequacy of the Czech politics and so searched for a new political philosophy that would bring about tangible results. In his book Ceska Otazka, Masaryk expressed the need for active politics, education and self-consciousness while criticizing the negativism of the Czech national movement. He added the need for social reform and humanism. (2) The founders and probably best exponents of Slovak realism were Vavro Srobar and Pavel Blaho. Srobar was born in 1867 in Liskova, the fourth of twelve children. After attending local schools, he went to the University of Prague to prepare for a career in medicine. While in SLOVAKIA 77 Prague, Srobar, through the Slavic society, "Detvan", came into contact with Masaryk and his philosophy of realism. (3) Until this time, Srobar was a romantic nationalist clinging to the traditional ideals of Svetozar Hurban-Vajansky and other Nationalists . In 1899 he was even invited by Ambor Pietor to become an editor of Narodne noviny, the voice of the Slovak Nationalist Party, but turned down the offer feeling unfit for the task at that time. (4) Srobar soon began to have doubts about the leadership and direction of the national movement. He became increasingly critical of the Slovak National Party's unrealistic faith in tsarist Russia and the former' s apparent inability to achieve any substantial gains for the Slovak cause. Pavel Blaho (1867-1927), in a similar way, began as a romantic nationalist and ended as a follower of Masaryk's realism. Born in Skalica and educated at the University of Vienna, Blaho became a close collaborator of Srobar and the new generation of Slovak intellectuals. By 1894, both men had been completely converted to Masaryk's realism and were determined to translate realistic principles into Slovakia. One of the first goals of the ''hlasists'' was the publication of a new political review, one completely independent from the Narodne noviny and one which would reflect the new progressive ideals of realism. (5) At a meeting of young Slovak intellectuals held in Turc. Sv. Martin on August 4, 1897, the decision was made to prepare for a new periodical, and at another conference four weeks later the title, Hlas, was selected. (6) During several succeeding conferences the aims and ideology of the new school of realism were put forth and debated. At the yearly conference of 1898 Srobar talked of the ideals and principles of realism but in such vague generalities that he left the one hundred people who attended uncertain over the actual nature of the new philosophy. (7) The 1899 conference in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, attended by some sixty people including such notables as Andrej Hlinka and Karol Kmet'ko, was of far greater practical value. Here Srobar elaborated on the realistic principles placing emphasis on the need for education and performance of 'small deeds' for the people. (8) The "hlasists" had many aims and ideas, some challenging traditional Slovak nationalism, others seemingly impractical or idealistic. Throughout ''hlasist'' thought there was a clear faith in science, in the pragmatic, positivist philosophy and distrust of the methods of the conservative, national movement. Srobar believed that pragmatism and the ability to act were the reasons for America's success. (9) Such a belief in pragmatism, for Srobar, necessitated a knowledge of the truth. The notion of truth was borrowed from Masaryk who once said, "Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, hold on to the truth, defend the truth to the death." (10) Truth to Srobar must replace lies, work was to replace laziness, and love to replace hatred. (11) In the search for truth nothing was held to be too sacred, not national custom, literature, songs or 78 SLOVAKIA anything. (12) Milan Hodza, one of the most gifted members of the "hlasist" group, wrote in Hl,as that Slovak history had to be examined objectively with no preconceived notions or feelings. (13) Once the truth was ascertained, then appropriate action could be taken to produce progress in the national movement. The primacy of truth, according to Srobar, demanded the '' regeneration in the morality of the Slovak man'' (14) but left it unclear as to the exact meaning of this morality . (15) By being better in the moral sense it was hoped the Slovak people would somehow be better equipped to deflect the onslaught of Magyarization. (16) Throughout the history of the ''hlasist'' movement, education was made a paramount objective. Self-enlightenment was the sine qua non of all progress for the "hlasists". It had to be democratic, not limited to the privileged few or for city dwellers but to all levels of society, including farmers, tradesmen, and workers . (17) Blaho emphasized the need for regional specialization in education . Blaho, the author of regionalism in the ''hlasist'' movement, proposed that every district have its own local newspaper to meet local needs as well as to supply information on national events. (18) "Hlasists" believed that national education rather than education for a selected few was necessary for a national movement. Blaho wrote, '' A nation that learns to want and demand begins also to fight and struggle." (19) Blaho, too, along with Hodza believed that with education came economic liberation, another precondition for national liberation. Blaho later wrote, "We want to liberate the people from spiritual darkness, from economic slavery, we want to restore Slovak elementary schools, we want to teach the people the intensive and technical cultivation of the soil. We want to teach them in a trade, to improve production, to teach them to work in business, to work in a cooperative society, we want to teach them to sacrifice for themselves, for their goals, their needs. '' (20) Education of the masses and moral regeneration could be accomplished, according to the "hlasists", dnly by 'work' or by the performance of small deeds, (drobnci prcica). (21) Pragmatism and science possessed little value unless they were translated into action. (22) "Work and only work for the people, for without work it is impossible to imagine a cultural life for the Slovaks," (23) Blaho wrote: "Look, we stand under the protection of the great power which maintains and directs the whole world, we stand under the patronage of abstract work . The entire universe is built on work . ... We fulfill the great law of life when we work.'' The ''hlasist'' virtue of work, although never really explained beyond a general sense, stood in contradiction to the apparent inactivity of traditional Slovak politics. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the "hlasist" movement was the criticism leveled against the Slovak National Party. Since the closing of the Matica Slovenska, the nationalists had accomplished little and it seemed to the "hlasists" SLOVAKIA 79 that they were resigned to their fate. Milan Hodfa charged that the National Party had no real political program. The memorandums of 1848 and 1861 contained only the "Alpha and Omega" of Slovak demands (25) but ignor~d specific economic and social needs. He concluded that nationaliSln alone was insufficient as the basis for national politics. (26) ' ' Hlasists'' concentrated their sharpest attacks on the leader of the National Party, Svetozar Hurban Vajansky. Vajansky was the recognized leader of the nation, the interpreter of national tradition. As the son of the famous Jozef M. Hurban, the 1848 revolutionary leader and pioneer in the work of establishing a separate written Slovak language, his authority not only in literature but in politics went often unquestioned . (27) Vajansky's political and spiritual ideas were based on romanticism and Russian Slavophilism. He believed Slovakia's salvation would come not from the West which he distributed for its materialism and atheism, but from Russia. (28) "Hlasists" saw in Vajansky's philosophy and politics a dangerous fatalism. Liberation would not come from tsarist Russia, Srobar felt, and even if it did, it would lead only to ''tsarist despotism.'' (29) Srobar once wrote, "Hurban is not an active politician yet directs Slovak politics; he likes to judge and condemn. Hurban is a spiritual leader of the nation; his powerful artistic talent is known to implant the soul of the Slovak intelligentsia, its thoughts, desires, ideals. Hurban personifies the entire Slovak intelligentsia." (30) Srobar reacted strongly to Vajansky's statement, ''We are the nation - pars pro toto (a part of the whole),'' (31) making the intelligentsia the national elite. Srobar answered, ''We are not the nation, we are crumbs in the nation, we are servants and not these haughty lords, elite of the nation, but we are the worst part of the nation.'' (32) The nation, Srobar continued, was to be found among the "honest workers, the hand-calloused laborers, among the soiled peasants and tenant farmers ." (33) Hodfa agreed with Srobar that the nation could not be found among a few intellectuals. He wrote in Hlas in 1904: "The nation is the people with all its needs and desires . The nation must be something concrete, calculable and not some fictitious ideal. Therefore then, national culture must not be limited to the intelligentsia; it deserves the name 'national' culture only if it penetrates and inspires all levels of the nation." (34) Srobar was particularly concerned over the direction that Vajansky seemed to be leading Slovak politics. The Slovaks were politically isolated, Srobar recalled, with no real allies or ties with any strong state. (35) Since a continuation of the Nationalist's Russophile policy was out of the question the only ' realistic' alternative the "hlasists" had was to develop closer relations with the Czechs, their closest Slavic neighbor. (36) Although Czech-Slovak cooperation was no invention of Srobar or the other "hlasists", it was their efforts that prepared the way for collaboration during the First World War. 80 SLOVAKIA On the question of Czech-Slovak unity, Srobar was cautiously silent. (37) He said only that it was impossible at this time to talk about political unification with the Czechs. "We reject emphatically all debate a priori about unification of us with the Czech nation in the political sense. There can be no unification in language but only in spirit." (38) Later in 1920, Srobar acknowledged the close cultural and political ties that existed between the two nations. ''The origin of a new written language in Slovakia did not interrupt the conscious tribal (kmen) unity of the Czecho-Slovaks even for one moment. The desire for close cultural, economic, and political unity increased year after year in proportion to the growth of a brutal Magyar suppression.'' (39) Many Slovaks anxiously awaited Vajansky's reaction to "hlasist" attacks, but were left somewhat disappointed. For a long time he said little. (40) In a series of articles appearing in the Narodne noviny Vajansky made references to the youth movement, meaning the "hlasists", as "trivial and childish." (41) It was known that Vajansky was opposed to the Czech orientation and to the placing of economic reforms before political goals. (42) But the most controversial feature of ''hlasist'' views was their critical position taken against the Catholic Church and clerical influence in Slovak society. Srobar attacked the Slovak priesthood as corrupt, materialistic and Magyar in spirit. (43) Since his student days Srobar had begun to question Church authority. (44) Much of this questioning attitude towards the Church was taken from Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy taught that the organized Church had corrupted and formalized Christianity to the extent that it was necessary to return to a primitive type of Christianity as was found in the early Church. In Tolstoy Srobar also discovered support for his idea of truth as the most important element in dealing with social problems. Tolstoy said all the revolutions of the nineteenth century lacked this principle of truth. It is not necessary to merely proclaim truth but to act on it. (45) Srobar looked at the Slovak problem as largely a religious problem. (46) Slovaks, he said, cared for little else but religion. Art, science, politics concerned them only to the extent that they served religious needs. (47) Slovak Catholics, Srobar believed, although sincere and pious, were infected with superstition and f~talism. He wrote: ''Great masses of the Slovak people designate thems~lves, 'I am a Catholic' or 'I am a Lutheran', but the faiths of the Slovaks are not joined in one unit but left divided. The faith of Slovaks is pure, sincere, but the content of their faith is completely pagan, fetishistic, superstitious, fatalistic . . . . Here is where I expect the guarantee of our fall. All our people have fallen to this decadent Catholicism." (48) It would be a mistake, however, to label Srobar at this time as an atheist or an irreverent Christian, for many of his early writings reveal a sincere religious faith. His disagreement was not with Catholicism but with the adverse influence it seemed to have on the development of SLOVAKIA 81 the nation. Srobar was opposed to anything resembling a theocratic type state and one which did not permit freedom of thought and expression. His arguments for freedom of conscience were founded in Christ's teaching, "Seek the truth and the truth will free you," adding that one who did not support the free search for truth was in violation of divine teaching. (49) Freedom of conscience, for Srobar, was a precondition for all progress, economic and social. To stifle the free quest for truth would ~ot only stagnate a society's growth but ultimately destroy that society. (50) He wrote: Without freedom of conscience and conviction there is no life for a dignified man, only the animal in man remains, in one degree of development. A man must teach and educate himself every day, that is seek and know the truth because who seeks the truth enriches his knowledge and becomes more learned than one who does not seek the truth. And if this law is applicable for the individual, that he educate and perfect himself, then it is even important for the entire nation. Free and educated nations enslave backward and uncultured nations. And he who cries and calls names at progress in a nation is the greatest enemy of his nation because he wants his nation to remain in darkness and ignorance so that nothing new is passed or begun. (51) At the same time, Srobar did not deny the necessity of good religious and moral standards for a healthy society. Srobar traced the evolution of moral standards. In primitive societies customs comprised the moral code. During the " age of faith" religious laws provided this same code . Later, in the age of democracy, faith and customs had lost their value, thus moral feelings of men had to be "more sincere, one had to perform voluntarily what he was once forced to do." (52) A man committed to religious ideals, Srobar continued, would be better able to serve the state than one lacking any religious conviction. (53) Srobar felt the neglect of moral faith was the foremost weakness of modern times . He wrote: Religious feelings, because they are developed from morality and fear of God have directed and controlled the natural impulses of man from time immemorial. A devout, religious man better performs his obligations towards himself, his family, and all society than a man without principles, without religion, or a man standing purely on materialism. Modern times forget the harmonious cultivation of reason and feeling and so becomes one-sided and superficial. A wise democracy expends all its efforts so that this harmonious culture among its citizenry is not forgotten. (54) 82 SLOVAKIA But, while Srobar did not completely reject organized religion, he did advocate that its activity be limited to purely spiritual concerns while leaving material questions to politicians. (55) Both church and state should exist, in Srobar's view, in a harmonious union but they had to remain separated. Srobar warned against religious intolerance which he defined as "hatred and anger against one's neighbor," (56) and against clericalism. Every unhappy nation, Srobar added, has a clerical leader at its head, and no class or political prejudice is as dangerous as religious intolerance. (57) "Every Slovak who holds dear freedom and independence for his homeland, who desires that we not remain under Magyar enslavement, who wants to rule himself, will avoid clerical slavery." (58) Such assaults on the Church caused the expected reaction and probably accounted for the defection of most of the clerical leaders from the " hlasist" camp. During the first few years of "hlasist" activity, the response by many Catholic priests was favorable . Several Catholic priests corresponded regularly with the "hlasists". Jozef Buday, a noted priest in the People's Party, complimented Blaho in 1898 on Hlas for exposing the nation's weaknesses . In a letter to Blaho of July 14, 1898, Buday wrote, " Therefore, with unspeakable joy I wish the periodical Hlas the most beautiful secure future, and I welcome you as its author, as its intrepid fighter for the development of the Slovak nation and as a sacrificing leader of Slovak youth on the thorny, spiral path of national life." (59) The following year Buday submitted an article for Hlas in which he recommended that priests not turn their backs on modem science and progress but take part in modem movements. The famous priest Ferdis Juriga supported the movement of Hlas towards moral regeneration. (60) But perhaps the most enthusiastic clerical supporter of Hlas was the priest and later Magyarone, Frantisek Jehlicka. He eagerly volunteered to work to obtain subscriptions for Hlas, telling Blaho, ''I want to become an eternal subscriber to Hlas." (61) Soon, however, many priests including Jehlicka became disillusioned with "hlasist" radicalism and seemingly irreligious attitudes. Many Slovak clerics were no doubt faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they supported the progressivism of the "hlasists", but on the other hand, they could not accept their questioning attitude towards Church authority. Leaders in the Lutheran Church were in ~ similar position. They praised the '' hlasists'' but also cautioned them about condemning the entire old intelligentsia. They warned them against looking abroad for foreign ideas to follow, when good ideas could be found at home. (62) Reassuring the Lutheran hierarchy, Blaho said, " ... we want to reform by work and not destroy the work of our fathers, not attack the church in dogma, ... we want to be better." (63) The "hlasists" remained a small, disorganized group of men possessing a variety of ideas. Despite all the alleged radicalism at- SLOVAKIA 83 tributed to them , the "hlasists" were quite traditional in many respects, at least during the first few years of their activity. There was never an attempt to break completely from the past but efforts were made to reconcile realistic principles with Slovak tradition, with the ideas of Stur and other leaders. The spiritual nature found throughout the works of Slovak nationalists was unmistakably evident in many "hlasist" writings, particularly those of Srobar. A good portion of "hlasist" thinking involved introspection or analysis of the nation's soul or character. In this respect "hlasists" were no different from the generations of Slovak thinkers that came before them. Even in their 'Czechoslovak' position, they were at first moderate . They were admirers of the Czechs and their culture, but they did not deny Slovak national individuality. Cooperation with the Czechs was viewed as the only realistic alternative, the only politically expedient course. Later, however, many "hlasists" became zealous supporters of Prague centralism, and some even adhered to the fictitious idea of the 'Czechoslovak' nation. Their Czechoslovak orientation before 1914 guaranteed the "hlasists" several leadership posts in the First Czecho-Slovak Republic. Srobar was chosen Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia during the first months of the republic, while other "hlasists" dominated the remaining Slovak posts. During the critical years of the First World War it was often the '' hlasists'' rather than the Nationalists or Populists who took the decisive action calling for national conferences, issuing declarations of independence, or working with foreign governments. Hlinka and others often hesitated, moved more cautiously, thus possibly losing some of the leadership in the new republic. Although popular at first, the "hlasists" gradually lost support from many quarters. Buday, Juriga and other priests lost all confidence in the ''hlasists'' because of their increasing radicalism, their free thinking, and their Czechoslovakism. The main significance of the ''hlasist'' movement, though, was in providing a journal and an atmosphere for critical, secular thought in Slovakia. This brought some progress, it might be argued; on the other hand, it meant tragedy for the Slovak nation. The ''hlasists'' seriously divided the Slovak national intelligentsia before 1914 and brought an end to the once united national movement. FOOTNOTES Included in the hlasist group were: Vavro Srobar, Pavel Blaho, Milan Hodia, Anton Stefanek. (2) Stefan Jansak, .Zivot Dr. Pavla Blahu, Vol. I (Tmava: Spolok sv. Vojtecha, 1947), pp. 129-130. (1) 84 SLOVAKIA (3) Srobar related in his memoirs how he became acquainted with Masaryk . What especially impressed him was Masaryk's statement that in religious questions, realism " stood on Christian principles." Vavro Srobar, Z m6jho iivota (Praha: Fr. Borovy , 1946) , p . 181. (4) Ibid ., p. 162 . (5) Jansak, pp . 138 and 141. (6) Ibid., pp . 145-147. An eleven-member editorial board was chosen: Srobar , Blaho, Hodfa , Me dvecky, Zathurecky, Rath, Minarik, Ivanko, Dohnany, Ziak-Somolicky and Jesensky. (7) Ibid., pp. 302-303. (8) Ibid . , pp. 306-307. (9) Ibid. , pp. 208-209 . (10) Ibid., p. 200 . (11) Ibid. , p . 198 Quoted in Anton Stefanek, Slovensko pred prevratom a poi!as prevratu (Praha , 1923), p. 35. (12) Srobar disagreed with Blaho over the national individuality found in Slovak weddings, songs, and costumes . Srobar attacked what he considered to be the backwardness and primitivism of Slovak weddings. He said, "In our weddings, individuals drink and eat to excess . It is necessary to improve and refine the people so that they can be convinced that they can enjoy themselves without becoming inebriated.'' Jansak, p. 259. (13) Milan Hodfa, " Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI (1904) p . 294 . (14) Jansak, p . 197. (15) Ibid., p. 198. (16) Ibid., p. 198 (17) Ibid., pp. 209-210 . Vavro Srobar, Via.do l'udu v demokracii (Praha, 1920), p. 125. (18) Jansak, p. 211. (19) Pavel Blaho , Obrodenie slovenskeho zci.padu (Praha, n .d .) p . 22. (20) Ibid., p . 31. (21) Jansak, p . 306. (22) Ibid . , p . 205 (23) Ibid., p. 206 (24) Ibid . , p. 206. (25) Milan Hodfa "K aktivite slovenskej narodnej strany," Clanky, reti, ~tudie I (Praha, 1935) , pp. 176-177. (26) Hodfa "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI, p. 162. (27) Jansak, p . 330. See Ignotus (Milan Hodfa) Nacionalizmus je slepy," Hlas, V (1903) 97-99 . (28) Vavro Srobar, Politicky problem Slovenska (Praha, 1926) pp. 4-5. (29) Srobar, z m6jho iivota, p. 402 . (30) Ibid ., p . 360. (31) Jansak, p. 335 . (32) Ibid. , p . 335. (33) Ibid . , p. 335. (34) Hodfa, "Realizmus u nas," Hlas VI , pp. 295-296. SLOVAKIA 85 (35) Srobar, Z mojho iivota , pp. 361-362 . (36) Ibid ., p. 362. Jansak, p. 221. (37) Jansak, p . 221. (38) Ibid ., pp. 221-222 . (39) Vavro Srobar, Osvobodene Slovensko (Praha , 1928) . p . 11. (40) Jansak, p. 332. (41) Ibid ., p . 334. (42) See Jansak, p. 217. (43) Vavro Srobar, Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (1914-1918) (Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho, 1922), pp. 177-178. (44) See Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p. 221. (45) Jansak, pp. 200-201. (46) Srobar, Z mojho iivota, p . 36'1 . Srobar, Pamiitizvojnyaz viizenia, p . 176. (47) Srobar, Pamati z vojny a z viizenia, pp. 176-177. (48) Ibid ., pp . 176-177. (49) Srobar, Vldda l'udu v demokracii, p. 88. (50) Ibid. , pp. 87-89. (51) Ibid., p. 92 . (52) Ibid., p . 94 . (53) Ibid ., p. 95. (54) Ibid., p . 95 . (55) Ibid., pp. 95 and 100. (56) Ibid ., p . 106. (57) Ibid ., p. 106. (58) Ibid ., p . 107. (59) Jansak, p . 342. (60) Ibid., pp. 294-295. (61) Ibid ., p. 297. (62) Ibid ., pp . 346-347. (63) Ibid ., p . 347. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blaho, Pavel. Obrodenie slovenskeho zcipadu (The Rebirth of the Slovak West). Praha: Ostredny vybor prednaskovy, n.d. Hlas (The Voice) V, VI, (Ruzomberok), 1903, 1904. Hodia , Milan . Clcinky, re<!i,. studie (Articles, Speeches, Studies). Vol. I, Praha, 1930. Jansak , Stefan . Zivot Dr. Pavla Blaha, (The Life of Dr. Paul Blaho). Vol. I. Trnava: Spolok sv . Vojtecha, 1947 . Srobar, Vavro. Osvobodenie Slovensko (Liberated Slovakia) . Praho, 1928. - - - · Pamiiti z vojny a z viizenia (Memoirs from the War and from Prison). Praha: Nakladom Gustava Dubskeho , 1921. 86 SLOVAKIA _ _ _ . Politicky problem Slovenska (The Political Problem of Slovakia). Praha, 1926. _ _ _ . Vlcida l'udu v demokracii (Government of the People in a Democracy). Praha, 1920. _ _ _ , Z m6jho iivota (From My Life). Praha: Fr. Borovy, 1946. Stefimek, Anton. Slovensko pred prevratom a pot!as prevratu (Slovakia Before 1918 and During 1918). Praha, 1923.  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 Ideas of the Hlasist Movement Description An account of the resource Anthony Sutherland Slovakia, Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976 pp. 76-86 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sutherland, Anthony X. (Anthony Xavier) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/fee02645415ed7d6f3abc8cd471655d1.pdf a5f128b4d915d9e05afc54e1fe2aaa38 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 105 Winning Essays-Slovak League Scholarship Awards Karen Ann S y z d e k : The Developm e nt of Slovak Literature It has been said that the literary activitv of a country is dependent upon the economic stability, educational opportunity, political liberty and intellectual capability of its people. 1 For centuries, the oppressive rule of the Magyars had so deprived the Slovaks of the first three factors that their literature was given no chance to grow. The artistic ability of the people of Slovakia was expressed mainly in their folk songs and dances, folk poetry, sagas and ballads, but did not often reach a more formal levely until about 1650. Finally, with the coming of the Baroque period, the University of Trnava became a source of Slovak Catholic literature. The works which came from this university were written in the native Slovak and in Latin. One of the professors, a Jesuit priest, Martin Szentivanyi ( 16331705) was the author of 65 works including an encyclopedia, Curiosiora et Selectoria Variarum Scientiarum Miscellanea (1686-1702 ) and Dissertationes (1689 ) 2 Political issues became very much a part of Slovak literature with the work of Jan Baltazar Magin ( 1682-1735) who wrote a defense of Slovaks and of their rights. Another literary defender of his country was Alexander Macsay (d. 1721) who battled for the Slovak language in Panes Primitiarium (1718 ) . Also a milestone in Slovakia's literary history was the appearance of the first Slovak novel Rene Mlddenca Prihody a Skusenosti (1783 ) written by Jozef Ignac Bajza (1755-1836) .3 With the beginning of the age of Enlightenment, there was an upsurge of national consciousness in Slovakia. As the people became aware of their linguistic and racial individuality they sought to eliminate the variance between the language of books and the vernacular. One of the main proponents of this movement was Anton Bernolak ( 1762- �106 SLOVAKIA 1813) who codified the Slovak language in his linguistic works Dissertatio Philologico-Critic a de Litteris Slavorum and Orthographia (1787), Grammatica Slavica (1790), Etymologia Vocum Slavicarum (1791) and in a dictionary published posthumously (1825). Bernolak also began several societies which encouraged work in the field of Slovak literature. 4 Bernolak's advocation of Slovak as a literary language was opposed by the Protestant writers, including Jan Kollar (1793-1852) and Pavel Jozef safarik 0795-1861) . Although these two men used Czech in all of their writings, they contributed much to the literary activity in Slovakia. Jan Kollar was the forerunner of all of Slovakia's poets. His enthusiasm in Sldva's Daughter inspired the Slavs in their fight for nationalism and for their language. He was also a supporter of pan-Slavism because he mistakenly believed that since the Slovaks were so few in number, they could best achieve their independence through an understanding with the other Slavic people. Kollar's pride in his native country is apparent in many of his poems and he often expressed the belief that the past had belonged to the Romans, the present to the Teutons and the future to the Slavs. He hoped to see the Slavic nations living in peaceful but self-ruling cooperation.5 The work of Pavel Jozef safarik is of a more permanent value than that of Kollar, however. safarik was a poet and scientist who dealt with the theme of Slav Antiquities, the history of Slav literature and the origins of the Slavs.6 He encouraged the Slovaks to develope a literary style of their own in order to increase their national pride and to create a national literature. For exactly these reasons, I.:udovit sttir (1815-1856) founded the modern Slovak literary language. The use of Slovak in literature, stur believed, would unite the people in a struggle against the Magyars, and also bring education to the common people, who spoke only Slovak. sttir was not involved only with the beginning of the standard Slovak literary language but also worked to organize all aspects of Slovak national life in accordance with enlightened humanism. 7 In 1845 stur began to publish the first Slovak language �SLOVAKIA 107 periodical, Slovenskje Ndrodnje Novini. The publication of $tur's work Ndrecia Slovenskuo a Potreba Pisanja V Tomto Ndreci 0846) together with Nduka Reci Slovenskej (1846) caused the final acceptance of Slovak as the literary language by all Slovak intellectuals. In 1849 $tur succeeded in having Slovak recognized as the language to be used in secondary schools.8 Writing at the same time as $tur was Jan Holly (1785-1849) whose Slovak hexameters about Svatopluk, Cyril and Methodius, and Slavdom made him a beloved and famous poet. He was also the greatest follower of Bernolak's literary school. A more versatile writer who lived in this period was Miloslav Hurban (1817-1888). He wrote for the magazine Nitra. He also wrote botn lyric poetry and prose and his most famous work is a historical story from the fourteenth century entitled Olejkdr and a story of his own time called Slovak Pupils. 9 A. Sladkovic (1820-1872), was another talented Slovak poet who wrote lyric-epics and displayed the influence of the Russian author Puskin and of the English Byron. He wrote a poem entitled Marina which is pan-Slavistic and a religious allegory. An epic poem founded on local tradition is Detvan which speaks of the soul of the Slovak nation. His work is sentimental and romantic, but contains enough realism to counterbalance these traits. 10 Janka Kral' (1822-1876) and Jan Botto (1829-1881 ) wrote ballads and romances and in their works display the character of the Slovak peasants. Many nature descriptions also can be found in their writings. Kral' wrote in the style of the romantics; his poems are melancholy. The source of Botto's most popular wor:kl was the Slovak ballad about Janosik. His verse is harmonious and descriptive, but plaintive. A poet very similar to Kral' and Botto is Samo Chalupka (1812-1883 ) , but his epic poems from ancient Slav history have a style which is much more terse and less romantic.0 1 The careers of all of these writers were aided by a halt in the Magyar persecutions. The freedom given to the Slovak authors enabled them to be more productive. At this time (1860) the first Slovak novels appeared. �108 SLOVAKIA Janko Kalincak (1822-1871) for example, wrote both historical stories and also realistic stories from contemporary Slovak life. His story Restoration is typical of his style and is about Magyar elections. The influence of Byron and of Polish literature can be found in his work. 12 In 1863 the Emperor allowed the Slovaks to form a scientific and literary organization, the Matica Slovenska, which was headed by Bishop Moyses. This organization published collections of proverbs and folk-songs, and also novels, scientific books, and poems. It was a vital center for Slovak intellectual activity. But soon new persecutions began and the literary progress of the Slovaks was impeded by the Magyars. Magyar was declared as the only state language and Slovak leaders who protested were imprisoned. All Slovak Journals and Societies, including the Matica, were suppressed . The only publications which survived the end of the nineteenth century and which maintained the national spirit were the N<irodnie Noviny and Slovenske Pohl'ady. The Slovenslce Pohl'ady soon attracted a new generation of writers. In 1881 one of the editors was Svetozar Hurban Vajansky (1847-1916 ). In the magazine he published the works of the Russian realists, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Turgenev. The writings of these authors had a profound effect upon the Slovaks. Previous to this time the age of national romanticism had prevaded in Slovak literature_ Now the younger writers were coming under the influence of the Russian realists and soon put an end to the era of pseudo-romantic mannerisms. A new interest in the subjective experience of the artist arose ; his own individuality was most important and he expressed boldly his view of life. Besides starting the realist movement as editor of the Slovenslce Pohl'ady, Vajansky also wrote prose and poetry which belonged to the new age of realism. His work shows the influence of the Russians, yet he maintains some measure of conservativism and like stur his writings show his great pride in his Slovak nationality. The best of his books is Tatry a More. His prose works dealt with the political and social life of the Slovak intelligentsia. 13 Two other realists who helped, this type of literature gain in victory in Slovakia were Pavel Orszagh-Hviezdoslav �SLOVAKIA 109 (1849-1922) and Martin Kukucin (1860-1927). Hviezdoslav can be considered the greatest Slovak poet up to the early twentieth century. His works were influenced by Sladkovic and Kollar. His poems display his rich imagination, his sensitivity and his patriotism. He wrote lyrics and also epics, the greatest of which is H djnikova zena. This epic gives valuable descriptions of nature and also of the Slovak culture, traditions and religion. He often wrote with a Biblical theme . Although his form was that of a skilled and sophisticated poet, the soul which he displayed in his works remained that of a simple Slovak peasant. This is what makes his work so valuable: he reveals the spirit of the Slovak people to the world.14 Kukucin also wrote of the lives of the peasants but with an even greater realism and less sentimentality. His novel Dom v Strdni is good and is typical of his work. In general, he is more progressive than Vajansky. 15 About 1900, several more publications began which were supported entirely by younger writers. In these the students expressed quite radical beliefs and again a new type of literature was begun. The progressive realism of Kukucin was abandoned by the new generation of writers and critical realism became the new literary style. As the name implies, the new style of writing observed the political, social and moral world "objectively" , reported the faults that were seen, and demanded improvement. This literary school included writers like B . Slancikova 0867-1951) , L. Nadasi-Jege 0866-1940), T. G. Tajovsky 0874-1940 ) , J. Jesensky (1874-1945) and others. The leading poet of the Slovak Modernist is Ivan Krasko (1886-1958 ) . He was a lyrist and impressionist who wrote symbolically. He mourned the slavery of the Slovaks, and the effects which it had upon them. Although he wrote of the sadness and despair which he saw, the most lasting influence which he had upon his nation was to give it hope. Krasko influenced several generations of poets. He not only expressed the national life of Slovakia, but also all aspects of the life of modern man.16 The advent of World War I brought a temporary halt to the production of Slovak literature. Immediately after the war there was also a silence; the older writers were involved in organizing the political activities of the new �110 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovak Republic, and the younger writers had not developed their talents to any great extent. But finally in 1922 the publications Slovenske Pohl'ady and Prudy began again. The young writers grouped around these magazines and soom were publishing highly polished works in them which greatly contributed to Slovak literature. Hviezdoslav, the greatest Slovak poet died in 1921. But very soon after his death Slovak literature was teeming literary names, both old and new. In addition to the established writers who were reaching their artistic maturity (M. Razus, I. Grebac-Orlov, J. Jesensky, J. GregorTajovsky, T. Milkin, V. Roy etc.) the most significant event was the appearance of young authors who were soon to change the character and tempo of the Slovak literary life. They include such well known names as J . Smrek, v . Beniak, A. zarnov, E . B. Lukac, T. J . Gaspar, J. Niznansky, L. Novomesky, S . Krcmery, J . c. Hronsky, M. Urban, J. Ponican, J . Branecky, G. Va.mos, etc. These young writers were cosmopolitan in outlook, no longer satisfied with the events in their native village or even in Bratislava or Prague, but keenly following the artistic development in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Moscow . They formed artistic school and literary groups eagerly trying to catch up with the rest of the intellectual world. But in spite of this absorbing attention they paid to the world outside the Slovak writers were acutely aware of the wrongs and injustices to which their nation was exposed in the Czech-dominated Czecho-Slovakia. Many of them warningly lifted their voices of protest against this unequal partnership (e.g. A. zarnov, M . Razus, I. GrebacOrlov, J. C. Hronsky ) and demanded a more just and equitable deal for their nation. Stresses and strains, both internal and external, led in 1938-39 to gradual disappearance of Czecho-Slovakia and out of its ruins grew an independent Slovakia. Slovak writers almost without exception warmly greeted this dawn of a new epoch. The duration of the Slovak state ( 19391945 ) was, indeed, a golden age of Slovak literature. 17 The Slovak Writers Association numbered abou 400 members and their literary output in 1939-45 amounted to some 1,000 books of verse, novels and drama. Far more important �SLOVAKIA 111 than this quantity was the quality of their work which reached unsurpassed heights. This brief essay permits only a few names to be mentioned from an extensive catalogue of literary personalities. The most successful writers of novel and short stories were: J . C. Hronsky, M. Urban, M. Figuli, s. Rysura, D. Chrobak, L. Ondrejov, P . H . Jurina, s. Graf. Valentin Beniak, A. zarnov, K . Strmen, J. Kostra, R. Dilong, J . Haranta, J. Silan, J. Smrek, V. Reisel excelled as poets. The best known playwrights were I. Stodola and J . BarcIvan. The revolutionary changes which took place in Slovak politics after World War II were paralleled by equally drastic changes in the literature. The Communist occupation of Slovakia stopped the publication of the works of all those authors who were Catholic and who would not compromise their ideals and beliefs and take up the cause of the proletariat. The trend of Slovak literature changed but the best of the Slovak writers, Urban, Hronsky, Gaspar, Smrek, Lukac, and Beniak were not involved in the new trend. Many of these authors sought exile in other countries where they would be permitted to write and publish without government oppression or restriction. Some of the Slovak authors who are now living and writing in countries other than their native land are Karol Strmen (1921- ) who translated the New Testament into Slovak ( 1954), Milos K. Mlynarovic ( 1887-) who it the oldest living Slovak poet, Marian ziar, ~udo Besenovsky, Gorazd Zvonicky, Jan Okal' and Marusa Juskova.18 Msgr. Milos K. Mlynarovic, who is now living in the United States is a mature and productive writer who has authored books of poetry, n~vels, and religious writings. The main themes of his work are God, Church and the Slovak nation. In this sense Mlynarovic is a traditional poet since these have been the predominant themes of Slovak writers since the mid-1800's. His first book of verse was entitled Sldvia (1919) . After its publication, several prose works were written by him. The second book of poetry, showing the influence of Krasko, was Veliky Boh Malych ( 1934). In 1948 a volume entitled Boha Hl'adam �SLOVAKIA 112 was published in Slovakia and with optimism in man, provided a great Slovak literature which dwelt upon ing of war. Two other volumes of then are Testament Krdl'a Sfdc, prayer, and Dejiny Srdca. 19 its theme of hope and contrast to the native the horror and sufferverse published since meditative poems of All of these authors and countless other Slovak writers not mentioned have contributed greatly to the culture of the world and to the artistic development of their country. In the light of objective examination they have certainly represented their native land well. It has been said that "The Slovak literature of the present .. . wants to express its basic raison d'etre and its great mission among the people-the propagation of love of life, love of man, active desire for freedom, respect for the work of the people and faith in their future." 20 It can only be hoped that someday Slovakia will be given its complete freedom so that the achievement of these noble goals may be carried out, and the authors now in exile may return to their native land to achieve further progress in Slovakia's literary world. ( First Prize Award) FOOTNOTES 1) Vavro Srobar, "Cultural Progress in Slovakia," Slovakia Then And Now (Prague, 1931), 107. 2) "Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia, XIII (New York, 1966) , 293. 3) "Slovak Literature," 293. 4) William E. Harkins, Czech and Slovak Literature (New York, 1950), 30. 5) Vladimir Nosek, The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak History, Music, and Literature (London, 1926), 142. 6) Vladimir Nosek, p. 144. 7) William E. Harkins, p. 32. 8) "Slovak Literature," p. 292. 9) Vladimir Nosek, p. 304. 10) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 11) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 12) Vladimir Nosek, p. 306. �SLOVAKIA 113 13) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 14) Vladimir Nosek, p. 309. 15) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 16) Dr. Mojmir Otruba and Dr. Zdenek Pe~at, ed., Th e Linden Tre es - An Anthology of Czech and Slov ak L i terature 1890-1960 (Prague, 1962) , p . 316. 17) Dr. E. .Zatko, " Slovenska duchovna tvorba" in Slov enska r epublika 1939-1945, Obrana Press, Scranton, Pa., 1949, pp. 202-210. F . Vnuk, " Sedemnast' neurodn ych rokov slovenskej li teratury" , in L i t erarny Almanach 1966, Middletown, Pa., 1965, pp. 19-28. 18) "Slovak Literature," p. 195. 19) F . Vnuk, "A Poet in Exile," Slovakia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-148. 20) Dr. Mojmir Otruba, p. 21. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ha rkins, William E. Czech and Slovak L i terature. New York, 1950. Nosek, Vladimir. The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak H istory, Music, and L i terature. London, 1926. Otruba, Mojmir, and Zdenek Pefat, ed. The Linden Tree- A n Anthology of Czech and Slovak L i terature 1890-1960. Prague, 1962. " Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York, 1966. Seton-Watson, R. W. arranger.Slov akia Then And Now. Prague, 1931. Vnuk, F . "A Poet in Exile, " Slov akia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-152. J\1atica Slovenska ( Second Prize Award) In the year 1963, Matica Slovenska, the cultural institution of the Slovaks, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. At this time, the citizens of the entire CzechoSlovak Republic recalled the history of the Slovak national and social fight for their very existence and for a cultural revolution. "Matica Slovenska" is the name of a central and highest Slovak Institute of culture, literature, art and science. "Matica Slovenska" means "Slovak Mother," the word "Matica" being an endearing as well as dignified form for mother. It was founded in the city of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. The Matica elected as its firs t President a distinguished Slovak leader, Bishop Stefan � SLOVAKIA 105 Winning Essays-Slovak League Scholarship Awards Karen Ann S y z d e k : The Developm e nt of Slovak Literature It has been said that the literary activitv of a country is dependent upon the economic stability, educational opportunity, political liberty and intellectual capability of its people. 1 For centuries, the oppressive rule of the Magyars had so deprived the Slovaks of the first three factors that their literature was given no chance to grow. The artistic ability of the people of Slovakia was expressed mainly in their folk songs and dances, folk poetry, sagas and ballads, but did not often reach a more formal levely until about 1650. Finally, with the coming of the Baroque period, the University of Trnava became a source of Slovak Catholic literature. The works which came from this university were written in the native Slovak and in Latin. One of the professors, a Jesuit priest, Martin Szentivanyi ( 16331705) was the author of 65 works including an encyclopedia, Curiosiora et Selectoria Variarum Scientiarum Miscellanea (1686-1702 ) and Dissertationes (1689 ) 2 Political issues became very much a part of Slovak literature with the work of Jan Baltazar Magin ( 1682-1735) who wrote a defense of Slovaks and of their rights. Another literary defender of his country was Alexander Macsay (d. 1721) who battled for the Slovak language in Panes Primitiarium (1718 ) . Also a milestone in Slovakia's literary history was the appearance of the first Slovak novel Rene Mlddenca Prihody a Skusenosti (1783 ) written by Jozef Ignac Bajza (1755-1836) .3 With the beginning of the age of Enlightenment, there was an upsurge of national consciousness in Slovakia. As the people became aware of their linguistic and racial individuality they sought to eliminate the variance between the language of books and the vernacular. One of the main proponents of this movement was Anton Bernolak ( 1762- �106 SLOVAKIA 1813) who codified the Slovak language in his linguistic works Dissertatio Philologico-Critic a de Litteris Slavorum and Orthographia (1787), Grammatica Slavica (1790), Etymologia Vocum Slavicarum (1791) and in a dictionary published posthumously (1825). Bernolak also began several societies which encouraged work in the field of Slovak literature. 4 Bernolak's advocation of Slovak as a literary language was opposed by the Protestant writers, including Jan Kollar (1793-1852) and Pavel Jozef safarik 0795-1861) . Although these two men used Czech in all of their writings, they contributed much to the literary activity in Slovakia. Jan Kollar was the forerunner of all of Slovakia's poets. His enthusiasm in Sldva's Daughter inspired the Slavs in their fight for nationalism and for their language. He was also a supporter of pan-Slavism because he mistakenly believed that since the Slovaks were so few in number, they could best achieve their independence through an understanding with the other Slavic people. Kollar's pride in his native country is apparent in many of his poems and he often expressed the belief that the past had belonged to the Romans, the present to the Teutons and the future to the Slavs. He hoped to see the Slavic nations living in peaceful but self-ruling cooperation.5 The work of Pavel Jozef safarik is of a more permanent value than that of Kollar, however. safarik was a poet and scientist who dealt with the theme of Slav Antiquities, the history of Slav literature and the origins of the Slavs.6 He encouraged the Slovaks to develope a literary style of their own in order to increase their national pride and to create a national literature. For exactly these reasons, I.:udovit sttir (1815-1856) founded the modern Slovak literary language. The use of Slovak in literature, stur believed, would unite the people in a struggle against the Magyars, and also bring education to the common people, who spoke only Slovak. sttir was not involved only with the beginning of the standard Slovak literary language but also worked to organize all aspects of Slovak national life in accordance with enlightened humanism. 7 In 1845 stur began to publish the first Slovak language �SLOVAKIA 107 periodical, Slovenskje Ndrodnje Novini. The publication of $tur's work Ndrecia Slovenskuo a Potreba Pisanja V Tomto Ndreci 0846) together with Nduka Reci Slovenskej (1846) caused the final acceptance of Slovak as the literary language by all Slovak intellectuals. In 1849 $tur succeeded in having Slovak recognized as the language to be used in secondary schools.8 Writing at the same time as $tur was Jan Holly (1785-1849) whose Slovak hexameters about Svatopluk, Cyril and Methodius, and Slavdom made him a beloved and famous poet. He was also the greatest follower of Bernolak's literary school. A more versatile writer who lived in this period was Miloslav Hurban (1817-1888). He wrote for the magazine Nitra. He also wrote botn lyric poetry and prose and his most famous work is a historical story from the fourteenth century entitled Olejkdr and a story of his own time called Slovak Pupils. 9 A. Sladkovic (1820-1872), was another talented Slovak poet who wrote lyric-epics and displayed the influence of the Russian author Puskin and of the English Byron. He wrote a poem entitled Marina which is pan-Slavistic and a religious allegory. An epic poem founded on local tradition is Detvan which speaks of the soul of the Slovak nation. His work is sentimental and romantic, but contains enough realism to counterbalance these traits. 10 Janka Kral' (1822-1876) and Jan Botto (1829-1881 ) wrote ballads and romances and in their works display the character of the Slovak peasants. Many nature descriptions also can be found in their writings. Kral' wrote in the style of the romantics; his poems are melancholy. The source of Botto's most popular wor:kl was the Slovak ballad about Janosik. His verse is harmonious and descriptive, but plaintive. A poet very similar to Kral' and Botto is Samo Chalupka (1812-1883 ) , but his epic poems from ancient Slav history have a style which is much more terse and less romantic.0 1 The careers of all of these writers were aided by a halt in the Magyar persecutions. The freedom given to the Slovak authors enabled them to be more productive. At this time (1860) the first Slovak novels appeared. �108 SLOVAKIA Janko Kalincak (1822-1871) for example, wrote both historical stories and also realistic stories from contemporary Slovak life. His story Restoration is typical of his style and is about Magyar elections. The influence of Byron and of Polish literature can be found in his work. 12 In 1863 the Emperor allowed the Slovaks to form a scientific and literary organization, the Matica Slovenska, which was headed by Bishop Moyses. This organization published collections of proverbs and folk-songs, and also novels, scientific books, and poems. It was a vital center for Slovak intellectual activity. But soon new persecutions began and the literary progress of the Slovaks was impeded by the Magyars. Magyar was declared as the only state language and Slovak leaders who protested were imprisoned. All Slovak Journals and Societies, including the Matica, were suppressed . The only publications which survived the end of the nineteenth century and which maintained the national spirit were the N<irodnie Noviny and Slovenske Pohl'ady. The Slovenslce Pohl'ady soon attracted a new generation of writers. In 1881 one of the editors was Svetozar Hurban Vajansky (1847-1916 ). In the magazine he published the works of the Russian realists, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Turgenev. The writings of these authors had a profound effect upon the Slovaks. Previous to this time the age of national romanticism had prevaded in Slovak literature_ Now the younger writers were coming under the influence of the Russian realists and soon put an end to the era of pseudo-romantic mannerisms. A new interest in the subjective experience of the artist arose ; his own individuality was most important and he expressed boldly his view of life. Besides starting the realist movement as editor of the Slovenslce Pohl'ady, Vajansky also wrote prose and poetry which belonged to the new age of realism. His work shows the influence of the Russians, yet he maintains some measure of conservativism and like stur his writings show his great pride in his Slovak nationality. The best of his books is Tatry a More. His prose works dealt with the political and social life of the Slovak intelligentsia. 13 Two other realists who helped, this type of literature gain in victory in Slovakia were Pavel Orszagh-Hviezdoslav �SLOVAKIA 109 (1849-1922) and Martin Kukucin (1860-1927). Hviezdoslav can be considered the greatest Slovak poet up to the early twentieth century. His works were influenced by Sladkovic and Kollar. His poems display his rich imagination, his sensitivity and his patriotism. He wrote lyrics and also epics, the greatest of which is H djnikova zena. This epic gives valuable descriptions of nature and also of the Slovak culture, traditions and religion. He often wrote with a Biblical theme . Although his form was that of a skilled and sophisticated poet, the soul which he displayed in his works remained that of a simple Slovak peasant. This is what makes his work so valuable: he reveals the spirit of the Slovak people to the world.14 Kukucin also wrote of the lives of the peasants but with an even greater realism and less sentimentality. His novel Dom v Strdni is good and is typical of his work. In general, he is more progressive than Vajansky. 15 About 1900, several more publications began which were supported entirely by younger writers. In these the students expressed quite radical beliefs and again a new type of literature was begun. The progressive realism of Kukucin was abandoned by the new generation of writers and critical realism became the new literary style. As the name implies, the new style of writing observed the political, social and moral world "objectively" , reported the faults that were seen, and demanded improvement. This literary school included writers like B . Slancikova 0867-1951) , L. Nadasi-Jege 0866-1940), T. G. Tajovsky 0874-1940 ) , J. Jesensky (1874-1945) and others. The leading poet of the Slovak Modernist is Ivan Krasko (1886-1958 ) . He was a lyrist and impressionist who wrote symbolically. He mourned the slavery of the Slovaks, and the effects which it had upon them. Although he wrote of the sadness and despair which he saw, the most lasting influence which he had upon his nation was to give it hope. Krasko influenced several generations of poets. He not only expressed the national life of Slovakia, but also all aspects of the life of modern man.16 The advent of World War I brought a temporary halt to the production of Slovak literature. Immediately after the war there was also a silence; the older writers were involved in organizing the political activities of the new �110 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovak Republic, and the younger writers had not developed their talents to any great extent. But finally in 1922 the publications Slovenske Pohl'ady and Prudy began again. The young writers grouped around these magazines and soom were publishing highly polished works in them which greatly contributed to Slovak literature. Hviezdoslav, the greatest Slovak poet died in 1921. But very soon after his death Slovak literature was teeming literary names, both old and new. In addition to the established writers who were reaching their artistic maturity (M. Razus, I. Grebac-Orlov, J. Jesensky, J. GregorTajovsky, T. Milkin, V. Roy etc.) the most significant event was the appearance of young authors who were soon to change the character and tempo of the Slovak literary life. They include such well known names as J . Smrek, v . Beniak, A. zarnov, E . B. Lukac, T. J . Gaspar, J. Niznansky, L. Novomesky, S . Krcmery, J . c. Hronsky, M. Urban, J. Ponican, J . Branecky, G. Va.mos, etc. These young writers were cosmopolitan in outlook, no longer satisfied with the events in their native village or even in Bratislava or Prague, but keenly following the artistic development in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Moscow . They formed artistic school and literary groups eagerly trying to catch up with the rest of the intellectual world. But in spite of this absorbing attention they paid to the world outside the Slovak writers were acutely aware of the wrongs and injustices to which their nation was exposed in the Czech-dominated Czecho-Slovakia. Many of them warningly lifted their voices of protest against this unequal partnership (e.g. A. zarnov, M . Razus, I. GrebacOrlov, J. C. Hronsky ) and demanded a more just and equitable deal for their nation. Stresses and strains, both internal and external, led in 1938-39 to gradual disappearance of Czecho-Slovakia and out of its ruins grew an independent Slovakia. Slovak writers almost without exception warmly greeted this dawn of a new epoch. The duration of the Slovak state ( 19391945 ) was, indeed, a golden age of Slovak literature. 17 The Slovak Writers Association numbered abou 400 members and their literary output in 1939-45 amounted to some 1,000 books of verse, novels and drama. Far more important �SLOVAKIA 111 than this quantity was the quality of their work which reached unsurpassed heights. This brief essay permits only a few names to be mentioned from an extensive catalogue of literary personalities. The most successful writers of novel and short stories were: J . C. Hronsky, M. Urban, M. Figuli, s. Rysura, D. Chrobak, L. Ondrejov, P . H . Jurina, s. Graf. Valentin Beniak, A. zarnov, K . Strmen, J. Kostra, R. Dilong, J . Haranta, J. Silan, J. Smrek, V. Reisel excelled as poets. The best known playwrights were I. Stodola and J . BarcIvan. The revolutionary changes which took place in Slovak politics after World War II were paralleled by equally drastic changes in the literature. The Communist occupation of Slovakia stopped the publication of the works of all those authors who were Catholic and who would not compromise their ideals and beliefs and take up the cause of the proletariat. The trend of Slovak literature changed but the best of the Slovak writers, Urban, Hronsky, Gaspar, Smrek, Lukac, and Beniak were not involved in the new trend. Many of these authors sought exile in other countries where they would be permitted to write and publish without government oppression or restriction. Some of the Slovak authors who are now living and writing in countries other than their native land are Karol Strmen (1921- ) who translated the New Testament into Slovak ( 1954), Milos K. Mlynarovic ( 1887-) who it the oldest living Slovak poet, Marian ziar, ~udo Besenovsky, Gorazd Zvonicky, Jan Okal' and Marusa Juskova.18 Msgr. Milos K. Mlynarovic, who is now living in the United States is a mature and productive writer who has authored books of poetry, n~vels, and religious writings. The main themes of his work are God, Church and the Slovak nation. In this sense Mlynarovic is a traditional poet since these have been the predominant themes of Slovak writers since the mid-1800's. His first book of verse was entitled Sldvia (1919) . After its publication, several prose works were written by him. The second book of poetry, showing the influence of Krasko, was Veliky Boh Malych ( 1934). In 1948 a volume entitled Boha Hl'adam �SLOVAKIA 112 was published in Slovakia and with optimism in man, provided a great Slovak literature which dwelt upon ing of war. Two other volumes of then are Testament Krdl'a Sfdc, prayer, and Dejiny Srdca. 19 its theme of hope and contrast to the native the horror and sufferverse published since meditative poems of All of these authors and countless other Slovak writers not mentioned have contributed greatly to the culture of the world and to the artistic development of their country. In the light of objective examination they have certainly represented their native land well. It has been said that "The Slovak literature of the present .. . wants to express its basic raison d'etre and its great mission among the people-the propagation of love of life, love of man, active desire for freedom, respect for the work of the people and faith in their future." 20 It can only be hoped that someday Slovakia will be given its complete freedom so that the achievement of these noble goals may be carried out, and the authors now in exile may return to their native land to achieve further progress in Slovakia's literary world. ( First Prize Award) FOOTNOTES 1) Vavro Srobar, "Cultural Progress in Slovakia," Slovakia Then And Now (Prague, 1931), 107. 2) "Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia, XIII (New York, 1966) , 293. 3) "Slovak Literature," 293. 4) William E. Harkins, Czech and Slovak Literature (New York, 1950), 30. 5) Vladimir Nosek, The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak History, Music, and Literature (London, 1926), 142. 6) Vladimir Nosek, p. 144. 7) William E. Harkins, p. 32. 8) "Slovak Literature," p. 292. 9) Vladimir Nosek, p. 304. 10) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 11) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 12) Vladimir Nosek, p. 306. �SLOVAKIA 113 13) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 14) Vladimir Nosek, p. 309. 15) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 16) Dr. Mojmir Otruba and Dr. Zdenek Pe~at, ed., Th e Linden Tre es - An Anthology of Czech and Slov ak L i terature 1890-1960 (Prague, 1962) , p . 316. 17) Dr. E. .Zatko, " Slovenska duchovna tvorba" in Slov enska r epublika 1939-1945, Obrana Press, Scranton, Pa., 1949, pp. 202-210. F . Vnuk, " Sedemnast' neurodn ych rokov slovenskej li teratury" , in L i t erarny Almanach 1966, Middletown, Pa., 1965, pp. 19-28. 18) "Slovak Literature," p. 195. 19) F . Vnuk, "A Poet in Exile," Slovakia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-148. 20) Dr. Mojmir Otruba, p. 21. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ha rkins, William E. Czech and Slovak L i terature. New York, 1950. Nosek, Vladimir. The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak H istory, Music, and L i terature. London, 1926. Otruba, Mojmir, and Zdenek Pefat, ed. The Linden Tree- A n Anthology of Czech and Slovak L i terature 1890-1960. Prague, 1962. " Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York, 1966. Seton-Watson, R. W. arranger.Slov akia Then And Now. Prague, 1931. Vnuk, F . "A Poet in Exile, " Slov akia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-152. J\1atica Slovenska ( Second Prize Award) In the year 1963, Matica Slovenska, the cultural institution of the Slovaks, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. At this time, the citizens of the entire CzechoSlovak Republic recalled the history of the Slovak national and social fight for their very existence and for a cultural revolution. "Matica Slovenska" is the name of a central and highest Slovak Institute of culture, literature, art and science. "Matica Slovenska" means "Slovak Mother," the word "Matica" being an endearing as well as dignified form for mother. It was founded in the city of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. The Matica elected as its firs t President a distinguished Slovak leader, Bishop Stefan � 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 1970, Vol. 20 Description An account of the resource Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970. 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 1970 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 105 Winning Essays-Slovak League Scholarship Awards Karen Ann S y z d e k : The Developm e nt of Slovak Literature It has been said that the literary activitv of a country is dependent upon the economic stability, educational opportunity, political liberty and intellectual capability of its people. 1 For centuries, the oppressive rule of the Magyars had so deprived the Slovaks of the first three factors that their literature was given no chance to grow. The artistic ability of the people of Slovakia was expressed mainly in their folk songs and dances, folk poetry, sagas and ballads, but did not often reach a more formal levely until about 1650. Finally, with the coming of the Baroque period, the University of Trnava became a source of Slovak Catholic literature. The works which came from this university were written in the native Slovak and in Latin. One of the professors, a Jesuit priest, Martin Szentivanyi ( 16331705) was the author of 65 works including an encyclopedia, Curiosiora et Selectoria Variarum Scientiarum Miscellanea (1686-1702 ) and Dissertationes (1689 ) 2 Political issues became very much a part of Slovak literature with the work of Jan Baltazar Magin ( 1682-1735) who wrote a defense of Slovaks and of their rights. Another literary defender of his country was Alexander Macsay (d. 1721) who battled for the Slovak language in Panes Primitiarium (1718 ) . Also a milestone in Slovakia's literary history was the appearance of the first Slovak novel Rene Mlddenca Prihody a Skusenosti (1783 ) written by Jozef Ignac Bajza (1755-1836) .3 With the beginning of the age of Enlightenment, there was an upsurge of national consciousness in Slovakia. As the people became aware of their linguistic and racial individuality they sought to eliminate the variance between the language of books and the vernacular. One of the main proponents of this movement was Anton Bernolak ( 1762- 106 SLOVAKIA 1813) who codified the Slovak language in his linguistic works Dissertatio Philologico-Critic a de Litteris Slavorum and Orthographia (1787), Grammatica Slavica (1790), Etymologia Vocum Slavicarum (1791) and in a dictionary published posthumously (1825). Bernolak also began several societies which encouraged work in the field of Slovak literature. 4 Bernolak's advocation of Slovak as a literary language was opposed by the Protestant writers, including Jan Kollar (1793-1852) and Pavel Jozef safarik 0795-1861) . Although these two men used Czech in all of their writings, they contributed much to the literary activity in Slovakia. Jan Kollar was the forerunner of all of Slovakia's poets. His enthusiasm in Sldva's Daughter inspired the Slavs in their fight for nationalism and for their language. He was also a supporter of pan-Slavism because he mistakenly believed that since the Slovaks were so few in number, they could best achieve their independence through an understanding with the other Slavic people. Kollar's pride in his native country is apparent in many of his poems and he often expressed the belief that the past had belonged to the Romans, the present to the Teutons and the future to the Slavs. He hoped to see the Slavic nations living in peaceful but self-ruling cooperation.5 The work of Pavel Jozef safarik is of a more permanent value than that of Kollar, however. safarik was a poet and scientist who dealt with the theme of Slav Antiquities, the history of Slav literature and the origins of the Slavs.6 He encouraged the Slovaks to develope a literary style of their own in order to increase their national pride and to create a national literature. For exactly these reasons, I.:udovit sttir (1815-1856) founded the modern Slovak literary language. The use of Slovak in literature, stur believed, would unite the people in a struggle against the Magyars, and also bring education to the common people, who spoke only Slovak. sttir was not involved only with the beginning of the standard Slovak literary language but also worked to organize all aspects of Slovak national life in accordance with enlightened humanism. 7 In 1845 stur began to publish the first Slovak language SLOVAKIA 107 periodical, Slovenskje Ndrodnje Novini. The publication of $tur's work Ndrecia Slovenskuo a Potreba Pisanja V Tomto Ndreci 0846) together with Nduka Reci Slovenskej (1846) caused the final acceptance of Slovak as the literary language by all Slovak intellectuals. In 1849 $tur succeeded in having Slovak recognized as the language to be used in secondary schools.8 Writing at the same time as $tur was Jan Holly (1785-1849) whose Slovak hexameters about Svatopluk, Cyril and Methodius, and Slavdom made him a beloved and famous poet. He was also the greatest follower of Bernolak's literary school. A more versatile writer who lived in this period was Miloslav Hurban (1817-1888). He wrote for the magazine Nitra. He also wrote botn lyric poetry and prose and his most famous work is a historical story from the fourteenth century entitled Olejkdr and a story of his own time called Slovak Pupils. 9 A. Sladkovic (1820-1872), was another talented Slovak poet who wrote lyric-epics and displayed the influence of the Russian author Puskin and of the English Byron. He wrote a poem entitled Marina which is pan-Slavistic and a religious allegory. An epic poem founded on local tradition is Detvan which speaks of the soul of the Slovak nation. His work is sentimental and romantic, but contains enough realism to counterbalance these traits. 10 Janka Kral' (1822-1876) and Jan Botto (1829-1881 ) wrote ballads and romances and in their works display the character of the Slovak peasants. Many nature descriptions also can be found in their writings. Kral' wrote in the style of the romantics; his poems are melancholy. The source of Botto's most popular wor:kl was the Slovak ballad about Janosik. His verse is harmonious and descriptive, but plaintive. A poet very similar to Kral' and Botto is Samo Chalupka (1812-1883 ) , but his epic poems from ancient Slav history have a style which is much more terse and less romantic.0 1 The careers of all of these writers were aided by a halt in the Magyar persecutions. The freedom given to the Slovak authors enabled them to be more productive. At this time (1860) the first Slovak novels appeared. 108 SLOVAKIA Janko Kalincak (1822-1871) for example, wrote both historical stories and also realistic stories from contemporary Slovak life. His story Restoration is typical of his style and is about Magyar elections. The influence of Byron and of Polish literature can be found in his work. 12 In 1863 the Emperor allowed the Slovaks to form a scientific and literary organization, the Matica Slovenska, which was headed by Bishop Moyses. This organization published collections of proverbs and folk-songs, and also novels, scientific books, and poems. It was a vital center for Slovak intellectual activity. But soon new persecutions began and the literary progress of the Slovaks was impeded by the Magyars. Magyar was declared as the only state language and Slovak leaders who protested were imprisoned. All Slovak Journals and Societies, including the Matica, were suppressed . The only publications which survived the end of the nineteenth century and which maintained the national spirit were the N<irodnie Noviny and Slovenske Pohl'ady. The Slovenslce Pohl'ady soon attracted a new generation of writers. In 1881 one of the editors was Svetozar Hurban Vajansky (1847-1916 ). In the magazine he published the works of the Russian realists, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Turgenev. The writings of these authors had a profound effect upon the Slovaks. Previous to this time the age of national romanticism had prevaded in Slovak literature_ Now the younger writers were coming under the influence of the Russian realists and soon put an end to the era of pseudo-romantic mannerisms. A new interest in the subjective experience of the artist arose ; his own individuality was most important and he expressed boldly his view of life. Besides starting the realist movement as editor of the Slovenslce Pohl'ady, Vajansky also wrote prose and poetry which belonged to the new age of realism. His work shows the influence of the Russians, yet he maintains some measure of conservativism and like stur his writings show his great pride in his Slovak nationality. The best of his books is Tatry a More. His prose works dealt with the political and social life of the Slovak intelligentsia. 13 Two other realists who helped, this type of literature gain in victory in Slovakia were Pavel Orszagh-Hviezdoslav SLOVAKIA 109 (1849-1922) and Martin Kukucin (1860-1927). Hviezdoslav can be considered the greatest Slovak poet up to the early twentieth century. His works were influenced by Sladkovic and Kollar. His poems display his rich imagination, his sensitivity and his patriotism. He wrote lyrics and also epics, the greatest of which is H djnikova zena. This epic gives valuable descriptions of nature and also of the Slovak culture, traditions and religion. He often wrote with a Biblical theme . Although his form was that of a skilled and sophisticated poet, the soul which he displayed in his works remained that of a simple Slovak peasant. This is what makes his work so valuable: he reveals the spirit of the Slovak people to the world.14 Kukucin also wrote of the lives of the peasants but with an even greater realism and less sentimentality. His novel Dom v Strdni is good and is typical of his work. In general, he is more progressive than Vajansky. 15 About 1900, several more publications began which were supported entirely by younger writers. In these the students expressed quite radical beliefs and again a new type of literature was begun. The progressive realism of Kukucin was abandoned by the new generation of writers and critical realism became the new literary style. As the name implies, the new style of writing observed the political, social and moral world "objectively" , reported the faults that were seen, and demanded improvement. This literary school included writers like B . Slancikova 0867-1951) , L. Nadasi-Jege 0866-1940), T. G. Tajovsky 0874-1940 ) , J. Jesensky (1874-1945) and others. The leading poet of the Slovak Modernist is Ivan Krasko (1886-1958 ) . He was a lyrist and impressionist who wrote symbolically. He mourned the slavery of the Slovaks, and the effects which it had upon them. Although he wrote of the sadness and despair which he saw, the most lasting influence which he had upon his nation was to give it hope. Krasko influenced several generations of poets. He not only expressed the national life of Slovakia, but also all aspects of the life of modern man.16 The advent of World War I brought a temporary halt to the production of Slovak literature. Immediately after the war there was also a silence; the older writers were involved in organizing the political activities of the new 110 SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovak Republic, and the younger writers had not developed their talents to any great extent. But finally in 1922 the publications Slovenske Pohl'ady and Prudy began again. The young writers grouped around these magazines and soom were publishing highly polished works in them which greatly contributed to Slovak literature. Hviezdoslav, the greatest Slovak poet died in 1921. But very soon after his death Slovak literature was teeming literary names, both old and new. In addition to the established writers who were reaching their artistic maturity (M. Razus, I. Grebac-Orlov, J. Jesensky, J. GregorTajovsky, T. Milkin, V. Roy etc.) the most significant event was the appearance of young authors who were soon to change the character and tempo of the Slovak literary life. They include such well known names as J . Smrek, v . Beniak, A. zarnov, E . B. Lukac, T. J . Gaspar, J. Niznansky, L. Novomesky, S . Krcmery, J . c. Hronsky, M. Urban, J. Ponican, J . Branecky, G. Va.mos, etc. These young writers were cosmopolitan in outlook, no longer satisfied with the events in their native village or even in Bratislava or Prague, but keenly following the artistic development in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Moscow . They formed artistic school and literary groups eagerly trying to catch up with the rest of the intellectual world. But in spite of this absorbing attention they paid to the world outside the Slovak writers were acutely aware of the wrongs and injustices to which their nation was exposed in the Czech-dominated Czecho-Slovakia. Many of them warningly lifted their voices of protest against this unequal partnership (e.g. A. zarnov, M . Razus, I. GrebacOrlov, J. C. Hronsky ) and demanded a more just and equitable deal for their nation. Stresses and strains, both internal and external, led in 1938-39 to gradual disappearance of Czecho-Slovakia and out of its ruins grew an independent Slovakia. Slovak writers almost without exception warmly greeted this dawn of a new epoch. The duration of the Slovak state ( 19391945 ) was, indeed, a golden age of Slovak literature. 17 The Slovak Writers Association numbered abou 400 members and their literary output in 1939-45 amounted to some 1,000 books of verse, novels and drama. Far more important SLOVAKIA 111 than this quantity was the quality of their work which reached unsurpassed heights. This brief essay permits only a few names to be mentioned from an extensive catalogue of literary personalities. The most successful writers of novel and short stories were: J . C. Hronsky, M. Urban, M. Figuli, s. Rysura, D. Chrobak, L. Ondrejov, P . H . Jurina, s. Graf. Valentin Beniak, A. zarnov, K . Strmen, J. Kostra, R. Dilong, J . Haranta, J. Silan, J. Smrek, V. Reisel excelled as poets. The best known playwrights were I. Stodola and J . BarcIvan. The revolutionary changes which took place in Slovak politics after World War II were paralleled by equally drastic changes in the literature. The Communist occupation of Slovakia stopped the publication of the works of all those authors who were Catholic and who would not compromise their ideals and beliefs and take up the cause of the proletariat. The trend of Slovak literature changed but the best of the Slovak writers, Urban, Hronsky, Gaspar, Smrek, Lukac, and Beniak were not involved in the new trend. Many of these authors sought exile in other countries where they would be permitted to write and publish without government oppression or restriction. Some of the Slovak authors who are now living and writing in countries other than their native land are Karol Strmen (1921- ) who translated the New Testament into Slovak ( 1954), Milos K. Mlynarovic ( 1887-) who it the oldest living Slovak poet, Marian ziar, ~udo Besenovsky, Gorazd Zvonicky, Jan Okal' and Marusa Juskova.18 Msgr. Milos K. Mlynarovic, who is now living in the United States is a mature and productive writer who has authored books of poetry, n~vels, and religious writings. The main themes of his work are God, Church and the Slovak nation. In this sense Mlynarovic is a traditional poet since these have been the predominant themes of Slovak writers since the mid-1800's. His first book of verse was entitled Sldvia (1919) . After its publication, several prose works were written by him. The second book of poetry, showing the influence of Krasko, was Veliky Boh Malych ( 1934). In 1948 a volume entitled Boha Hl'adam SLOVAKIA 112 was published in Slovakia and with optimism in man, provided a great Slovak literature which dwelt upon ing of war. Two other volumes of then are Testament Krdl'a Sfdc, prayer, and Dejiny Srdca. 19 its theme of hope and contrast to the native the horror and sufferverse published since meditative poems of All of these authors and countless other Slovak writers not mentioned have contributed greatly to the culture of the world and to the artistic development of their country. In the light of objective examination they have certainly represented their native land well. It has been said that "The Slovak literature of the present .. . wants to express its basic raison d'etre and its great mission among the people-the propagation of love of life, love of man, active desire for freedom, respect for the work of the people and faith in their future." 20 It can only be hoped that someday Slovakia will be given its complete freedom so that the achievement of these noble goals may be carried out, and the authors now in exile may return to their native land to achieve further progress in Slovakia's literary world. ( First Prize Award) FOOTNOTES 1) Vavro Srobar, "Cultural Progress in Slovakia," Slovakia Then And Now (Prague, 1931), 107. 2) "Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia, XIII (New York, 1966) , 293. 3) "Slovak Literature," 293. 4) William E. Harkins, Czech and Slovak Literature (New York, 1950), 30. 5) Vladimir Nosek, The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak History, Music, and Literature (London, 1926), 142. 6) Vladimir Nosek, p. 144. 7) William E. Harkins, p. 32. 8) "Slovak Literature," p. 292. 9) Vladimir Nosek, p. 304. 10) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 11) Vladimir Nosek, p. 305. 12) Vladimir Nosek, p. 306. SLOVAKIA 113 13) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 14) Vladimir Nosek, p. 309. 15) Vladimir Nosek, p. 310. 16) Dr. Mojmir Otruba and Dr. Zdenek Pe~at, ed., Th e Linden Tre es - An Anthology of Czech and Slov ak L i terature 1890-1960 (Prague, 1962) , p . 316. 17) Dr. E. .Zatko, " Slovenska duchovna tvorba" in Slov enska r epublika 1939-1945, Obrana Press, Scranton, Pa., 1949, pp. 202-210. F . Vnuk, " Sedemnast' neurodn ych rokov slovenskej li teratury" , in L i t erarny Almanach 1966, Middletown, Pa., 1965, pp. 19-28. 18) "Slovak Literature," p. 195. 19) F . Vnuk, "A Poet in Exile," Slovakia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-148. 20) Dr. Mojmir Otruba, p. 21. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ha rkins, William E. Czech and Slovak L i terature. New York, 1950. Nosek, Vladimir. The Spirit of Bohemia: A Survey of Czechoslovak H istory, Music, and L i terature. London, 1926. Otruba, Mojmir, and Zdenek Pefat, ed. The Linden Tree- A n Anthology of Czech and Slovak L i terature 1890-1960. Prague, 1962. " Slovak Literature," New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York, 1966. Seton-Watson, R. W. arranger.Slov akia Then And Now. Prague, 1931. Vnuk, F . "A Poet in Exile, " Slov akia, XVII, no. 40 (1967), 144-152. J\1atica Slovenska ( Second Prize Award) In the year 1963, Matica Slovenska, the cultural institution of the Slovaks, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. At this time, the citizens of the entire CzechoSlovak Republic recalled the history of the Slovak national and social fight for their very existence and for a cultural revolution. "Matica Slovenska" is the name of a central and highest Slovak Institute of culture, literature, art and science. "Matica Slovenska" means "Slovak Mother," the word "Matica" being an endearing as well as dignified form for mother. It was founded in the city of Turciansky Svaty Martin, Slovakia. The Matica elected as its firs t President a distinguished Slovak leader, Bishop Stefan  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 Development of Slovak Literature Description An account of the resource Karen Ann Syzdek Slovakia, Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970 pp. 105-113 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Syzdek, Karen Ann Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/f5ca1a388ad860f4ed82d3e78c2ad7ad.pdf 3e38bffc1a0883cc09a06aaaed3af7e5 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 109 Winning Essays - Slovak League Scholarship Awards The Emergence of the Slovak State Daniel F. T a n z o n e I. Following the collapse of the Hapsburg monarchy the small nations of Central Europe organized their own national states. The Slovaks joined hands with their Czech brothers and organized a common state: the Czecho-Slovak Republic. On the part of the Slovaks it was a belated re-appearance on the map of Europe after their ancestors hll-ci made a short debut in the Moravian Empire of the Ninth century. The union with the Czechs was considered as the most opportune alternative, the others being complete independence which was beyond their will, or autonomy within Hungary. It is interesting to note that large Slovak emigrant organizations in the United States came to the same conclusions, although there was no co-ordination of action between the Slovaks in Slovakia and those in the United States. "During· the war of 1914-18 every action for the unification of the Czechs and Slovaks into a common state was considered by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as treason, and consequently there were only a few sporadic pronouncements on this theme." 1 "But the idea was being entertained by the Czech and Slovak leaders at home, while abroad an active group led by Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik and Benes worked with the Allies for the establishment of Czecho-Slovakia." 2 Their hard work, carried out with superhuman endurance and untiring stubborness against many odds, was crowned with splendid success. On October 30, 1918 in Turciansky Svaty Martin the Slovak representatives claiming "the absolute right to selfdetermination" declared for unity with the Czechs (at a �110 SLOVAKIA meeting which bore all the marks of haste and excitement). The declaration called not only for political but also for linguistic and cultural unity and marked the beginning of a new epoch in Slovak history. From living under the Magyars, the Slovaks started a new life with the Czechs.3 To go back for_a minute to look at the situation in America the historic month of May, 1918, saw events both at home and abroad moving inexorably toward the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak Republic. May saw Masaryk in Pittsburgh meeting with American Czech and Slovak leaders, explaining just how Czecho-Slovakia would be administered and precisely what the status of Slovakia would be within the new state. He assured Slovaks that Slovakia would be autonomous, would have its own schools, its own language, its own local administration, its own courts, its own legislative assembly and to further appease Slovak sensibilities he drafted a document which has since been hotly debated. It is known in history as the Pittsburgh Pact. Because Masaryk had written the draft in pencil Albert Mamatey, the President of the Slovak League of America had calligraphed and later took it to Washington where Masaryk (his government now officially recognized by the Wilson Administration), already temporary president of Czecho-Slovakia, signed the calligraphed copy on November 14 just before his departure for Europe. 4 The agreement was necessary to assure the American Slovaks of the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The American Czechs and Slovaks under the leadership of the Rev. Joseph Murgas, pastor of Sacred Heart Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, launched a drive to raise funds for the cause of Czech and Slovak liberation. The drive netted the sum of well over $800,000.00 and it was sent to Masaryk, Benes, the former's daughter Alice, the National Council's offices in Paris, Russia, and the United States. 5 The agreement proclaimed that Slovaks and Czechs would form one state but that Slovakia would be completely autonomous, and that Czechs would not meddle in the domestic affairs of Slovakia. The Pittsburgh Pact is as follows: �SLOVAKIA 111 THE PITISBURGH PACT May 30, 1918 The representatives of the Slovak and Czech organizations in the United States-The Slovak League of America, the Czech National Alliance, and the Union of Czech Catholics-have !deliberated, in the presence of the Chairman of rthe Czecho-Slovak National Council, Professor Masaryk, on the C2iecho-Slovak question and on our previous program manifestations, and have resolved as follows: We favor a political program whose purpose it shall be to unite the Czechs and the Slovaks into an autonomous state comprising the Czech lands and Slovakia. Slovakia shall have her own administration, heT own assembly and her own courts. The Slovak language shall be the official language in the schools in public offices, and in public life in general. The Czecho Slovak State shall be a republic ; its constitution shall be democratic. The cooperation of the Czechs and the Slovaks in the United States shall be intensified and regulated by mutual consent, accord• ing to need and changing situations. Detailed provisions relating to the organization of the CzechoSlov,ak state shall be left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks anci their legal representatives. 0 Signators Slovak Representatives: A. Mamatey, I. Bielek, J. Jancek, M. Gazdik, M. Getting, J . Pankuch, G. H. Mika, M. Bosak, I. Gessay, Rev. John Kubasek, A. Schustek, Rev. L. J . Karlovsky, Rev. Paul J . Siska, J. A. Feriencik, I. Daxner. Czech Representatives: T. G. Masaryk, K. Pergler, H. Dostal, Dr. L. Fischer, Rev. Oldrich Zla.mal, B. Simek, V. Benes, J. Zmrhal, Rev. I. Restl, J. Straka, J. Martinek, Dr. G. V. Pecival6 II. The transition was loaded with difficulties optimistically minimized or overlooked (in the initial enthusiasm) but which started to transpire as the honeymoon was wearing thin. The Slovaks ( and the Czechs, too) found very soon that they were much further apart than two branches of one nation ought to be or are supposed to be. Apart from an undeniable linguistic similarity there was little else these two nations had in common. In 1918 the Czechs were more progressive in their views, more aggressive in their action and more western in their political outlook than the Slovaks. At the same time the Slovaks �112 SLOVAKIA were practically without "intelligentsia", emerging from a battle for survival which they had very nearly lost and their general attitude was more conservative than revolutionary; in a word, they were badly equipped for the stormy days ahead. They depended greatly on Czech help. From 1919 under the pretext of helping Slovakia the Czechs were sending into Slovakia hundreds upon hundreds of teachers, officials and technicians; some of these did creditable work and rendered valuable services, others less so. Many of the new Czech arrivals commited a great number of unnecessary blunders which discredited their often well-meant help. Their ignorance of Slovak psy-• chology made their approach to their Slovak brothers awkward and sometimes even insulting. 7 When Masaryk entered upon the work of liberating the Czechs he did so with a singular talent and thoroughness. No other man could have possibly done better. The Czechs came to revere him as the personification of Czech genius expressed in an essentially rationalist philosophy. His outlook became fundamentally Czech. He came to be an admirer of John Hus. Educated in German schools, he was thus well equipped to cope with the German mentality. He became less a Slovak and more a stranger to the Slovak outlook and Slovak mentality. The Slovak has a deep respect for tradition: he is conservative, and does not change his opinions overnight with each new bit of information or of knowledge he may acquire. The Czech has less respect for tradition, indeed, challenges it, and is essentially opportunistic rather than conservative. 8 The first post-war weeks witnessed a sudden revival of anti-Catholic and Hussite traditions in Bohemia. The Czechs saw in the Catholic Church a Hapsburg ally and wanted the Slovaks to see in her an instrument of Magyarization. They tried to transplant their excesses into Slovakia but with no success. For most Slovaks the Catholic Church was an object of awe and respect and any attack on it, secret or open, horrified them, even made them nostalgic for those days when the Church was sacrosanct. The British minister in Prague summed up the principal errors of the Czech administration in Slovakia in his report of November 6, 1919 as follows: �SLOVAKIA 113 1. Hostility to the Roman Catholic Church is evidenced by Czech soldiers and offidals and includes the desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, interruption of marriages, and similar offenses against the principles of culture and decency. 2. The Country has been flooded with Czech officials and Slovaks dismissed, or, if employed, they receive from one half to two-thirds less pay than the Czechs. 3. Corruption exists in public offices. 4. Attempts are being made to substitute the Czech for the Slovak language.9 The British representative not only pointed out these errors but strove for their rectification. With the approval of his government he advocated with both Masaryk and Benes more moderate courses and a more reasonable approach to the Slovak problem. One of the most important laws passed by the Czechoslovak Republic (hyphen was dropped) which antagonized the Slovaks was the Language Act (No. 122 of the year 1920). It provided that the state official language of CzechoSlovakia was the "Czechoslovak" language in which (with the exception of the provisions made for the use of the languages of the minorities, namely German and Hungarian) the proceedings of all courts, organs, institutions and enterprises of the state were to conducted. 10 The last paragraph of the Pittsburgh Agreement notes that the "detailed regulations, concerning the ·establishment of the Czecho-Slovak state, are left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks and their legal representatives." Only one recognized authority existed in the years 1918-20: the Provisional Constituent Assembly of Czecho-Slovakia. 11 Meanwhile, on December 12, 1918, Vavro ~robar was sent to Slovakia with "full powers" from the central government and placed at the head of a semi-autonomous administration named by Prague. Soon Czech generals. Czecho-Slovak legionnaires, and tens of thousands of Czech officials would follow him. Thus, ~robar, who had already turned against his former benefactor, Monsignor Andrew Hlinka, P.A., and had renounced his Catholic Faith, could and did in time impose a "Czech peace" upon a people who had illusions of cultural autonomy after centuries of oppression from Budapest.12 As Slovakia represented 23 percent of the Republic's population, it would have seemed logical-as the com- �114 SLOVAKIA petitive system was not generally used-to reserve for Slovaks 23 per cent of the positions in the central administration. Now the statistics for the Slovak civil servants during the twentieth and last year of the Czecho-Slovak Republic show the following: Slovaks Civil Servants The Parliament of Prague ....... . Service to the Chief of State ..... . Presidency of the Council .. . .... . Ministries: Foreign Affairs . ... ........ . .. . Interior ..... ..... ............ . Justice ... ..... . .. . ....... . . .. . Unification ..... .. .. . ... . ..... . National Defense ............. . Generals ......... .... ........ . Industry: Civil Servants ......... . Agriculture ................. ... . . Post Offices . .... ............... . Communications .... ........... . Public Works ......... . ........ . Commerce ....... .. . . . ... . .... . . Social Welfare ..... . .. . ......... . Public Health .... . .. ... . . ... ... . Finance ....... . .. .............. . 1 out of 224 96 3 153 9 33 2 12 6 6 1 4 11 7 9 4 1 4 6 12 1,246 386 143 51 1,300 139 417 391 305 1,006 82 322 397 182 630 13 Of the 318,981,000 Crowns representing the sum total of the salaries paid annually to the civil servants of the Republic, the Slovaks received only 3,614,000, that is 1,1 per cent. If the 23 per cent proportion had been respected , the Slovak civil servants would have received 73,000,000 Crowns annually .14 Considering the fact that there were few Slovak intellectuals in 1918, after twenty years, the picture remained the same as regards the position of the Slovaks in the Republic. According to the Czechs, the Slovak constitutional demands have gone so far and been pressed so ruthlessly that it is not facetious to say that in CzechoSlovakia everyone now has autonomy except the Czechs. The Czechs dismissed the Slovak behavior outwardly as the pranks of a headstrong child who has been given a new toy.15 �SLOVAKIA 115 All these problems led to the development of the autonomist movement led by Monsignor Andrew Hlinka. After the 1925 election his party, known as the Slovak People's Party, emerges as the strongest party in Slovakia (among twenty odd parties contesting the election) scoring 34 % of the total votes (489,111 out of 1,425,595) .16 In such an atmosphere the situation was ripening for a show-down. The young generation was predominantly autonomist and radical. Educated by Czech teachers it knew how to fight the Czechs with their own weapons. The nationalism of the Twenties with all its immature self-expression was coming of age. Its claims were now more demanding and better substantiated. There was no other way of satisfying them except by granting them. The difficult period when Slovakia had practically no nationally conscious intelligentsia, no administrative experience and no definite political aims, was now over. Even reasonable Czechs were aware of the fact that the Slovaks did not need tutelage in everything and were willing to grant gradually some sort of autonomy. In fact there was more opposition to the part of centralist Slovaks than on the part of the Czechs themselves. III. The Slovak problem re-emerged in all its magnitude in 1938. Up to that year it was relatively unknown outside Czecho-Slovakia, very few foreigners being aware even of its existence. The Czech-German dispute had made it a second-rate affair and being an internal one it had captured little attention abroad. But in September 1938 its presence and importance were stressed by both Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler in his speech of September 26 at the Sportpalast said that the Czechs and the Slovaks were separate nations and "the Slovaks did not want to have anything to do with the Czechs." 17 Mussolini in his open letter to Runciman pointed out that "there is not only a Sudeten-German problem, there is also a Hungarian, a Polish and a Slovak problem." 18 The tragi-comic element of their focusing attention on this problem lies in the fact that they were actually repeating, practically word for word, what had been said or written at least 20 years �116 SLOVAKIA before by Msgr. Hlinka in September, 1919 demanding an autonomous status for Slovakia in Paris. 19 By the Munich Agreement of the European Big Four Slovakia was condemned to transfer to Hungary the southern zone settled by Magyars. Faced with the threat of mutilation, the country reacted healthily in knitting the national unity more closely together. The numerous parties of the former system resulting from Prague's policy of "divide et impera" were spontaneously abandoned by their leaders and replaced by a gathering together of all Slovaks of good will. The amputation decided in Vienna was painful but not fatal for the country.20 On October 6, 1938, under international pressure, Prague had to make up its mind to take care of the Slovak problem. On September 22, 1938, in the course of the crisis brought on by the German question Mr. Benes, after many postponements and three modifications, finally had the text of a plan of solution put into the hands of Monsignor Joseph Tiso, Vice-President of the Populist party in Bratislava.21 General John Syrovy, who headed the Prague Government in Prague after Munich, nominated the First autonomous government of Slovakia. Monsignor Joseph Tiso was appointed Prime Minister. Tiso's government was empowered with full control over all matters affecting Slovak territory with the exception of foreign affairs, national finance, and national defense, which remained matters of common juristiction with Prague. Tiso's cabinet consisted of four ministers-Matth ew Cernak, Education; Ferdinand Durcansky, Justice; Paul Teplansky, Agriculture; John Lichner, trade and Public Works, Railroads and Post. Durcansky was a member of the Hlinka's People's Party, Cernak was an independent autonomist, while Teplansky and Lichner were members of the Czecho-Slovak Agrarian Party.22 Monsignor Tiso announced that Slovakia would be a part of a Federated Czecho-Slovak Republic. The hyphen was again incorporated in the title to emphasize the component parts that make up the state. After the victory of Munich, Germany was no less determined than before to liquidate Czecho-Slovakia. Hun- �SLOVAKIA 117 gary made demands upon territory in Slovakia which contained a heavy Hungarian population. Before March 13, 1939, Berlin was faced with the following alternative in regard to the Slovak question: either Slovakia would declare its independence and become Germany's ally, or else it would refuse--an act which would be one reason for the Reich's leaving Hungary's hands free to reconquer the former territory of the crown of St. Stephen. Hitler never ceased plotting in Budapest. As early as February, 1939, Dr. Edmund Wesenmayer, who was later to become Minister Plenipotentiary of the Third Reich in Budapest, informed Slovak politicians that Hungary was considering March 15 to attack Slovak territory. He did not forget to add that only the Declaration of Independence could ward off Hungarian intervention.23 In March, inspite of strong autonomist tendencies, . the Czech preponderance in Slovakia was still considerable. The effects of twenty years just could not be undone in several months. Mostly because of lack of qualified personnel, the officers' corps in the army units stationed in Slovakia, police and gendarmerie and higher officials in the administrative service were still largely Czech. Industry ran mostly on Czech capital and Slovak economy was closely linked to the economy of the Czech lands . These facts were realized by Tiso and it caused him to be very cautious in his actions against the Czech lands. Independence at this angle spelled great economic danger and administrative chaos in Slovakia. Monsignor Tiso went to see Hitler and discuss the Slovak situation. Hitler definitely had no interest in anything east of the Carpathian mountains. It was indifferent to him what happened there. Hitler stated that if Slovakia wanted independence he would support this endeavor and even guarantee it. Hitler wanted Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence on the Berlin Radio, but he refused this because he did not have the right to decide Slovakia's fate. It was up to the Parliament in Bratislava to decide Slovakia's fate. Tiso called President Ha.cha, the president of Czecho-Slovakia to call the Slovak deputies together for the meeting of the parliament. After an exposition by Tiso behind closed doors the �118 SLOVAKIA fifty-seven deputies from the Slovak Parliament voted unanimously for independence. Three quarters of an hour later the same parliament voted the following law: Article 1. The Slovak land kleclared itself an independent State. The Diet of the Slovak land is transformed into a parliament of the Slovak State. Article 2. Until the adoption of the Constitution of the Slovak State, the executive power is entrusted to the government named by the Presidency of the Parliament. Article 3. All the laws, decrees and dispositions valid up to the present continue in force with the changes resulting from the fact of the existence of the i~dependent Slovak State. Article 4. By means of decrees, the government is instructed to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of order and the protection of the interests of the Slovak State. Article 5. This law goes into effect this very day and it devolves upon the government to enforce it. Bratislava, Slovakia, March 14, 1939 The new government comprised the Prime Minister, Msgr. Dr. Joseph Tiso; Vice-Premier, Dr. Vojtech Tuka; Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ferdinand t>urcansky; Interior, Karol Sidor; National Defense, Lieutenant-Colonel Ferdinand Catlos; Public Education, Joseph Sivak; Economy, Dr. Gejza Medricky; Finance, Dr. Mikulas Pruzinsky; Communications and Public Works, Julius Stano; Justice, Dr. Gejza Fritz.25 Slovakia became Germany's ally rather than her victim as in the Czech lands, but German policy wanted to prove how happy even a small Slavic nation could be in Hitler's new order. Slovakia was recognized, and many Czech historians neglect to admit, by many countries both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. She was recognized by Poland, Hungary, and Germany in March of 1939, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain in April, and on May by Great Britain by a 'de facto' recognition. Before the outbreak of the war she was recognized by Vatican, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Sweden, Japan, Liberia, Equador, Costa Rica, both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. In addition she received recognition 'de facto' from France and Belgium. On September 17, 1939 the Soviet Union recognized Slovakia both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. After the declaration of independence on March 14, �SLOVAKIA 119 1939, Slovakia, for the time in over one thousand years she took her place among the nations of the earth. She no longer had stringis attached to Budapest or Prague. The Slovak government first wanted to solve the problem of a heavy Czech labor force in intellectual areas of thought. "On October 1, 1938 the number of teachers in Slovakia was 345 Slovaks and 523 Czechs. This figure completely reversed by 1940 when there were 680 Slovak teachers as opposed to 73 Czech teachers." 27 Slovakia did have many problems in her economy which were heavily exploited by German interference. The very fact that in 1939 a separate Slovak state could somehow exist where it would have been an impossibility twenty years earlier shown that the Slovaks had not only been able students but had also had able teachers in the Czechs. But there were still those who would show arrogance and lack of undestanding for Slovak pride and spoil the atmosphere. Although some authors like Schmitt feel that the "independent Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia became, for all practical purpose, parts of the Reich." 28 Yet some authors seem to negate the fact that there was a declaration of independence by the Slovak Parliament which represented the Slovak people and only the Slovak people. Another fact which is paramount in a nation's right to life is the fact of recognition by other nations. It must be emphasized that Slovakia was recognized by nations in both camps, Allied and German. IV. The way in which Slovakia disappeared from the face of Europe and became again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic offers experts of international law and political science an interesting subject for study and investigation. Considering the fact that Slovakia was recognized by 27 states, of which two thirds were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak Republic became a member of the international community and subject to the codes of international law. We must consider the fact that Slovakia like Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and Rumania were defeated states but they were never incorporated into any other states. Accordin~ to the Atlantic Charter Slovakia should have been �120 SLOVAKIA treated as an existing state under military occupation and remain such until the Peace treaties were signed. Indeed the Allies favored the Czech exiles and decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Charter to the Slovak people. This seems very strange because of the fact that when a state is recognized it cannot be desolved with the impression that it never had existed. "On May 8, 1945 the Slovak Government signed a document of 'protection' or 'surrender' to the Allied High Command."29 Considering the fact that Slovakia never declared war against the Western Allies-Great Britain, France, or the United States. The attempts to save Slovakia as an independent state failed and her right to self-government disappeared. Never consulting the Slovak people, she was again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. All signs of autonomy as evidenced before the war disappeared within the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Slovakia again became a mere appendage of the term "Czechoslovak." Slovaks could no longer speak for Slovaks but had to look to the Czechs in Prague. V. In conclusion the road to Slovakia's independence led through stormy days of the post-Munich period and the time of her independence on the European scene was not very propitious. But we must remember that there are some things in life in which we have no say in. It is highly unlikely that Slovakia would have survived if she had appeared after World War I due to the fact that she lacked a substantial intellectual class. The fact remains that fifty years before she possessed a larger intelligentsia than in 1918. The one thousand year sentence of subjugation under Magyarization had almost destroyed the Slovaks and their civilization. The Slovaks owe much to the Czechs, for without them they would not have been able twenty years later to possess an intelligentsia which had multiplied in size and improved in . depth and competence and stand on their own feet in March of 1939. The Czecho-Slovak Republic might have worked if it was bilateral and not unilateral as it was. The Czechs neglected to realize the �SLOVAKIA 121 fact that children do mature and no longer need to be tied to their mother's apron strings. It was tragic that the United States' indolence resulted in Slovakia again being incorporated into the Czecho-Slovak Republic against the will of majority of her people. It was astrous that the United States favored the Czech Benes over the Slovak Tiso in deciding the fate of the Slovak people. The Slovakia that did emerge on March 14, 1939 was not the archetype that I would have envisioned, for there were many things wrong, among them heavy dependence on Germany. It is both simple and sweet to assert that Adolph Hitler imposed independence on Slovakia but these allegations are not factual. The circumstances surrounding Slovakia's birth are far more complex. The Slovaks, unable to escape Central European events, reconciled themselves to the geographical and political conditions of 1939, as they thought best. Independence was not rejected, it was hailed, true some more eagerly than others. Slovakia was a failure in one respect in that it could not avert the persecution of its Jewish population, of whom about a fourth survived the six years of Slovakia's existence. The Catholic bishops however, under the leadership of Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko, of Nitra, were as outspoken in their criticism of anti-Jewish legislation and courageous in their defense of human dignity as was s:inybody in Hitler's Europe. We can all appreciate the fact that no nation on earth desires tyranny over freedom, and even some who have a different view regarding the Slovak Republic and her war-time regime. No man on earth has the right to condemn the Slovaks to be an appendage to any other nation nor to be a colony of any other nation no matter how ethnically or linguistically they are related. The Slovak does not want any Czech to use his debasive form of rhetoric in international spheres of interest on behalf of his culture, language and history but rather feels quite proficient enough to do this for himself. The Slovak nation has a God-given right to live a free and independent life according to its tr,aditions. �122 SLOVAKIA One very important thing the world has to learn is the fact that the dreams and aspirations of little nations must be respected and supported even if they cramp the style of a brother nation who in the world's eyes seemingly wants only the best for its little brother. Another thing is the fact that the Slovaks do not wish to be known as Czechs or "Czechoslovaks". They are not a mere appendage but a distinct entity. If politics is the art of the impossible, then we cannot condemn the Slovaks for having achieved that impossible dream in the years of 1939-1945. Althought I am an American born of Slovak blood only on my mother's side I have come to know and love the aspirations of the Slovak people. As an American I can appreciate freedom and justice and see the same for my brothers in Slovakia. The story and traditions of the Slovak people are among the most glorious in all of history. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stiffled, but she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as master of her own household. Ibsen's words from his work "An Enemy of the People, V" seem to be appropriate: "The Strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone ... " 1) F. Vnuk, "Slovakia's Six Eventful Months ( Oct. 1938- March 1939) ," Slovak Studies IV, Historica II, 1964, 14. 2) J . Lettrich, "The Declaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin," A Histor y of Modern Slovakia, p. 288. 3) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 15. 4) G. L. Oddo, "To be Free of Budapest," Slov akia anji Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 174. 5) Ibid., p. 175. 6) IbH, p. 175-76 7) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 8) P . P . Yurchak, "Masaryk," The Slovaks,(Whiting, Ind.,1946), pp. 206. 9) Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 10) I. Derer, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, (Prague, 1938) p. 32. 11) G. L. Ojddo, "Czecho-Slovakia," Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 205. �SLOVAKIA 123 12) Ibid. , p. 205. 13 ) J . A. Mikus, "Czecho-Slovakia (1918-1939) " , Slovakia: A Political history, Marquette Slavic Studies ed., (Milwaukee, 1963) , pp. 38-39. 14 ) Ibid., p. 39. 15 ) G. F. Kennan, "Report on Conditions in Slovakia," From Prague After Muni ch, Princeton University Press ed. (Princeton, N. J . 1968) , p . 19. 16) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 17. 17 ) F . Vnuk, op. ci t ., p. 23. 18) Ibid., p . 23 . 19) F Vnuk, loc. cit. 20 ) J. A. Mikus, op. cit., p. 66. 21 ) Ibid, p. 67. 22 ) G. L. Oddo, op. cit ., p. 237. 23 ) J. A. Mikus, op. ci t ., p. 76. 24 ) J. A. Mikus, op . cit., pp. 86-87. 25 ) Ibid., p. 88. 26 ) I bid. , pp. 135-36. 27 ) J . A. Mikus, op. ci t ., pp. 108-09. 28 ) B. E. Schmitt, " The Road to Munich," Czechoslov akia, R. J . Kerner ed., (Los Angeles, 1949), p. 438. 29 ) J . M. Kirschbaum, "Twenty years of Czech an/d Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slov akia, XV, (1965) , p. 80. BIBLIOGRAPHY Derer , Ivan, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, Prague, The Orbis Publishing Company, 1938. Heymann, Frederick, G., Poland and Czechoslovakia, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1966. Kennan, George, F ., From Prague After Munich, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1968. Kirschbaum, Joseph, M ., "Twenty Years of Ozech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slovaki a, XV, ( 1965) , pp. 78-90. Lettrich, Joseph, A. , A History of Modern Slovakia, New York, N . Y ., Praeger Publishing, 1955. Mikus, Joseph, A. , Slovakia a Political History: 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Schmitt, Berna/dette, E ., Czechoslovakia, Los Angeles, Ca.Hfornia. University of California Press, 1949. Vnuk, Francis, Slov ak Studies IV, Rome, Italy, Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius Press, 1964, pp. 7-164. Yurchak, Peter, P., The Slovaks, Whiting, Indiana, The Rev. John J. Lach Press, 1946. ( FIRST PRIZE AWARD) � SLOVAKIA 109 Winning Essays - Slovak League Scholarship Awards The Emergence of the Slovak State Daniel F. T a n z o n e I. Following the collapse of the Hapsburg monarchy the small nations of Central Europe organized their own national states. The Slovaks joined hands with their Czech brothers and organized a common state: the Czecho-Slovak Republic. On the part of the Slovaks it was a belated re-appearance on the map of Europe after their ancestors hll-ci made a short debut in the Moravian Empire of the Ninth century. The union with the Czechs was considered as the most opportune alternative, the others being complete independence which was beyond their will, or autonomy within Hungary. It is interesting to note that large Slovak emigrant organizations in the United States came to the same conclusions, although there was no co-ordination of action between the Slovaks in Slovakia and those in the United States. "During· the war of 1914-18 every action for the unification of the Czechs and Slovaks into a common state was considered by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as treason, and consequently there were only a few sporadic pronouncements on this theme." 1 "But the idea was being entertained by the Czech and Slovak leaders at home, while abroad an active group led by Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik and Benes worked with the Allies for the establishment of Czecho-Slovakia." 2 Their hard work, carried out with superhuman endurance and untiring stubborness against many odds, was crowned with splendid success. On October 30, 1918 in Turciansky Svaty Martin the Slovak representatives claiming "the absolute right to selfdetermination" declared for unity with the Czechs (at a �110 SLOVAKIA meeting which bore all the marks of haste and excitement). The declaration called not only for political but also for linguistic and cultural unity and marked the beginning of a new epoch in Slovak history. From living under the Magyars, the Slovaks started a new life with the Czechs.3 To go back for_a minute to look at the situation in America the historic month of May, 1918, saw events both at home and abroad moving inexorably toward the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak Republic. May saw Masaryk in Pittsburgh meeting with American Czech and Slovak leaders, explaining just how Czecho-Slovakia would be administered and precisely what the status of Slovakia would be within the new state. He assured Slovaks that Slovakia would be autonomous, would have its own schools, its own language, its own local administration, its own courts, its own legislative assembly and to further appease Slovak sensibilities he drafted a document which has since been hotly debated. It is known in history as the Pittsburgh Pact. Because Masaryk had written the draft in pencil Albert Mamatey, the President of the Slovak League of America had calligraphed and later took it to Washington where Masaryk (his government now officially recognized by the Wilson Administration), already temporary president of Czecho-Slovakia, signed the calligraphed copy on November 14 just before his departure for Europe. 4 The agreement was necessary to assure the American Slovaks of the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The American Czechs and Slovaks under the leadership of the Rev. Joseph Murgas, pastor of Sacred Heart Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, launched a drive to raise funds for the cause of Czech and Slovak liberation. The drive netted the sum of well over $800,000.00 and it was sent to Masaryk, Benes, the former's daughter Alice, the National Council's offices in Paris, Russia, and the United States. 5 The agreement proclaimed that Slovaks and Czechs would form one state but that Slovakia would be completely autonomous, and that Czechs would not meddle in the domestic affairs of Slovakia. The Pittsburgh Pact is as follows: �SLOVAKIA 111 THE PITISBURGH PACT May 30, 1918 The representatives of the Slovak and Czech organizations in the United States-The Slovak League of America, the Czech National Alliance, and the Union of Czech Catholics-have !deliberated, in the presence of the Chairman of rthe Czecho-Slovak National Council, Professor Masaryk, on the C2iecho-Slovak question and on our previous program manifestations, and have resolved as follows: We favor a political program whose purpose it shall be to unite the Czechs and the Slovaks into an autonomous state comprising the Czech lands and Slovakia. Slovakia shall have her own administration, heT own assembly and her own courts. The Slovak language shall be the official language in the schools in public offices, and in public life in general. The Czecho Slovak State shall be a republic ; its constitution shall be democratic. The cooperation of the Czechs and the Slovaks in the United States shall be intensified and regulated by mutual consent, accord• ing to need and changing situations. Detailed provisions relating to the organization of the CzechoSlov,ak state shall be left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks anci their legal representatives. 0 Signators Slovak Representatives: A. Mamatey, I. Bielek, J. Jancek, M. Gazdik, M. Getting, J . Pankuch, G. H. Mika, M. Bosak, I. Gessay, Rev. John Kubasek, A. Schustek, Rev. L. J . Karlovsky, Rev. Paul J . Siska, J. A. Feriencik, I. Daxner. Czech Representatives: T. G. Masaryk, K. Pergler, H. Dostal, Dr. L. Fischer, Rev. Oldrich Zla.mal, B. Simek, V. Benes, J. Zmrhal, Rev. I. Restl, J. Straka, J. Martinek, Dr. G. V. Pecival6 II. The transition was loaded with difficulties optimistically minimized or overlooked (in the initial enthusiasm) but which started to transpire as the honeymoon was wearing thin. The Slovaks ( and the Czechs, too) found very soon that they were much further apart than two branches of one nation ought to be or are supposed to be. Apart from an undeniable linguistic similarity there was little else these two nations had in common. In 1918 the Czechs were more progressive in their views, more aggressive in their action and more western in their political outlook than the Slovaks. At the same time the Slovaks �112 SLOVAKIA were practically without "intelligentsia", emerging from a battle for survival which they had very nearly lost and their general attitude was more conservative than revolutionary; in a word, they were badly equipped for the stormy days ahead. They depended greatly on Czech help. From 1919 under the pretext of helping Slovakia the Czechs were sending into Slovakia hundreds upon hundreds of teachers, officials and technicians; some of these did creditable work and rendered valuable services, others less so. Many of the new Czech arrivals commited a great number of unnecessary blunders which discredited their often well-meant help. Their ignorance of Slovak psy-• chology made their approach to their Slovak brothers awkward and sometimes even insulting. 7 When Masaryk entered upon the work of liberating the Czechs he did so with a singular talent and thoroughness. No other man could have possibly done better. The Czechs came to revere him as the personification of Czech genius expressed in an essentially rationalist philosophy. His outlook became fundamentally Czech. He came to be an admirer of John Hus. Educated in German schools, he was thus well equipped to cope with the German mentality. He became less a Slovak and more a stranger to the Slovak outlook and Slovak mentality. The Slovak has a deep respect for tradition: he is conservative, and does not change his opinions overnight with each new bit of information or of knowledge he may acquire. The Czech has less respect for tradition, indeed, challenges it, and is essentially opportunistic rather than conservative. 8 The first post-war weeks witnessed a sudden revival of anti-Catholic and Hussite traditions in Bohemia. The Czechs saw in the Catholic Church a Hapsburg ally and wanted the Slovaks to see in her an instrument of Magyarization. They tried to transplant their excesses into Slovakia but with no success. For most Slovaks the Catholic Church was an object of awe and respect and any attack on it, secret or open, horrified them, even made them nostalgic for those days when the Church was sacrosanct. The British minister in Prague summed up the principal errors of the Czech administration in Slovakia in his report of November 6, 1919 as follows: �SLOVAKIA 113 1. Hostility to the Roman Catholic Church is evidenced by Czech soldiers and offidals and includes the desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, interruption of marriages, and similar offenses against the principles of culture and decency. 2. The Country has been flooded with Czech officials and Slovaks dismissed, or, if employed, they receive from one half to two-thirds less pay than the Czechs. 3. Corruption exists in public offices. 4. Attempts are being made to substitute the Czech for the Slovak language.9 The British representative not only pointed out these errors but strove for their rectification. With the approval of his government he advocated with both Masaryk and Benes more moderate courses and a more reasonable approach to the Slovak problem. One of the most important laws passed by the Czechoslovak Republic (hyphen was dropped) which antagonized the Slovaks was the Language Act (No. 122 of the year 1920). It provided that the state official language of CzechoSlovakia was the "Czechoslovak" language in which (with the exception of the provisions made for the use of the languages of the minorities, namely German and Hungarian) the proceedings of all courts, organs, institutions and enterprises of the state were to conducted. 10 The last paragraph of the Pittsburgh Agreement notes that the "detailed regulations, concerning the ·establishment of the Czecho-Slovak state, are left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks and their legal representatives." Only one recognized authority existed in the years 1918-20: the Provisional Constituent Assembly of Czecho-Slovakia. 11 Meanwhile, on December 12, 1918, Vavro ~robar was sent to Slovakia with "full powers" from the central government and placed at the head of a semi-autonomous administration named by Prague. Soon Czech generals. Czecho-Slovak legionnaires, and tens of thousands of Czech officials would follow him. Thus, ~robar, who had already turned against his former benefactor, Monsignor Andrew Hlinka, P.A., and had renounced his Catholic Faith, could and did in time impose a "Czech peace" upon a people who had illusions of cultural autonomy after centuries of oppression from Budapest.12 As Slovakia represented 23 percent of the Republic's population, it would have seemed logical-as the com- �114 SLOVAKIA petitive system was not generally used-to reserve for Slovaks 23 per cent of the positions in the central administration. Now the statistics for the Slovak civil servants during the twentieth and last year of the Czecho-Slovak Republic show the following: Slovaks Civil Servants The Parliament of Prague ....... . Service to the Chief of State ..... . Presidency of the Council .. . .... . Ministries: Foreign Affairs . ... ........ . .. . Interior ..... ..... ............ . Justice ... ..... . .. . ....... . . .. . Unification ..... .. .. . ... . ..... . National Defense ............. . Generals ......... .... ........ . Industry: Civil Servants ......... . Agriculture ................. ... . . Post Offices . .... ............... . Communications .... ........... . Public Works ......... . ........ . Commerce ....... .. . . . ... . .... . . Social Welfare ..... . .. . ......... . Public Health .... . .. ... . . ... ... . Finance ....... . .. .............. . 1 out of 224 96 3 153 9 33 2 12 6 6 1 4 11 7 9 4 1 4 6 12 1,246 386 143 51 1,300 139 417 391 305 1,006 82 322 397 182 630 13 Of the 318,981,000 Crowns representing the sum total of the salaries paid annually to the civil servants of the Republic, the Slovaks received only 3,614,000, that is 1,1 per cent. If the 23 per cent proportion had been respected , the Slovak civil servants would have received 73,000,000 Crowns annually .14 Considering the fact that there were few Slovak intellectuals in 1918, after twenty years, the picture remained the same as regards the position of the Slovaks in the Republic. According to the Czechs, the Slovak constitutional demands have gone so far and been pressed so ruthlessly that it is not facetious to say that in CzechoSlovakia everyone now has autonomy except the Czechs. The Czechs dismissed the Slovak behavior outwardly as the pranks of a headstrong child who has been given a new toy.15 �SLOVAKIA 115 All these problems led to the development of the autonomist movement led by Monsignor Andrew Hlinka. After the 1925 election his party, known as the Slovak People's Party, emerges as the strongest party in Slovakia (among twenty odd parties contesting the election) scoring 34 % of the total votes (489,111 out of 1,425,595) .16 In such an atmosphere the situation was ripening for a show-down. The young generation was predominantly autonomist and radical. Educated by Czech teachers it knew how to fight the Czechs with their own weapons. The nationalism of the Twenties with all its immature self-expression was coming of age. Its claims were now more demanding and better substantiated. There was no other way of satisfying them except by granting them. The difficult period when Slovakia had practically no nationally conscious intelligentsia, no administrative experience and no definite political aims, was now over. Even reasonable Czechs were aware of the fact that the Slovaks did not need tutelage in everything and were willing to grant gradually some sort of autonomy. In fact there was more opposition to the part of centralist Slovaks than on the part of the Czechs themselves. III. The Slovak problem re-emerged in all its magnitude in 1938. Up to that year it was relatively unknown outside Czecho-Slovakia, very few foreigners being aware even of its existence. The Czech-German dispute had made it a second-rate affair and being an internal one it had captured little attention abroad. But in September 1938 its presence and importance were stressed by both Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler in his speech of September 26 at the Sportpalast said that the Czechs and the Slovaks were separate nations and "the Slovaks did not want to have anything to do with the Czechs." 17 Mussolini in his open letter to Runciman pointed out that "there is not only a Sudeten-German problem, there is also a Hungarian, a Polish and a Slovak problem." 18 The tragi-comic element of their focusing attention on this problem lies in the fact that they were actually repeating, practically word for word, what had been said or written at least 20 years �116 SLOVAKIA before by Msgr. Hlinka in September, 1919 demanding an autonomous status for Slovakia in Paris. 19 By the Munich Agreement of the European Big Four Slovakia was condemned to transfer to Hungary the southern zone settled by Magyars. Faced with the threat of mutilation, the country reacted healthily in knitting the national unity more closely together. The numerous parties of the former system resulting from Prague's policy of "divide et impera" were spontaneously abandoned by their leaders and replaced by a gathering together of all Slovaks of good will. The amputation decided in Vienna was painful but not fatal for the country.20 On October 6, 1938, under international pressure, Prague had to make up its mind to take care of the Slovak problem. On September 22, 1938, in the course of the crisis brought on by the German question Mr. Benes, after many postponements and three modifications, finally had the text of a plan of solution put into the hands of Monsignor Joseph Tiso, Vice-President of the Populist party in Bratislava.21 General John Syrovy, who headed the Prague Government in Prague after Munich, nominated the First autonomous government of Slovakia. Monsignor Joseph Tiso was appointed Prime Minister. Tiso's government was empowered with full control over all matters affecting Slovak territory with the exception of foreign affairs, national finance, and national defense, which remained matters of common juristiction with Prague. Tiso's cabinet consisted of four ministers-Matth ew Cernak, Education; Ferdinand Durcansky, Justice; Paul Teplansky, Agriculture; John Lichner, trade and Public Works, Railroads and Post. Durcansky was a member of the Hlinka's People's Party, Cernak was an independent autonomist, while Teplansky and Lichner were members of the Czecho-Slovak Agrarian Party.22 Monsignor Tiso announced that Slovakia would be a part of a Federated Czecho-Slovak Republic. The hyphen was again incorporated in the title to emphasize the component parts that make up the state. After the victory of Munich, Germany was no less determined than before to liquidate Czecho-Slovakia. Hun- �SLOVAKIA 117 gary made demands upon territory in Slovakia which contained a heavy Hungarian population. Before March 13, 1939, Berlin was faced with the following alternative in regard to the Slovak question: either Slovakia would declare its independence and become Germany's ally, or else it would refuse--an act which would be one reason for the Reich's leaving Hungary's hands free to reconquer the former territory of the crown of St. Stephen. Hitler never ceased plotting in Budapest. As early as February, 1939, Dr. Edmund Wesenmayer, who was later to become Minister Plenipotentiary of the Third Reich in Budapest, informed Slovak politicians that Hungary was considering March 15 to attack Slovak territory. He did not forget to add that only the Declaration of Independence could ward off Hungarian intervention.23 In March, inspite of strong autonomist tendencies, . the Czech preponderance in Slovakia was still considerable. The effects of twenty years just could not be undone in several months. Mostly because of lack of qualified personnel, the officers' corps in the army units stationed in Slovakia, police and gendarmerie and higher officials in the administrative service were still largely Czech. Industry ran mostly on Czech capital and Slovak economy was closely linked to the economy of the Czech lands . These facts were realized by Tiso and it caused him to be very cautious in his actions against the Czech lands. Independence at this angle spelled great economic danger and administrative chaos in Slovakia. Monsignor Tiso went to see Hitler and discuss the Slovak situation. Hitler definitely had no interest in anything east of the Carpathian mountains. It was indifferent to him what happened there. Hitler stated that if Slovakia wanted independence he would support this endeavor and even guarantee it. Hitler wanted Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence on the Berlin Radio, but he refused this because he did not have the right to decide Slovakia's fate. It was up to the Parliament in Bratislava to decide Slovakia's fate. Tiso called President Ha.cha, the president of Czecho-Slovakia to call the Slovak deputies together for the meeting of the parliament. After an exposition by Tiso behind closed doors the �118 SLOVAKIA fifty-seven deputies from the Slovak Parliament voted unanimously for independence. Three quarters of an hour later the same parliament voted the following law: Article 1. The Slovak land kleclared itself an independent State. The Diet of the Slovak land is transformed into a parliament of the Slovak State. Article 2. Until the adoption of the Constitution of the Slovak State, the executive power is entrusted to the government named by the Presidency of the Parliament. Article 3. All the laws, decrees and dispositions valid up to the present continue in force with the changes resulting from the fact of the existence of the i~dependent Slovak State. Article 4. By means of decrees, the government is instructed to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of order and the protection of the interests of the Slovak State. Article 5. This law goes into effect this very day and it devolves upon the government to enforce it. Bratislava, Slovakia, March 14, 1939 The new government comprised the Prime Minister, Msgr. Dr. Joseph Tiso; Vice-Premier, Dr. Vojtech Tuka; Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ferdinand t>urcansky; Interior, Karol Sidor; National Defense, Lieutenant-Colonel Ferdinand Catlos; Public Education, Joseph Sivak; Economy, Dr. Gejza Medricky; Finance, Dr. Mikulas Pruzinsky; Communications and Public Works, Julius Stano; Justice, Dr. Gejza Fritz.25 Slovakia became Germany's ally rather than her victim as in the Czech lands, but German policy wanted to prove how happy even a small Slavic nation could be in Hitler's new order. Slovakia was recognized, and many Czech historians neglect to admit, by many countries both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. She was recognized by Poland, Hungary, and Germany in March of 1939, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain in April, and on May by Great Britain by a 'de facto' recognition. Before the outbreak of the war she was recognized by Vatican, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Sweden, Japan, Liberia, Equador, Costa Rica, both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. In addition she received recognition 'de facto' from France and Belgium. On September 17, 1939 the Soviet Union recognized Slovakia both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. After the declaration of independence on March 14, �SLOVAKIA 119 1939, Slovakia, for the time in over one thousand years she took her place among the nations of the earth. She no longer had stringis attached to Budapest or Prague. The Slovak government first wanted to solve the problem of a heavy Czech labor force in intellectual areas of thought. "On October 1, 1938 the number of teachers in Slovakia was 345 Slovaks and 523 Czechs. This figure completely reversed by 1940 when there were 680 Slovak teachers as opposed to 73 Czech teachers." 27 Slovakia did have many problems in her economy which were heavily exploited by German interference. The very fact that in 1939 a separate Slovak state could somehow exist where it would have been an impossibility twenty years earlier shown that the Slovaks had not only been able students but had also had able teachers in the Czechs. But there were still those who would show arrogance and lack of undestanding for Slovak pride and spoil the atmosphere. Although some authors like Schmitt feel that the "independent Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia became, for all practical purpose, parts of the Reich." 28 Yet some authors seem to negate the fact that there was a declaration of independence by the Slovak Parliament which represented the Slovak people and only the Slovak people. Another fact which is paramount in a nation's right to life is the fact of recognition by other nations. It must be emphasized that Slovakia was recognized by nations in both camps, Allied and German. IV. The way in which Slovakia disappeared from the face of Europe and became again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic offers experts of international law and political science an interesting subject for study and investigation. Considering the fact that Slovakia was recognized by 27 states, of which two thirds were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak Republic became a member of the international community and subject to the codes of international law. We must consider the fact that Slovakia like Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and Rumania were defeated states but they were never incorporated into any other states. Accordin~ to the Atlantic Charter Slovakia should have been �120 SLOVAKIA treated as an existing state under military occupation and remain such until the Peace treaties were signed. Indeed the Allies favored the Czech exiles and decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Charter to the Slovak people. This seems very strange because of the fact that when a state is recognized it cannot be desolved with the impression that it never had existed. "On May 8, 1945 the Slovak Government signed a document of 'protection' or 'surrender' to the Allied High Command."29 Considering the fact that Slovakia never declared war against the Western Allies-Great Britain, France, or the United States. The attempts to save Slovakia as an independent state failed and her right to self-government disappeared. Never consulting the Slovak people, she was again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. All signs of autonomy as evidenced before the war disappeared within the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Slovakia again became a mere appendage of the term "Czechoslovak." Slovaks could no longer speak for Slovaks but had to look to the Czechs in Prague. V. In conclusion the road to Slovakia's independence led through stormy days of the post-Munich period and the time of her independence on the European scene was not very propitious. But we must remember that there are some things in life in which we have no say in. It is highly unlikely that Slovakia would have survived if she had appeared after World War I due to the fact that she lacked a substantial intellectual class. The fact remains that fifty years before she possessed a larger intelligentsia than in 1918. The one thousand year sentence of subjugation under Magyarization had almost destroyed the Slovaks and their civilization. The Slovaks owe much to the Czechs, for without them they would not have been able twenty years later to possess an intelligentsia which had multiplied in size and improved in . depth and competence and stand on their own feet in March of 1939. The Czecho-Slovak Republic might have worked if it was bilateral and not unilateral as it was. The Czechs neglected to realize the �SLOVAKIA 121 fact that children do mature and no longer need to be tied to their mother's apron strings. It was tragic that the United States' indolence resulted in Slovakia again being incorporated into the Czecho-Slovak Republic against the will of majority of her people. It was astrous that the United States favored the Czech Benes over the Slovak Tiso in deciding the fate of the Slovak people. The Slovakia that did emerge on March 14, 1939 was not the archetype that I would have envisioned, for there were many things wrong, among them heavy dependence on Germany. It is both simple and sweet to assert that Adolph Hitler imposed independence on Slovakia but these allegations are not factual. The circumstances surrounding Slovakia's birth are far more complex. The Slovaks, unable to escape Central European events, reconciled themselves to the geographical and political conditions of 1939, as they thought best. Independence was not rejected, it was hailed, true some more eagerly than others. Slovakia was a failure in one respect in that it could not avert the persecution of its Jewish population, of whom about a fourth survived the six years of Slovakia's existence. The Catholic bishops however, under the leadership of Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko, of Nitra, were as outspoken in their criticism of anti-Jewish legislation and courageous in their defense of human dignity as was s:inybody in Hitler's Europe. We can all appreciate the fact that no nation on earth desires tyranny over freedom, and even some who have a different view regarding the Slovak Republic and her war-time regime. No man on earth has the right to condemn the Slovaks to be an appendage to any other nation nor to be a colony of any other nation no matter how ethnically or linguistically they are related. The Slovak does not want any Czech to use his debasive form of rhetoric in international spheres of interest on behalf of his culture, language and history but rather feels quite proficient enough to do this for himself. The Slovak nation has a God-given right to live a free and independent life according to its tr,aditions. �122 SLOVAKIA One very important thing the world has to learn is the fact that the dreams and aspirations of little nations must be respected and supported even if they cramp the style of a brother nation who in the world's eyes seemingly wants only the best for its little brother. Another thing is the fact that the Slovaks do not wish to be known as Czechs or "Czechoslovaks". They are not a mere appendage but a distinct entity. If politics is the art of the impossible, then we cannot condemn the Slovaks for having achieved that impossible dream in the years of 1939-1945. Althought I am an American born of Slovak blood only on my mother's side I have come to know and love the aspirations of the Slovak people. As an American I can appreciate freedom and justice and see the same for my brothers in Slovakia. The story and traditions of the Slovak people are among the most glorious in all of history. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stiffled, but she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as master of her own household. Ibsen's words from his work "An Enemy of the People, V" seem to be appropriate: "The Strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone ... " 1) F. Vnuk, "Slovakia's Six Eventful Months ( Oct. 1938- March 1939) ," Slovak Studies IV, Historica II, 1964, 14. 2) J . Lettrich, "The Declaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin," A Histor y of Modern Slovakia, p. 288. 3) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 15. 4) G. L. Oddo, "To be Free of Budapest," Slov akia anji Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 174. 5) Ibid., p. 175. 6) IbH, p. 175-76 7) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 8) P . P . Yurchak, "Masaryk," The Slovaks,(Whiting, Ind.,1946), pp. 206. 9) Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 10) I. Derer, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, (Prague, 1938) p. 32. 11) G. L. Ojddo, "Czecho-Slovakia," Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 205. �SLOVAKIA 123 12) Ibid. , p. 205. 13 ) J . A. Mikus, "Czecho-Slovakia (1918-1939) " , Slovakia: A Political history, Marquette Slavic Studies ed., (Milwaukee, 1963) , pp. 38-39. 14 ) Ibid., p. 39. 15 ) G. F. Kennan, "Report on Conditions in Slovakia," From Prague After Muni ch, Princeton University Press ed. (Princeton, N. J . 1968) , p . 19. 16) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 17. 17 ) F . Vnuk, op. ci t ., p. 23. 18) Ibid., p . 23 . 19) F Vnuk, loc. cit. 20 ) J. A. Mikus, op. cit., p. 66. 21 ) Ibid, p. 67. 22 ) G. L. Oddo, op. cit ., p. 237. 23 ) J. A. Mikus, op. ci t ., p. 76. 24 ) J. A. Mikus, op . cit., pp. 86-87. 25 ) Ibid., p. 88. 26 ) I bid. , pp. 135-36. 27 ) J . A. Mikus, op. ci t ., pp. 108-09. 28 ) B. E. Schmitt, " The Road to Munich," Czechoslov akia, R. J . Kerner ed., (Los Angeles, 1949), p. 438. 29 ) J . M. Kirschbaum, "Twenty years of Czech an/d Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slov akia, XV, (1965) , p. 80. BIBLIOGRAPHY Derer , Ivan, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, Prague, The Orbis Publishing Company, 1938. Heymann, Frederick, G., Poland and Czechoslovakia, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1966. Kennan, George, F ., From Prague After Munich, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1968. Kirschbaum, Joseph, M ., "Twenty Years of Ozech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slovaki a, XV, ( 1965) , pp. 78-90. Lettrich, Joseph, A. , A History of Modern Slovakia, New York, N . Y ., Praeger Publishing, 1955. Mikus, Joseph, A. , Slovakia a Political History: 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Schmitt, Berna/dette, E ., Czechoslovakia, Los Angeles, Ca.Hfornia. University of California Press, 1949. Vnuk, Francis, Slov ak Studies IV, Rome, Italy, Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius Press, 1964, pp. 7-164. Yurchak, Peter, P., The Slovaks, Whiting, Indiana, The Rev. John J. Lach Press, 1946. ( FIRST PRIZE AWARD) � 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 1971, Vol. 21 Description An account of the resource Vol. 21 (No. 44), 1971. 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 1971 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 109 Winning Essays - Slovak League Scholarship Awards The Emergence of the Slovak State Daniel F. T a n z o n e I. Following the collapse of the Hapsburg monarchy the small nations of Central Europe organized their own national states. The Slovaks joined hands with their Czech brothers and organized a common state: the Czecho-Slovak Republic. On the part of the Slovaks it was a belated re-appearance on the map of Europe after their ancestors hll-ci made a short debut in the Moravian Empire of the Ninth century. The union with the Czechs was considered as the most opportune alternative, the others being complete independence which was beyond their will, or autonomy within Hungary. It is interesting to note that large Slovak emigrant organizations in the United States came to the same conclusions, although there was no co-ordination of action between the Slovaks in Slovakia and those in the United States. "During· the war of 1914-18 every action for the unification of the Czechs and Slovaks into a common state was considered by the Austro-Hungarian authorities as treason, and consequently there were only a few sporadic pronouncements on this theme." 1 "But the idea was being entertained by the Czech and Slovak leaders at home, while abroad an active group led by Thomas G. Masaryk and Milan R. Stefanik and Benes worked with the Allies for the establishment of Czecho-Slovakia." 2 Their hard work, carried out with superhuman endurance and untiring stubborness against many odds, was crowned with splendid success. On October 30, 1918 in Turciansky Svaty Martin the Slovak representatives claiming "the absolute right to selfdetermination" declared for unity with the Czechs (at a 110 SLOVAKIA meeting which bore all the marks of haste and excitement). The declaration called not only for political but also for linguistic and cultural unity and marked the beginning of a new epoch in Slovak history. From living under the Magyars, the Slovaks started a new life with the Czechs.3 To go back for_a minute to look at the situation in America the historic month of May, 1918, saw events both at home and abroad moving inexorably toward the formation of a new Czecho-Slovak Republic. May saw Masaryk in Pittsburgh meeting with American Czech and Slovak leaders, explaining just how Czecho-Slovakia would be administered and precisely what the status of Slovakia would be within the new state. He assured Slovaks that Slovakia would be autonomous, would have its own schools, its own language, its own local administration, its own courts, its own legislative assembly and to further appease Slovak sensibilities he drafted a document which has since been hotly debated. It is known in history as the Pittsburgh Pact. Because Masaryk had written the draft in pencil Albert Mamatey, the President of the Slovak League of America had calligraphed and later took it to Washington where Masaryk (his government now officially recognized by the Wilson Administration), already temporary president of Czecho-Slovakia, signed the calligraphed copy on November 14 just before his departure for Europe. 4 The agreement was necessary to assure the American Slovaks of the position of Slovakia in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The American Czechs and Slovaks under the leadership of the Rev. Joseph Murgas, pastor of Sacred Heart Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, launched a drive to raise funds for the cause of Czech and Slovak liberation. The drive netted the sum of well over $800,000.00 and it was sent to Masaryk, Benes, the former's daughter Alice, the National Council's offices in Paris, Russia, and the United States. 5 The agreement proclaimed that Slovaks and Czechs would form one state but that Slovakia would be completely autonomous, and that Czechs would not meddle in the domestic affairs of Slovakia. The Pittsburgh Pact is as follows: SLOVAKIA 111 THE PITISBURGH PACT May 30, 1918 The representatives of the Slovak and Czech organizations in the United States-The Slovak League of America, the Czech National Alliance, and the Union of Czech Catholics-have !deliberated, in the presence of the Chairman of rthe Czecho-Slovak National Council, Professor Masaryk, on the C2iecho-Slovak question and on our previous program manifestations, and have resolved as follows: We favor a political program whose purpose it shall be to unite the Czechs and the Slovaks into an autonomous state comprising the Czech lands and Slovakia. Slovakia shall have her own administration, heT own assembly and her own courts. The Slovak language shall be the official language in the schools in public offices, and in public life in general. The Czecho Slovak State shall be a republic ; its constitution shall be democratic. The cooperation of the Czechs and the Slovaks in the United States shall be intensified and regulated by mutual consent, accord• ing to need and changing situations. Detailed provisions relating to the organization of the CzechoSlov,ak state shall be left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks anci their legal representatives. 0 Signators Slovak Representatives: A. Mamatey, I. Bielek, J. Jancek, M. Gazdik, M. Getting, J . Pankuch, G. H. Mika, M. Bosak, I. Gessay, Rev. John Kubasek, A. Schustek, Rev. L. J . Karlovsky, Rev. Paul J . Siska, J. A. Feriencik, I. Daxner. Czech Representatives: T. G. Masaryk, K. Pergler, H. Dostal, Dr. L. Fischer, Rev. Oldrich Zla.mal, B. Simek, V. Benes, J. Zmrhal, Rev. I. Restl, J. Straka, J. Martinek, Dr. G. V. Pecival6 II. The transition was loaded with difficulties optimistically minimized or overlooked (in the initial enthusiasm) but which started to transpire as the honeymoon was wearing thin. The Slovaks ( and the Czechs, too) found very soon that they were much further apart than two branches of one nation ought to be or are supposed to be. Apart from an undeniable linguistic similarity there was little else these two nations had in common. In 1918 the Czechs were more progressive in their views, more aggressive in their action and more western in their political outlook than the Slovaks. At the same time the Slovaks 112 SLOVAKIA were practically without "intelligentsia", emerging from a battle for survival which they had very nearly lost and their general attitude was more conservative than revolutionary; in a word, they were badly equipped for the stormy days ahead. They depended greatly on Czech help. From 1919 under the pretext of helping Slovakia the Czechs were sending into Slovakia hundreds upon hundreds of teachers, officials and technicians; some of these did creditable work and rendered valuable services, others less so. Many of the new Czech arrivals commited a great number of unnecessary blunders which discredited their often well-meant help. Their ignorance of Slovak psy-• chology made their approach to their Slovak brothers awkward and sometimes even insulting. 7 When Masaryk entered upon the work of liberating the Czechs he did so with a singular talent and thoroughness. No other man could have possibly done better. The Czechs came to revere him as the personification of Czech genius expressed in an essentially rationalist philosophy. His outlook became fundamentally Czech. He came to be an admirer of John Hus. Educated in German schools, he was thus well equipped to cope with the German mentality. He became less a Slovak and more a stranger to the Slovak outlook and Slovak mentality. The Slovak has a deep respect for tradition: he is conservative, and does not change his opinions overnight with each new bit of information or of knowledge he may acquire. The Czech has less respect for tradition, indeed, challenges it, and is essentially opportunistic rather than conservative. 8 The first post-war weeks witnessed a sudden revival of anti-Catholic and Hussite traditions in Bohemia. The Czechs saw in the Catholic Church a Hapsburg ally and wanted the Slovaks to see in her an instrument of Magyarization. They tried to transplant their excesses into Slovakia but with no success. For most Slovaks the Catholic Church was an object of awe and respect and any attack on it, secret or open, horrified them, even made them nostalgic for those days when the Church was sacrosanct. The British minister in Prague summed up the principal errors of the Czech administration in Slovakia in his report of November 6, 1919 as follows: SLOVAKIA 113 1. Hostility to the Roman Catholic Church is evidenced by Czech soldiers and offidals and includes the desecration and mutilation of crucifixes and holy images, interruption of marriages, and similar offenses against the principles of culture and decency. 2. The Country has been flooded with Czech officials and Slovaks dismissed, or, if employed, they receive from one half to two-thirds less pay than the Czechs. 3. Corruption exists in public offices. 4. Attempts are being made to substitute the Czech for the Slovak language.9 The British representative not only pointed out these errors but strove for their rectification. With the approval of his government he advocated with both Masaryk and Benes more moderate courses and a more reasonable approach to the Slovak problem. One of the most important laws passed by the Czechoslovak Republic (hyphen was dropped) which antagonized the Slovaks was the Language Act (No. 122 of the year 1920). It provided that the state official language of CzechoSlovakia was the "Czechoslovak" language in which (with the exception of the provisions made for the use of the languages of the minorities, namely German and Hungarian) the proceedings of all courts, organs, institutions and enterprises of the state were to conducted. 10 The last paragraph of the Pittsburgh Agreement notes that the "detailed regulations, concerning the ·establishment of the Czecho-Slovak state, are left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks and their legal representatives." Only one recognized authority existed in the years 1918-20: the Provisional Constituent Assembly of Czecho-Slovakia. 11 Meanwhile, on December 12, 1918, Vavro ~robar was sent to Slovakia with "full powers" from the central government and placed at the head of a semi-autonomous administration named by Prague. Soon Czech generals. Czecho-Slovak legionnaires, and tens of thousands of Czech officials would follow him. Thus, ~robar, who had already turned against his former benefactor, Monsignor Andrew Hlinka, P.A., and had renounced his Catholic Faith, could and did in time impose a "Czech peace" upon a people who had illusions of cultural autonomy after centuries of oppression from Budapest.12 As Slovakia represented 23 percent of the Republic's population, it would have seemed logical-as the com- 114 SLOVAKIA petitive system was not generally used-to reserve for Slovaks 23 per cent of the positions in the central administration. Now the statistics for the Slovak civil servants during the twentieth and last year of the Czecho-Slovak Republic show the following: Slovaks Civil Servants The Parliament of Prague ....... . Service to the Chief of State ..... . Presidency of the Council .. . .... . Ministries: Foreign Affairs . ... ........ . .. . Interior ..... ..... ............ . Justice ... ..... . .. . ....... . . .. . Unification ..... .. .. . ... . ..... . National Defense ............. . Generals ......... .... ........ . Industry: Civil Servants ......... . Agriculture ................. ... . . Post Offices . .... ............... . Communications .... ........... . Public Works ......... . ........ . Commerce ....... .. . . . ... . .... . . Social Welfare ..... . .. . ......... . Public Health .... . .. ... . . ... ... . Finance ....... . .. .............. . 1 out of 224 96 3 153 9 33 2 12 6 6 1 4 11 7 9 4 1 4 6 12 1,246 386 143 51 1,300 139 417 391 305 1,006 82 322 397 182 630 13 Of the 318,981,000 Crowns representing the sum total of the salaries paid annually to the civil servants of the Republic, the Slovaks received only 3,614,000, that is 1,1 per cent. If the 23 per cent proportion had been respected , the Slovak civil servants would have received 73,000,000 Crowns annually .14 Considering the fact that there were few Slovak intellectuals in 1918, after twenty years, the picture remained the same as regards the position of the Slovaks in the Republic. According to the Czechs, the Slovak constitutional demands have gone so far and been pressed so ruthlessly that it is not facetious to say that in CzechoSlovakia everyone now has autonomy except the Czechs. The Czechs dismissed the Slovak behavior outwardly as the pranks of a headstrong child who has been given a new toy.15 SLOVAKIA 115 All these problems led to the development of the autonomist movement led by Monsignor Andrew Hlinka. After the 1925 election his party, known as the Slovak People's Party, emerges as the strongest party in Slovakia (among twenty odd parties contesting the election) scoring 34 % of the total votes (489,111 out of 1,425,595) .16 In such an atmosphere the situation was ripening for a show-down. The young generation was predominantly autonomist and radical. Educated by Czech teachers it knew how to fight the Czechs with their own weapons. The nationalism of the Twenties with all its immature self-expression was coming of age. Its claims were now more demanding and better substantiated. There was no other way of satisfying them except by granting them. The difficult period when Slovakia had practically no nationally conscious intelligentsia, no administrative experience and no definite political aims, was now over. Even reasonable Czechs were aware of the fact that the Slovaks did not need tutelage in everything and were willing to grant gradually some sort of autonomy. In fact there was more opposition to the part of centralist Slovaks than on the part of the Czechs themselves. III. The Slovak problem re-emerged in all its magnitude in 1938. Up to that year it was relatively unknown outside Czecho-Slovakia, very few foreigners being aware even of its existence. The Czech-German dispute had made it a second-rate affair and being an internal one it had captured little attention abroad. But in September 1938 its presence and importance were stressed by both Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler in his speech of September 26 at the Sportpalast said that the Czechs and the Slovaks were separate nations and "the Slovaks did not want to have anything to do with the Czechs." 17 Mussolini in his open letter to Runciman pointed out that "there is not only a Sudeten-German problem, there is also a Hungarian, a Polish and a Slovak problem." 18 The tragi-comic element of their focusing attention on this problem lies in the fact that they were actually repeating, practically word for word, what had been said or written at least 20 years 116 SLOVAKIA before by Msgr. Hlinka in September, 1919 demanding an autonomous status for Slovakia in Paris. 19 By the Munich Agreement of the European Big Four Slovakia was condemned to transfer to Hungary the southern zone settled by Magyars. Faced with the threat of mutilation, the country reacted healthily in knitting the national unity more closely together. The numerous parties of the former system resulting from Prague's policy of "divide et impera" were spontaneously abandoned by their leaders and replaced by a gathering together of all Slovaks of good will. The amputation decided in Vienna was painful but not fatal for the country.20 On October 6, 1938, under international pressure, Prague had to make up its mind to take care of the Slovak problem. On September 22, 1938, in the course of the crisis brought on by the German question Mr. Benes, after many postponements and three modifications, finally had the text of a plan of solution put into the hands of Monsignor Joseph Tiso, Vice-President of the Populist party in Bratislava.21 General John Syrovy, who headed the Prague Government in Prague after Munich, nominated the First autonomous government of Slovakia. Monsignor Joseph Tiso was appointed Prime Minister. Tiso's government was empowered with full control over all matters affecting Slovak territory with the exception of foreign affairs, national finance, and national defense, which remained matters of common juristiction with Prague. Tiso's cabinet consisted of four ministers-Matth ew Cernak, Education; Ferdinand Durcansky, Justice; Paul Teplansky, Agriculture; John Lichner, trade and Public Works, Railroads and Post. Durcansky was a member of the Hlinka's People's Party, Cernak was an independent autonomist, while Teplansky and Lichner were members of the Czecho-Slovak Agrarian Party.22 Monsignor Tiso announced that Slovakia would be a part of a Federated Czecho-Slovak Republic. The hyphen was again incorporated in the title to emphasize the component parts that make up the state. After the victory of Munich, Germany was no less determined than before to liquidate Czecho-Slovakia. Hun- SLOVAKIA 117 gary made demands upon territory in Slovakia which contained a heavy Hungarian population. Before March 13, 1939, Berlin was faced with the following alternative in regard to the Slovak question: either Slovakia would declare its independence and become Germany's ally, or else it would refuse--an act which would be one reason for the Reich's leaving Hungary's hands free to reconquer the former territory of the crown of St. Stephen. Hitler never ceased plotting in Budapest. As early as February, 1939, Dr. Edmund Wesenmayer, who was later to become Minister Plenipotentiary of the Third Reich in Budapest, informed Slovak politicians that Hungary was considering March 15 to attack Slovak territory. He did not forget to add that only the Declaration of Independence could ward off Hungarian intervention.23 In March, inspite of strong autonomist tendencies, . the Czech preponderance in Slovakia was still considerable. The effects of twenty years just could not be undone in several months. Mostly because of lack of qualified personnel, the officers' corps in the army units stationed in Slovakia, police and gendarmerie and higher officials in the administrative service were still largely Czech. Industry ran mostly on Czech capital and Slovak economy was closely linked to the economy of the Czech lands . These facts were realized by Tiso and it caused him to be very cautious in his actions against the Czech lands. Independence at this angle spelled great economic danger and administrative chaos in Slovakia. Monsignor Tiso went to see Hitler and discuss the Slovak situation. Hitler definitely had no interest in anything east of the Carpathian mountains. It was indifferent to him what happened there. Hitler stated that if Slovakia wanted independence he would support this endeavor and even guarantee it. Hitler wanted Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence on the Berlin Radio, but he refused this because he did not have the right to decide Slovakia's fate. It was up to the Parliament in Bratislava to decide Slovakia's fate. Tiso called President Ha.cha, the president of Czecho-Slovakia to call the Slovak deputies together for the meeting of the parliament. After an exposition by Tiso behind closed doors the 118 SLOVAKIA fifty-seven deputies from the Slovak Parliament voted unanimously for independence. Three quarters of an hour later the same parliament voted the following law: Article 1. The Slovak land kleclared itself an independent State. The Diet of the Slovak land is transformed into a parliament of the Slovak State. Article 2. Until the adoption of the Constitution of the Slovak State, the executive power is entrusted to the government named by the Presidency of the Parliament. Article 3. All the laws, decrees and dispositions valid up to the present continue in force with the changes resulting from the fact of the existence of the i~dependent Slovak State. Article 4. By means of decrees, the government is instructed to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of order and the protection of the interests of the Slovak State. Article 5. This law goes into effect this very day and it devolves upon the government to enforce it. Bratislava, Slovakia, March 14, 1939 The new government comprised the Prime Minister, Msgr. Dr. Joseph Tiso; Vice-Premier, Dr. Vojtech Tuka; Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ferdinand t>urcansky; Interior, Karol Sidor; National Defense, Lieutenant-Colonel Ferdinand Catlos; Public Education, Joseph Sivak; Economy, Dr. Gejza Medricky; Finance, Dr. Mikulas Pruzinsky; Communications and Public Works, Julius Stano; Justice, Dr. Gejza Fritz.25 Slovakia became Germany's ally rather than her victim as in the Czech lands, but German policy wanted to prove how happy even a small Slavic nation could be in Hitler's new order. Slovakia was recognized, and many Czech historians neglect to admit, by many countries both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. She was recognized by Poland, Hungary, and Germany in March of 1939, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain in April, and on May by Great Britain by a 'de facto' recognition. Before the outbreak of the war she was recognized by Vatican, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Sweden, Japan, Liberia, Equador, Costa Rica, both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. In addition she received recognition 'de facto' from France and Belgium. On September 17, 1939 the Soviet Union recognized Slovakia both 'de facto' and 'de jure'. After the declaration of independence on March 14, SLOVAKIA 119 1939, Slovakia, for the time in over one thousand years she took her place among the nations of the earth. She no longer had stringis attached to Budapest or Prague. The Slovak government first wanted to solve the problem of a heavy Czech labor force in intellectual areas of thought. "On October 1, 1938 the number of teachers in Slovakia was 345 Slovaks and 523 Czechs. This figure completely reversed by 1940 when there were 680 Slovak teachers as opposed to 73 Czech teachers." 27 Slovakia did have many problems in her economy which were heavily exploited by German interference. The very fact that in 1939 a separate Slovak state could somehow exist where it would have been an impossibility twenty years earlier shown that the Slovaks had not only been able students but had also had able teachers in the Czechs. But there were still those who would show arrogance and lack of undestanding for Slovak pride and spoil the atmosphere. Although some authors like Schmitt feel that the "independent Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia became, for all practical purpose, parts of the Reich." 28 Yet some authors seem to negate the fact that there was a declaration of independence by the Slovak Parliament which represented the Slovak people and only the Slovak people. Another fact which is paramount in a nation's right to life is the fact of recognition by other nations. It must be emphasized that Slovakia was recognized by nations in both camps, Allied and German. IV. The way in which Slovakia disappeared from the face of Europe and became again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic offers experts of international law and political science an interesting subject for study and investigation. Considering the fact that Slovakia was recognized by 27 states, of which two thirds were on the side of the Allies, the Slovak Republic became a member of the international community and subject to the codes of international law. We must consider the fact that Slovakia like Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and Rumania were defeated states but they were never incorporated into any other states. Accordin~ to the Atlantic Charter Slovakia should have been 120 SLOVAKIA treated as an existing state under military occupation and remain such until the Peace treaties were signed. Indeed the Allies favored the Czech exiles and decided not to apply the right of self-determination and the principles of the Atlantic Charter to the Slovak people. This seems very strange because of the fact that when a state is recognized it cannot be desolved with the impression that it never had existed. "On May 8, 1945 the Slovak Government signed a document of 'protection' or 'surrender' to the Allied High Command."29 Considering the fact that Slovakia never declared war against the Western Allies-Great Britain, France, or the United States. The attempts to save Slovakia as an independent state failed and her right to self-government disappeared. Never consulting the Slovak people, she was again a part of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. All signs of autonomy as evidenced before the war disappeared within the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Slovakia again became a mere appendage of the term "Czechoslovak." Slovaks could no longer speak for Slovaks but had to look to the Czechs in Prague. V. In conclusion the road to Slovakia's independence led through stormy days of the post-Munich period and the time of her independence on the European scene was not very propitious. But we must remember that there are some things in life in which we have no say in. It is highly unlikely that Slovakia would have survived if she had appeared after World War I due to the fact that she lacked a substantial intellectual class. The fact remains that fifty years before she possessed a larger intelligentsia than in 1918. The one thousand year sentence of subjugation under Magyarization had almost destroyed the Slovaks and their civilization. The Slovaks owe much to the Czechs, for without them they would not have been able twenty years later to possess an intelligentsia which had multiplied in size and improved in . depth and competence and stand on their own feet in March of 1939. The Czecho-Slovak Republic might have worked if it was bilateral and not unilateral as it was. The Czechs neglected to realize the SLOVAKIA 121 fact that children do mature and no longer need to be tied to their mother's apron strings. It was tragic that the United States' indolence resulted in Slovakia again being incorporated into the Czecho-Slovak Republic against the will of majority of her people. It was astrous that the United States favored the Czech Benes over the Slovak Tiso in deciding the fate of the Slovak people. The Slovakia that did emerge on March 14, 1939 was not the archetype that I would have envisioned, for there were many things wrong, among them heavy dependence on Germany. It is both simple and sweet to assert that Adolph Hitler imposed independence on Slovakia but these allegations are not factual. The circumstances surrounding Slovakia's birth are far more complex. The Slovaks, unable to escape Central European events, reconciled themselves to the geographical and political conditions of 1939, as they thought best. Independence was not rejected, it was hailed, true some more eagerly than others. Slovakia was a failure in one respect in that it could not avert the persecution of its Jewish population, of whom about a fourth survived the six years of Slovakia's existence. The Catholic bishops however, under the leadership of Archbishop Karol Kmet'ko, of Nitra, were as outspoken in their criticism of anti-Jewish legislation and courageous in their defense of human dignity as was s:inybody in Hitler's Europe. We can all appreciate the fact that no nation on earth desires tyranny over freedom, and even some who have a different view regarding the Slovak Republic and her war-time regime. No man on earth has the right to condemn the Slovaks to be an appendage to any other nation nor to be a colony of any other nation no matter how ethnically or linguistically they are related. The Slovak does not want any Czech to use his debasive form of rhetoric in international spheres of interest on behalf of his culture, language and history but rather feels quite proficient enough to do this for himself. The Slovak nation has a God-given right to live a free and independent life according to its tr,aditions. 122 SLOVAKIA One very important thing the world has to learn is the fact that the dreams and aspirations of little nations must be respected and supported even if they cramp the style of a brother nation who in the world's eyes seemingly wants only the best for its little brother. Another thing is the fact that the Slovaks do not wish to be known as Czechs or "Czechoslovaks". They are not a mere appendage but a distinct entity. If politics is the art of the impossible, then we cannot condemn the Slovaks for having achieved that impossible dream in the years of 1939-1945. Althought I am an American born of Slovak blood only on my mother's side I have come to know and love the aspirations of the Slovak people. As an American I can appreciate freedom and justice and see the same for my brothers in Slovakia. The story and traditions of the Slovak people are among the most glorious in all of history. No other nation has suffered so much nor been more misunderstood and yet still possesses a fire of determination for its freedom and self-determination. Slovakia did emerge but unfortunately was stiffled, but she will again someday rise up to stand among the free and independent peoples of the earth as master of her own household. Ibsen's words from his work "An Enemy of the People, V" seem to be appropriate: "The Strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone ... " 1) F. Vnuk, "Slovakia's Six Eventful Months ( Oct. 1938- March 1939) ," Slovak Studies IV, Historica II, 1964, 14. 2) J . Lettrich, "The Declaration of Turciansky Sv. Martin," A Histor y of Modern Slovakia, p. 288. 3) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 15. 4) G. L. Oddo, "To be Free of Budapest," Slov akia anji Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 174. 5) Ibid., p. 175. 6) IbH, p. 175-76 7) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 8) P . P . Yurchak, "Masaryk," The Slovaks,(Whiting, Ind.,1946), pp. 206. 9) Vnuk, op. cit., p. 16. 10) I. Derer, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, (Prague, 1938) p. 32. 11) G. L. Ojddo, "Czecho-Slovakia," Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960) , p. 205. SLOVAKIA 123 12) Ibid. , p. 205. 13 ) J . A. Mikus, "Czecho-Slovakia (1918-1939) " , Slovakia: A Political history, Marquette Slavic Studies ed., (Milwaukee, 1963) , pp. 38-39. 14 ) Ibid., p. 39. 15 ) G. F. Kennan, "Report on Conditions in Slovakia," From Prague After Muni ch, Princeton University Press ed. (Princeton, N. J . 1968) , p . 19. 16) F . Vnuk, op. cit., p. 17. 17 ) F . Vnuk, op. ci t ., p. 23. 18) Ibid., p . 23 . 19) F Vnuk, loc. cit. 20 ) J. A. Mikus, op. cit., p. 66. 21 ) Ibid, p. 67. 22 ) G. L. Oddo, op. cit ., p. 237. 23 ) J. A. Mikus, op. ci t ., p. 76. 24 ) J. A. Mikus, op . cit., pp. 86-87. 25 ) Ibid., p. 88. 26 ) I bid. , pp. 135-36. 27 ) J . A. Mikus, op. ci t ., pp. 108-09. 28 ) B. E. Schmitt, " The Road to Munich," Czechoslov akia, R. J . Kerner ed., (Los Angeles, 1949), p. 438. 29 ) J . M. Kirschbaum, "Twenty years of Czech an/d Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slov akia, XV, (1965) , p. 80. BIBLIOGRAPHY Derer , Ivan, The Unity of the Czechs and Slovaks, Prague, The Orbis Publishing Company, 1938. Heymann, Frederick, G., Poland and Czechoslovakia, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1966. Kennan, George, F ., From Prague After Munich, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1968. Kirschbaum, Joseph, M ., "Twenty Years of Ozech and Communist Rule in Slovakia," Slovaki a, XV, ( 1965) , pp. 78-90. Lettrich, Joseph, A. , A History of Modern Slovakia, New York, N . Y ., Praeger Publishing, 1955. Mikus, Joseph, A. , Slovakia a Political History: 1918-1950, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Schmitt, Berna/dette, E ., Czechoslovakia, Los Angeles, Ca.Hfornia. University of California Press, 1949. Vnuk, Francis, Slov ak Studies IV, Rome, Italy, Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius Press, 1964, pp. 7-164. Yurchak, Peter, P., The Slovaks, Whiting, Indiana, The Rev. John J. Lach Press, 1946. ( FIRST PRIZE AWARD)  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 Emergence of the Slovak State Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 21 (No. 44), 1971 pp. 109-123 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/66d81964b502ba436e5de58154d80835.pdf 4269718fa2c19a98316fa99893d32db3 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 125 The Slovak Experience In Contemporary America Daniel F. Tanzone It shall be my design in this paper to look objectively at the problems and other pertinent sociological data regarding the history, growth and development of the Slovak immigrant in contemporary America. It shall be a study from the point of an American who is of Slovak ancestry, although this might tend to make the paper onesided and bias, I shall endeavor to present an objective view of the situation and problems in present day America. I shall consider the Slovaks to be one of America's minorities. The Slovaks can be considered minorities. For my purpose the definition will prove suggestive. Minorities are subgroups within a culture which are distinguishable from the dominant group by reason of difference in physiognomy, language, customs or culture-patterns (including any combination of these factors). I shall also consider the Slovaks as one of the many immigrant groups who "have made it" in America. Their development and eventual climb to success was brought about by overcoming great difficulties. The role played by one of the institutions of society, notably the Church, proved to be the most important single factor and in some ways one of the greatest problems for the Slovaks' emancipation from the ghettos of narrow-minded Little Slovakias in countless numbers of American cities. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a new land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. And in the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of central, southern and eastern Europe have constantly looked toward the United States as a haven. The Slovak of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was no exception. Harrassed at home, subject to the insidious pressures of Magyarization, which sought �126 SLOVAKIA to deprive them of their national character and identity literally thousands of thousands of Slovak families sought refuge in the new world. Slovaks began to emigrate in great numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. "From the year 1880 until the outbreak of World War I, Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people through emigration to America, over 22 per cent of her total population." 1 "Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910, Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews 08.3), Croatians-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group." 2 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities. One focus of settlement was the hard-coal of north-eastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in the district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12 ';,were Slovaks. 3 Besides northeastern Pennsylvania Slovaks crowded scores of cities in the eastern industrial portions of the United States. Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, New York, Yonkers, Philadelphia, Detroit, Bridgeport, Newark became the centers of the new Slovak life. There was scarcely a mine, factory or mill in America's new industry where Slovak immigrants and their sons could not be found. And everywhere they went, two opposing drives moved them. One toward Americanization and with it the social acceptance all new immigrants sought from their immigrant predecessors. The other, to preserve the culture and, above all, the faith of the Slovak past. That the two meshed instead of irreconcilably clashing can be attributed largely to the labors of a score or so of Slovak pioneers, in this the new land. Since the Slovaks knew little identity within the framework of Austria-Hungary and •since their very existence was denyed, a sense of Slovak nationalism and identity developed here in the United States. The early aim of �SLOVAKIA 127 these immigrant Slovaks was to preserve the Slovak language, Slovak customs and indeed a distinct Slovak identity. This nationalism, if we might call it, eventually was brought to bear fruit when the republic of CzechoSlovakia was established in 1918. The plans and agreements were reached not only in Europe but their foundations were laid in America. It was the work of the SlovakAmerican organizations in America under the banner of the Slovak League of America that guaranteed the rights of the Slovaks within the republic of Czecho-Slovakia. This early Slovak Nationalism developed with the establishment of a workable Slovak press here in America. The first Slovak newspaper was called the Bulletin which was hectographed by Julius Wolf and John Slovensky in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1885. The printed word was very important to the Slovak immigrant because in Hungary "to take a Slovak newspaper or, if an educated man, to speak the Slovak tongue, is to brand oneself in Magyar eyes as a political traitor and to insure very possible obstacle in one's path." 4 Slovak was forbidden in the schools, courts and even in the pulpits of churches. It was only natural that the Slovak who now lived in a free land would tend to encourage the use of the Slovak language in every possible instance of daily life. From its very beginnings the Slovak press has always been extremely strong and influential. The Slovak press was used as a means at voicing opposition to the programs and directives of the Austro-Hungarian government. It constantly attacked the Hungarians and their view of the Slovaks which they equated with ignorance, dullness and poverty. From the outset the Slovaks set out to preserve their Christian heritage. Their first Catholic parish was founded in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 1882 and their first Evangelical (Lutheran ) church in Streator, Ill., two years later. The main problems were twofold: priests were needed who could speak the language and fund were needed for parish churches and schools; both were met but only after a long, hard pull.5 The true flowering of the Slovak identity come with the establishment of the great Slovak fraternal societies. This organizational life among the Slovaks began in the �128 SLOVAKIA lodg·es and societies so common in America after the Civil War. "By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members." 6 Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and mining towns. These societies proved the greatest blessing to identity-starved Slovak. He now could boast a purely Slovak, not Hungarian or Austro-Hungarian society. These mutual benefit societies were organized in hundreds of cities from Maine to California. They were organized along two distant lines one purely Slovak with no regard to religion or political beliefs, and the other along strictly religious lines . The later proved to attract the majority of Slovak immigrants. The leader of the first group with a purely nationalistic view, was Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel, who did so much to make cause of the Slovaks known to Americans. He organized the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa., on February 15, 1890. The second group was led by the Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Slovak immigrant priest of the Cleveland, Ohio Diocese met with representatives of seven Slovak Catholic Societies in Cleveland on September 5, 1890 and organized the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota. This organization attracted many other Catholic societies and became the most important Slovak organization in America. The local lodges of this organization organized Slovak Catholics and formed parishes throughout the Unites States and even in Canada. This organization helped to organize some 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes in America. This organization proved to be the most important single achievement of the Slovak in America. It not only protected the member's life but also served as a cultural, religious and economic means of expressing the Slovaks' distinct identity. Not even in Austria-Hungary was there a Slovak organization which had its own press, its own orphanage and a large educational complex in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This organization helped to organize a teaching order of Sisters to staff the Slovak schools which were being built in practically every Slovak parish. This organ- �SLOVAKIA 129 ization provided the first Mother house for the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, a Slovak-American community founded by the Rev. Matthew Jankola of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other such Slovak fraternals appeared in the ensuing years. 7 The problem of the second generation was that life at home was unpleasant; whereas in the schoolroom they were too foreign, at home they were too American. The Slovak immigrant fathers who compromised most villingly in adjusting their outside affairs to the realities of the workaday world were different persons in their homes. Within the family circle, the Slovak language, religion, customs and parental authority were not to be modified simply because the home had been transplanted to the United States. The problem of the second generation Slovak American how to inhabit two worlds at the same time, was solved by escape as soon as sons were free economically, even before they reached their legal maturity. The second generation also came to know the contempt in which artistic activities were held by nineteenth and twentieth century Americans. They hastened to prove that they knew little or cared even less about art, music, th8ater or literature. "Nothing was more Yankee than a Yankeeized person of foreign descent." 8 In his opinion, that is the second generation Slovak-American it is he who is to undergo the entire transformation; the true member of the American nationality is not called upon to change in the least. The traits of foreign nationality which the Slovak brings with him are not to be mixed or interwoven. They are to be abandoned. The standard to which he must conform has been already fixed by forces quite outside himself, quite outside any individual, native or foreign, fixed by all the factors, topographical, climatic, racial, historical, fortuitous, which have worked together to make the American nationality what it is. A harsh situation, indeed. But a situation the harshness of which is determined not by the inclination or wish of any person or group of persons, but by the inherent qualities of human nature and social organization. 9 For the Eastern European immigrant and in particular the Slovak the third generation return was not so much �130 SLOVAKIA to cultural entities per se, but to a vague nostalgia and an undefined ideology. This ideology has no organic relation to the third-generation descendant's individual past, but is rather primarily a reaction to the conditions of life in the twentieth-century United States: 1) a "native" population alerted to the alleged stereotypic characteristics of immigrant groups; 2) the threat posed by numbers of incoming immigrants reinforcing a pre-existing population base of their compatriots; 3) the difficulty of maintaining ethnic anonymity; and 4) a somewhat retarded rate of growth in the country leading to a stronger emphasis upon a man's origin. 10 Essentially the group of immigrant origins-whether it be homogenous or heterogenous in character-return s in a context filtered by the American experience. Thus a general question to be put forth, the following is posed: Who returns to what with whom under which conditions of the possible forms and contents of these returns? Individual behavior is meant as well as the process of returning evidenced by the Slovaks who are a religio-ethnic group. Some reasons might be: 1) a generalized interest which may remain diffused or may become crystallized around specific segments of an ethnic folk heritage, a Slovak heritage-languag e, holiday celebrations, foods, etc. 2) the institutional religious framework-the existence of 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes, plus prayer and certain holiday observances within the Church. 4) Literary, ideological-cultur al-the writing of immigrant history, and since the Slovaks had a greater sense of freedom in the short period of time since they first arrived in America, the field was very ripe. The sensitive position that Slovak Americans of the third generation have toward the Slovakia of the period 1939-1945. It posed an interesting history of political science. An ethnic Slovak press which was the second largest foreign Slav press in the free world, and a press which was larger than anything that had existed in old Austria-Hungary. All this added to the socially patterned rationalizations and apologetics affirming the Slovak group's identity. 5) An interest in the dress, manner, and speech cadence, employment, political affiliation etc. The renewed interest in things Slovak can be manifested by the present Slovak-American community in the �SLOVAKIA 131 revival of Slovak customs in parishes, homes, schools and organizations throughout the United States. A major factor of this present day resurgence of the Slovak-American ethnic was the development and encouragement of the Black Power movement. This new awareness of blackness, and with it the new social and economic acceptances which world threaten all white Americans the ethnic groups all had a certain renascence. Centers for ethnic studies are proposed for many major cities in the United States so as to encourage and enbody the cultures and heritages that go into the American heritage. Due to this new interest in things Slovak some Universities have established Slovak chairs, notably at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Minnesota, Columbia, the University of Chicago and also Marquette University. 11 Some contemporary problems which face the SlovakAmerican organizations, churches, religious orders, press and communities are such things as narrow minded mentalities toward other minority groups, and in general polarization. Narrowmindedness persists in many Slovak parishes where although the Slovak parish in within a ghetto community which is no longer Slovak these parishes do nothing to serve the needs of the residents of the ghetto. Most Slovak parishes are no longer needed in the sense that they were needed three-quarters of a century ago. It is true however that certain large cities, points of settlement of newly arrived waves of immigrants, should be maintained. It seems quite ludicrous in many small towns to maintain five or six parishes, when five are national and one or two would adequately serve the needs of the Catholic community. One major factor for the persistence of many national parishes is the fact that their members feel that, although they no longer speak the language of their immigrant parents or grandparents, they nevertheless feel a certain protection from the majority group. The completely unbalanced ethnic background of the American hierarchy is one major reason why Americans born of Slovak descent or, for that matter, any ethnic group other than the Irish feel that their mentality and ideas are not understood by the Irish hierarchy. A more pluralistic hierarchy in America would tend to serve the needs and best wishes of all American Catholics. These �132 SLOVAKIA national parishes pose many juridical problems for the American church today. The problem of the national church, and there still exist in the United States at least 2,855 parishes serving the various ethnic groups, will be a problem which will have to dealt with much compassion and respect. To simply say that this, and that parish will close and all catholics must attend one church, will not settle the problem. It has been estimated that over ten million American Catholics belong to national parishes. 12 Many Slovak parishes in the United States not only serve the Slovak Catholics but serve other groups in inner cities. In most instances these parishes are without debt and are usually quite wealthy due to the fact that Slovak Catholics in America are known for their generosity. These parishes are able to finance large schools admitting many minority groups. An example is the parish of the Most Holy Trinity in Gary, Indiana, where the then Msgr. Andrew G. Grutka was pastor, now the bishop of the Diocese of Gary. Msgr. Grutka opened the parish school to the local Negroes of his parish. His parish school had two-thirds of its populations Black. He not only provided the Blacks with an education but he also gave them free lunches, free clothing and helped their families establish themselves as outstanding citizens of the community. This is an instance where the work, started by the Slovak immigrants, is continuing its service to all who come in contact with the parish. This is an outstanding example of a national parish which is providing not only services to its Slovak American people but, to serve in a true spirit of Christ, it is using its power to help who seek its aid. 13 The problem of polarization in America today is one of Black against White and the Slovaks must be open enough to see that polarization whether Black or White or ethnic is not a healthy attitude for America. Slovak ethnicity can go just so far until it becomes unhealthy and actually un-American. The days of the Slovaks and their sons and grandsons who feel that they are a subgroup and are inherently different and "not belonging" to the dominant American group are over and it is with this spirit of optimism that the Slovak-Americans will continue t o forge ahead to become outstanding American citizens. It is interesting to note that the Slovak organizations �SLOVAKIA 133 in the United States and Canada are stronger than they have ever been in their history. Their membership stands at over one half million and their assets are over $150,000,000.00. These organizations have great potential to become leaders in the realm of Catholic Action works in America. One of these organizations, the largest and the most influential, the First Catholic Slovak Union with its 104,000 members is in the forefront of major reform with its new anticipated multi-million dollar educational. cultural and civic center which will be built on its vast acreage in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The complex will provide 1,800 units of senior citizen housing for the members and any person in need, also a college for 1,000 students. The facilities will be open to all regardless of race, color or creed.14 The Slovak press still has a circulation of over 250,000 in America, althougt Slovak has been replaced with English in many instances. Two members of the American hierarchy are of Slovak descent: the Most Rev. Joseph A. Durick, D. D., Bishop of Nashville, and the Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Gary. This number should be much higher when one considers that there are over 1,200 priest of Slovak descent in America. There are three religious communities for men and nine motherhouses of Sisters among the American Slovaks, their membership is better than 3,000. Among the most outstanding laymen of Slovak descent are Dr. Walter Tkach, who is the personal physician of President Richard Nixon; astronaut Eugene V. Cernan; the uranium king of Canada Stephen B. Roman, whose empire is valued at $250,000 ,000.00 , Michael Novak, noted lay Catholic theologian; Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, Protestant theologian, and many other notables. 15 Since the land of their ancestors is now ruled by the Communists it has been the necessity of American Slovaks to help Slovakia in many areas, particularly regarding the position of the Church. Under the leadership of Bishop Andrew G. Grutka the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, the representative organization of American Catholics of Slovak descent, American Catholics of Slovak origin raised over one million dollars for the establishment of the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, Italy to train future priests for work in Slovakia. With �134 SLOVAKIA all Slovak dioceses vacant and all but one seminary opened the Church in Slovakia would have died had it not been for the generosity and interest of the American Slovaks . Today after nine years of existence this Institute has become the spiritual center of Slovaks throughout the world. Since the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia in 1968 tens of thousands have come to Rome and have been settled in Western Countries. Necessity calls for the Slovak Catholic Federation of America to remain a potent voice for the suffering church in Slovakia. The Slovak Catholic Federation along with the Slovak League of America, its counterpart in the socio-political sphere, have had to fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, at home and abroad, time and time again. These two dynamic ethnic organizations, whose philosophy is totally American, possess a fire for the rights of the Slovak nation whose story and traditions are among the most glorious in history yet whose plight in history has been among the most misunderstood. For some nativist Americans these organizations and philosophies are excessively chauvinistic, yet the role which has been played by American Slovaks is monumental in the development of the Slovak nation as a whole. Ethnic pride must never build walls but must always build bridges in these troubled times. Ethnic enclaves must give way to cultural identity whose philosophy can enrich the whole of society. It is quite evident in today's society that homogenization is certainly not possible in America. The pluralistic society which is a reality in America knows no single language, no single culture, no single ethnic stock and no single race. The America which we all know and love is a diverse enriching experience which has no equal in the history of the world. With an enriched diversity each one's potentials can be used to build a better America, an America immanent with the identity the individual possesses. Unless each person can experience what it really means to be an individual he can never be a part of a society. We have to use our Slovak identity to enrich our lives within the framework of the whole human experience. We must use our identity not as a barries but rather as a bridge. Unless we can come to know our roots we can never really know our history. �SLOVAKIA 135 FOOTNOTES 1) Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginning of the Slovaks in America ," Slovakia, (Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 16. 3) Ibid. 4) Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, (New York, 1910, p . 110. 5) Oddo, op. cit. 6) Zatko, op. cit. 7) Pauco, Joseph, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), (Middletown , 1965), p. 35. 8) "The Problems of the Immigrants", Phylon, 1968, Volume 29, No. 4. Winter p. 362. 9) Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, (Boston, 1946) , p. 154. 10) Ibid. 11) Krajsa, Joseph C., "Slovaks Have Arrived!" , Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), p. 64. 12) Barron, Milton , L., American Minorities, (New York, 1957), pp. 418--19. 13) Pauco, op. cit. p. 468. 14) Krajsa, Joseph, C., "Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), pp. 64-5. 15) Stolarik, Imrich, Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), (Passaic, N.J., 1967), pp. 167-8. BIB LI O G RA PHY Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, New York, William F. Fell Company, 1910. Barron, Milton, L., American Minorities, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1957. Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1946. Krajsa, Joseph, C., " Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia XV, Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 64-68. Oddo, Gilberit, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Pauco, Joseph,75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), Middletown, Jednota Press, 1965. Stolarik, lmrich , Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna, (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), Passaic, N.J., Slovak Catholic Sokol Press, 1967. Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America", Slovakia XV , Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 1-38. � SLOVAKIA 125 The Slovak Experience In Contemporary America Daniel F. Tanzone It shall be my design in this paper to look objectively at the problems and other pertinent sociological data regarding the history, growth and development of the Slovak immigrant in contemporary America. It shall be a study from the point of an American who is of Slovak ancestry, although this might tend to make the paper onesided and bias, I shall endeavor to present an objective view of the situation and problems in present day America. I shall consider the Slovaks to be one of America's minorities. The Slovaks can be considered minorities. For my purpose the definition will prove suggestive. Minorities are subgroups within a culture which are distinguishable from the dominant group by reason of difference in physiognomy, language, customs or culture-patterns (including any combination of these factors). I shall also consider the Slovaks as one of the many immigrant groups who "have made it" in America. Their development and eventual climb to success was brought about by overcoming great difficulties. The role played by one of the institutions of society, notably the Church, proved to be the most important single factor and in some ways one of the greatest problems for the Slovaks' emancipation from the ghettos of narrow-minded Little Slovakias in countless numbers of American cities. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a new land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. And in the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of central, southern and eastern Europe have constantly looked toward the United States as a haven. The Slovak of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was no exception. Harrassed at home, subject to the insidious pressures of Magyarization, which sought �126 SLOVAKIA to deprive them of their national character and identity literally thousands of thousands of Slovak families sought refuge in the new world. Slovaks began to emigrate in great numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. "From the year 1880 until the outbreak of World War I, Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people through emigration to America, over 22 per cent of her total population." 1 "Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910, Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews 08.3), Croatians-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group." 2 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities. One focus of settlement was the hard-coal of north-eastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in the district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12 ';,were Slovaks. 3 Besides northeastern Pennsylvania Slovaks crowded scores of cities in the eastern industrial portions of the United States. Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, New York, Yonkers, Philadelphia, Detroit, Bridgeport, Newark became the centers of the new Slovak life. There was scarcely a mine, factory or mill in America's new industry where Slovak immigrants and their sons could not be found. And everywhere they went, two opposing drives moved them. One toward Americanization and with it the social acceptance all new immigrants sought from their immigrant predecessors. The other, to preserve the culture and, above all, the faith of the Slovak past. That the two meshed instead of irreconcilably clashing can be attributed largely to the labors of a score or so of Slovak pioneers, in this the new land. Since the Slovaks knew little identity within the framework of Austria-Hungary and •since their very existence was denyed, a sense of Slovak nationalism and identity developed here in the United States. The early aim of �SLOVAKIA 127 these immigrant Slovaks was to preserve the Slovak language, Slovak customs and indeed a distinct Slovak identity. This nationalism, if we might call it, eventually was brought to bear fruit when the republic of CzechoSlovakia was established in 1918. The plans and agreements were reached not only in Europe but their foundations were laid in America. It was the work of the SlovakAmerican organizations in America under the banner of the Slovak League of America that guaranteed the rights of the Slovaks within the republic of Czecho-Slovakia. This early Slovak Nationalism developed with the establishment of a workable Slovak press here in America. The first Slovak newspaper was called the Bulletin which was hectographed by Julius Wolf and John Slovensky in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1885. The printed word was very important to the Slovak immigrant because in Hungary "to take a Slovak newspaper or, if an educated man, to speak the Slovak tongue, is to brand oneself in Magyar eyes as a political traitor and to insure very possible obstacle in one's path." 4 Slovak was forbidden in the schools, courts and even in the pulpits of churches. It was only natural that the Slovak who now lived in a free land would tend to encourage the use of the Slovak language in every possible instance of daily life. From its very beginnings the Slovak press has always been extremely strong and influential. The Slovak press was used as a means at voicing opposition to the programs and directives of the Austro-Hungarian government. It constantly attacked the Hungarians and their view of the Slovaks which they equated with ignorance, dullness and poverty. From the outset the Slovaks set out to preserve their Christian heritage. Their first Catholic parish was founded in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 1882 and their first Evangelical (Lutheran ) church in Streator, Ill., two years later. The main problems were twofold: priests were needed who could speak the language and fund were needed for parish churches and schools; both were met but only after a long, hard pull.5 The true flowering of the Slovak identity come with the establishment of the great Slovak fraternal societies. This organizational life among the Slovaks began in the �128 SLOVAKIA lodg·es and societies so common in America after the Civil War. "By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members." 6 Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and mining towns. These societies proved the greatest blessing to identity-starved Slovak. He now could boast a purely Slovak, not Hungarian or Austro-Hungarian society. These mutual benefit societies were organized in hundreds of cities from Maine to California. They were organized along two distant lines one purely Slovak with no regard to religion or political beliefs, and the other along strictly religious lines . The later proved to attract the majority of Slovak immigrants. The leader of the first group with a purely nationalistic view, was Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel, who did so much to make cause of the Slovaks known to Americans. He organized the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa., on February 15, 1890. The second group was led by the Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Slovak immigrant priest of the Cleveland, Ohio Diocese met with representatives of seven Slovak Catholic Societies in Cleveland on September 5, 1890 and organized the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota. This organization attracted many other Catholic societies and became the most important Slovak organization in America. The local lodges of this organization organized Slovak Catholics and formed parishes throughout the Unites States and even in Canada. This organization helped to organize some 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes in America. This organization proved to be the most important single achievement of the Slovak in America. It not only protected the member's life but also served as a cultural, religious and economic means of expressing the Slovaks' distinct identity. Not even in Austria-Hungary was there a Slovak organization which had its own press, its own orphanage and a large educational complex in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This organization helped to organize a teaching order of Sisters to staff the Slovak schools which were being built in practically every Slovak parish. This organ- �SLOVAKIA 129 ization provided the first Mother house for the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, a Slovak-American community founded by the Rev. Matthew Jankola of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other such Slovak fraternals appeared in the ensuing years. 7 The problem of the second generation was that life at home was unpleasant; whereas in the schoolroom they were too foreign, at home they were too American. The Slovak immigrant fathers who compromised most villingly in adjusting their outside affairs to the realities of the workaday world were different persons in their homes. Within the family circle, the Slovak language, religion, customs and parental authority were not to be modified simply because the home had been transplanted to the United States. The problem of the second generation Slovak American how to inhabit two worlds at the same time, was solved by escape as soon as sons were free economically, even before they reached their legal maturity. The second generation also came to know the contempt in which artistic activities were held by nineteenth and twentieth century Americans. They hastened to prove that they knew little or cared even less about art, music, th8ater or literature. "Nothing was more Yankee than a Yankeeized person of foreign descent." 8 In his opinion, that is the second generation Slovak-American it is he who is to undergo the entire transformation; the true member of the American nationality is not called upon to change in the least. The traits of foreign nationality which the Slovak brings with him are not to be mixed or interwoven. They are to be abandoned. The standard to which he must conform has been already fixed by forces quite outside himself, quite outside any individual, native or foreign, fixed by all the factors, topographical, climatic, racial, historical, fortuitous, which have worked together to make the American nationality what it is. A harsh situation, indeed. But a situation the harshness of which is determined not by the inclination or wish of any person or group of persons, but by the inherent qualities of human nature and social organization. 9 For the Eastern European immigrant and in particular the Slovak the third generation return was not so much �130 SLOVAKIA to cultural entities per se, but to a vague nostalgia and an undefined ideology. This ideology has no organic relation to the third-generation descendant's individual past, but is rather primarily a reaction to the conditions of life in the twentieth-century United States: 1) a "native" population alerted to the alleged stereotypic characteristics of immigrant groups; 2) the threat posed by numbers of incoming immigrants reinforcing a pre-existing population base of their compatriots; 3) the difficulty of maintaining ethnic anonymity; and 4) a somewhat retarded rate of growth in the country leading to a stronger emphasis upon a man's origin. 10 Essentially the group of immigrant origins-whether it be homogenous or heterogenous in character-return s in a context filtered by the American experience. Thus a general question to be put forth, the following is posed: Who returns to what with whom under which conditions of the possible forms and contents of these returns? Individual behavior is meant as well as the process of returning evidenced by the Slovaks who are a religio-ethnic group. Some reasons might be: 1) a generalized interest which may remain diffused or may become crystallized around specific segments of an ethnic folk heritage, a Slovak heritage-languag e, holiday celebrations, foods, etc. 2) the institutional religious framework-the existence of 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes, plus prayer and certain holiday observances within the Church. 4) Literary, ideological-cultur al-the writing of immigrant history, and since the Slovaks had a greater sense of freedom in the short period of time since they first arrived in America, the field was very ripe. The sensitive position that Slovak Americans of the third generation have toward the Slovakia of the period 1939-1945. It posed an interesting history of political science. An ethnic Slovak press which was the second largest foreign Slav press in the free world, and a press which was larger than anything that had existed in old Austria-Hungary. All this added to the socially patterned rationalizations and apologetics affirming the Slovak group's identity. 5) An interest in the dress, manner, and speech cadence, employment, political affiliation etc. The renewed interest in things Slovak can be manifested by the present Slovak-American community in the �SLOVAKIA 131 revival of Slovak customs in parishes, homes, schools and organizations throughout the United States. A major factor of this present day resurgence of the Slovak-American ethnic was the development and encouragement of the Black Power movement. This new awareness of blackness, and with it the new social and economic acceptances which world threaten all white Americans the ethnic groups all had a certain renascence. Centers for ethnic studies are proposed for many major cities in the United States so as to encourage and enbody the cultures and heritages that go into the American heritage. Due to this new interest in things Slovak some Universities have established Slovak chairs, notably at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Minnesota, Columbia, the University of Chicago and also Marquette University. 11 Some contemporary problems which face the SlovakAmerican organizations, churches, religious orders, press and communities are such things as narrow minded mentalities toward other minority groups, and in general polarization. Narrowmindedness persists in many Slovak parishes where although the Slovak parish in within a ghetto community which is no longer Slovak these parishes do nothing to serve the needs of the residents of the ghetto. Most Slovak parishes are no longer needed in the sense that they were needed three-quarters of a century ago. It is true however that certain large cities, points of settlement of newly arrived waves of immigrants, should be maintained. It seems quite ludicrous in many small towns to maintain five or six parishes, when five are national and one or two would adequately serve the needs of the Catholic community. One major factor for the persistence of many national parishes is the fact that their members feel that, although they no longer speak the language of their immigrant parents or grandparents, they nevertheless feel a certain protection from the majority group. The completely unbalanced ethnic background of the American hierarchy is one major reason why Americans born of Slovak descent or, for that matter, any ethnic group other than the Irish feel that their mentality and ideas are not understood by the Irish hierarchy. A more pluralistic hierarchy in America would tend to serve the needs and best wishes of all American Catholics. These �132 SLOVAKIA national parishes pose many juridical problems for the American church today. The problem of the national church, and there still exist in the United States at least 2,855 parishes serving the various ethnic groups, will be a problem which will have to dealt with much compassion and respect. To simply say that this, and that parish will close and all catholics must attend one church, will not settle the problem. It has been estimated that over ten million American Catholics belong to national parishes. 12 Many Slovak parishes in the United States not only serve the Slovak Catholics but serve other groups in inner cities. In most instances these parishes are without debt and are usually quite wealthy due to the fact that Slovak Catholics in America are known for their generosity. These parishes are able to finance large schools admitting many minority groups. An example is the parish of the Most Holy Trinity in Gary, Indiana, where the then Msgr. Andrew G. Grutka was pastor, now the bishop of the Diocese of Gary. Msgr. Grutka opened the parish school to the local Negroes of his parish. His parish school had two-thirds of its populations Black. He not only provided the Blacks with an education but he also gave them free lunches, free clothing and helped their families establish themselves as outstanding citizens of the community. This is an instance where the work, started by the Slovak immigrants, is continuing its service to all who come in contact with the parish. This is an outstanding example of a national parish which is providing not only services to its Slovak American people but, to serve in a true spirit of Christ, it is using its power to help who seek its aid. 13 The problem of polarization in America today is one of Black against White and the Slovaks must be open enough to see that polarization whether Black or White or ethnic is not a healthy attitude for America. Slovak ethnicity can go just so far until it becomes unhealthy and actually un-American. The days of the Slovaks and their sons and grandsons who feel that they are a subgroup and are inherently different and "not belonging" to the dominant American group are over and it is with this spirit of optimism that the Slovak-Americans will continue t o forge ahead to become outstanding American citizens. It is interesting to note that the Slovak organizations �SLOVAKIA 133 in the United States and Canada are stronger than they have ever been in their history. Their membership stands at over one half million and their assets are over $150,000,000.00. These organizations have great potential to become leaders in the realm of Catholic Action works in America. One of these organizations, the largest and the most influential, the First Catholic Slovak Union with its 104,000 members is in the forefront of major reform with its new anticipated multi-million dollar educational. cultural and civic center which will be built on its vast acreage in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The complex will provide 1,800 units of senior citizen housing for the members and any person in need, also a college for 1,000 students. The facilities will be open to all regardless of race, color or creed.14 The Slovak press still has a circulation of over 250,000 in America, althougt Slovak has been replaced with English in many instances. Two members of the American hierarchy are of Slovak descent: the Most Rev. Joseph A. Durick, D. D., Bishop of Nashville, and the Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Gary. This number should be much higher when one considers that there are over 1,200 priest of Slovak descent in America. There are three religious communities for men and nine motherhouses of Sisters among the American Slovaks, their membership is better than 3,000. Among the most outstanding laymen of Slovak descent are Dr. Walter Tkach, who is the personal physician of President Richard Nixon; astronaut Eugene V. Cernan; the uranium king of Canada Stephen B. Roman, whose empire is valued at $250,000 ,000.00 , Michael Novak, noted lay Catholic theologian; Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, Protestant theologian, and many other notables. 15 Since the land of their ancestors is now ruled by the Communists it has been the necessity of American Slovaks to help Slovakia in many areas, particularly regarding the position of the Church. Under the leadership of Bishop Andrew G. Grutka the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, the representative organization of American Catholics of Slovak descent, American Catholics of Slovak origin raised over one million dollars for the establishment of the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, Italy to train future priests for work in Slovakia. With �134 SLOVAKIA all Slovak dioceses vacant and all but one seminary opened the Church in Slovakia would have died had it not been for the generosity and interest of the American Slovaks . Today after nine years of existence this Institute has become the spiritual center of Slovaks throughout the world. Since the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia in 1968 tens of thousands have come to Rome and have been settled in Western Countries. Necessity calls for the Slovak Catholic Federation of America to remain a potent voice for the suffering church in Slovakia. The Slovak Catholic Federation along with the Slovak League of America, its counterpart in the socio-political sphere, have had to fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, at home and abroad, time and time again. These two dynamic ethnic organizations, whose philosophy is totally American, possess a fire for the rights of the Slovak nation whose story and traditions are among the most glorious in history yet whose plight in history has been among the most misunderstood. For some nativist Americans these organizations and philosophies are excessively chauvinistic, yet the role which has been played by American Slovaks is monumental in the development of the Slovak nation as a whole. Ethnic pride must never build walls but must always build bridges in these troubled times. Ethnic enclaves must give way to cultural identity whose philosophy can enrich the whole of society. It is quite evident in today's society that homogenization is certainly not possible in America. The pluralistic society which is a reality in America knows no single language, no single culture, no single ethnic stock and no single race. The America which we all know and love is a diverse enriching experience which has no equal in the history of the world. With an enriched diversity each one's potentials can be used to build a better America, an America immanent with the identity the individual possesses. Unless each person can experience what it really means to be an individual he can never be a part of a society. We have to use our Slovak identity to enrich our lives within the framework of the whole human experience. We must use our identity not as a barries but rather as a bridge. Unless we can come to know our roots we can never really know our history. �SLOVAKIA 135 FOOTNOTES 1) Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginning of the Slovaks in America ," Slovakia, (Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 16. 3) Ibid. 4) Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, (New York, 1910, p . 110. 5) Oddo, op. cit. 6) Zatko, op. cit. 7) Pauco, Joseph, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), (Middletown , 1965), p. 35. 8) "The Problems of the Immigrants", Phylon, 1968, Volume 29, No. 4. Winter p. 362. 9) Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, (Boston, 1946) , p. 154. 10) Ibid. 11) Krajsa, Joseph C., "Slovaks Have Arrived!" , Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), p. 64. 12) Barron, Milton , L., American Minorities, (New York, 1957), pp. 418--19. 13) Pauco, op. cit. p. 468. 14) Krajsa, Joseph, C., "Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), pp. 64-5. 15) Stolarik, Imrich, Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), (Passaic, N.J., 1967), pp. 167-8. BIB LI O G RA PHY Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, New York, William F. Fell Company, 1910. Barron, Milton, L., American Minorities, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1957. Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1946. Krajsa, Joseph, C., " Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia XV, Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 64-68. Oddo, Gilberit, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Pauco, Joseph,75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), Middletown, Jednota Press, 1965. Stolarik, lmrich , Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna, (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), Passaic, N.J., Slovak Catholic Sokol Press, 1967. Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America", Slovakia XV , Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 1-38. � 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 1972, Vol. 22 Description An account of the resource Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972. 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 1972 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 125 The Slovak Experience In Contemporary America Daniel F. Tanzone It shall be my design in this paper to look objectively at the problems and other pertinent sociological data regarding the history, growth and development of the Slovak immigrant in contemporary America. It shall be a study from the point of an American who is of Slovak ancestry, although this might tend to make the paper onesided and bias, I shall endeavor to present an objective view of the situation and problems in present day America. I shall consider the Slovaks to be one of America's minorities. The Slovaks can be considered minorities. For my purpose the definition will prove suggestive. Minorities are subgroups within a culture which are distinguishable from the dominant group by reason of difference in physiognomy, language, customs or culture-patterns (including any combination of these factors). I shall also consider the Slovaks as one of the many immigrant groups who "have made it" in America. Their development and eventual climb to success was brought about by overcoming great difficulties. The role played by one of the institutions of society, notably the Church, proved to be the most important single factor and in some ways one of the greatest problems for the Slovaks' emancipation from the ghettos of narrow-minded Little Slovakias in countless numbers of American cities. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a new land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. And in the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of central, southern and eastern Europe have constantly looked toward the United States as a haven. The Slovak of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was no exception. Harrassed at home, subject to the insidious pressures of Magyarization, which sought 126 SLOVAKIA to deprive them of their national character and identity literally thousands of thousands of Slovak families sought refuge in the new world. Slovaks began to emigrate in great numbers to America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. "From the year 1880 until the outbreak of World War I, Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people through emigration to America, over 22 per cent of her total population." 1 "Numerically in the twelve years ending June 30, 1910, Slovakia ranked eighth among the nations providing immigrant material. The rate of emigration of Slovaks per 1,000 was 18.6; this was double that of any other race of people, except the Hebrews 08.3), Croatians-Slovenians (13.1), and South Italians (11.9). The rate was the highest of any group." 2 Having arrived in the United States, the Slovak immigrants began to look for a place to live and to work. The first areas to draw them were the coal mine centers; only in the second instance did the Slovaks settle in the factory cities. One focus of settlement was the hard-coal of north-eastern Pennsylvania where the center was Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Before World War I the mines in the district employed 75,000 to 100,000 men; of this group 12 ';,were Slovaks. 3 Besides northeastern Pennsylvania Slovaks crowded scores of cities in the eastern industrial portions of the United States. Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, New York, Yonkers, Philadelphia, Detroit, Bridgeport, Newark became the centers of the new Slovak life. There was scarcely a mine, factory or mill in America's new industry where Slovak immigrants and their sons could not be found. And everywhere they went, two opposing drives moved them. One toward Americanization and with it the social acceptance all new immigrants sought from their immigrant predecessors. The other, to preserve the culture and, above all, the faith of the Slovak past. That the two meshed instead of irreconcilably clashing can be attributed largely to the labors of a score or so of Slovak pioneers, in this the new land. Since the Slovaks knew little identity within the framework of Austria-Hungary and •since their very existence was denyed, a sense of Slovak nationalism and identity developed here in the United States. The early aim of SLOVAKIA 127 these immigrant Slovaks was to preserve the Slovak language, Slovak customs and indeed a distinct Slovak identity. This nationalism, if we might call it, eventually was brought to bear fruit when the republic of CzechoSlovakia was established in 1918. The plans and agreements were reached not only in Europe but their foundations were laid in America. It was the work of the SlovakAmerican organizations in America under the banner of the Slovak League of America that guaranteed the rights of the Slovaks within the republic of Czecho-Slovakia. This early Slovak Nationalism developed with the establishment of a workable Slovak press here in America. The first Slovak newspaper was called the Bulletin which was hectographed by Julius Wolf and John Slovensky in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1885. The printed word was very important to the Slovak immigrant because in Hungary "to take a Slovak newspaper or, if an educated man, to speak the Slovak tongue, is to brand oneself in Magyar eyes as a political traitor and to insure very possible obstacle in one's path." 4 Slovak was forbidden in the schools, courts and even in the pulpits of churches. It was only natural that the Slovak who now lived in a free land would tend to encourage the use of the Slovak language in every possible instance of daily life. From its very beginnings the Slovak press has always been extremely strong and influential. The Slovak press was used as a means at voicing opposition to the programs and directives of the Austro-Hungarian government. It constantly attacked the Hungarians and their view of the Slovaks which they equated with ignorance, dullness and poverty. From the outset the Slovaks set out to preserve their Christian heritage. Their first Catholic parish was founded in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 1882 and their first Evangelical (Lutheran ) church in Streator, Ill., two years later. The main problems were twofold: priests were needed who could speak the language and fund were needed for parish churches and schools; both were met but only after a long, hard pull.5 The true flowering of the Slovak identity come with the establishment of the great Slovak fraternal societies. This organizational life among the Slovaks began in the 128 SLOVAKIA lodg·es and societies so common in America after the Civil War. "By 1914 in the United States principal organizations had 15,600,000 members." 6 Economic and social need led the Slovaks to form lodges. Mine disasters often took the lives of husbands and fathers, leaving the family not only destitute, but even without the money for a funeral. In answer to the need of sickness and funeral benefits a large number of societies grew up in industrial and mining towns. These societies proved the greatest blessing to identity-starved Slovak. He now could boast a purely Slovak, not Hungarian or Austro-Hungarian society. These mutual benefit societies were organized in hundreds of cities from Maine to California. They were organized along two distant lines one purely Slovak with no regard to religion or political beliefs, and the other along strictly religious lines . The later proved to attract the majority of Slovak immigrants. The leader of the first group with a purely nationalistic view, was Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel, who did so much to make cause of the Slovaks known to Americans. He organized the National Slovak Society in Pittsburgh, Pa., on February 15, 1890. The second group was led by the Rev. Stephen Furdek, a Slovak immigrant priest of the Cleveland, Ohio Diocese met with representatives of seven Slovak Catholic Societies in Cleveland on September 5, 1890 and organized the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota. This organization attracted many other Catholic societies and became the most important Slovak organization in America. The local lodges of this organization organized Slovak Catholics and formed parishes throughout the Unites States and even in Canada. This organization helped to organize some 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes in America. This organization proved to be the most important single achievement of the Slovak in America. It not only protected the member's life but also served as a cultural, religious and economic means of expressing the Slovaks' distinct identity. Not even in Austria-Hungary was there a Slovak organization which had its own press, its own orphanage and a large educational complex in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This organization helped to organize a teaching order of Sisters to staff the Slovak schools which were being built in practically every Slovak parish. This organ- SLOVAKIA 129 ization provided the first Mother house for the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, a Slovak-American community founded by the Rev. Matthew Jankola of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other such Slovak fraternals appeared in the ensuing years. 7 The problem of the second generation was that life at home was unpleasant; whereas in the schoolroom they were too foreign, at home they were too American. The Slovak immigrant fathers who compromised most villingly in adjusting their outside affairs to the realities of the workaday world were different persons in their homes. Within the family circle, the Slovak language, religion, customs and parental authority were not to be modified simply because the home had been transplanted to the United States. The problem of the second generation Slovak American how to inhabit two worlds at the same time, was solved by escape as soon as sons were free economically, even before they reached their legal maturity. The second generation also came to know the contempt in which artistic activities were held by nineteenth and twentieth century Americans. They hastened to prove that they knew little or cared even less about art, music, th8ater or literature. "Nothing was more Yankee than a Yankeeized person of foreign descent." 8 In his opinion, that is the second generation Slovak-American it is he who is to undergo the entire transformation; the true member of the American nationality is not called upon to change in the least. The traits of foreign nationality which the Slovak brings with him are not to be mixed or interwoven. They are to be abandoned. The standard to which he must conform has been already fixed by forces quite outside himself, quite outside any individual, native or foreign, fixed by all the factors, topographical, climatic, racial, historical, fortuitous, which have worked together to make the American nationality what it is. A harsh situation, indeed. But a situation the harshness of which is determined not by the inclination or wish of any person or group of persons, but by the inherent qualities of human nature and social organization. 9 For the Eastern European immigrant and in particular the Slovak the third generation return was not so much 130 SLOVAKIA to cultural entities per se, but to a vague nostalgia and an undefined ideology. This ideology has no organic relation to the third-generation descendant's individual past, but is rather primarily a reaction to the conditions of life in the twentieth-century United States: 1) a "native" population alerted to the alleged stereotypic characteristics of immigrant groups; 2) the threat posed by numbers of incoming immigrants reinforcing a pre-existing population base of their compatriots; 3) the difficulty of maintaining ethnic anonymity; and 4) a somewhat retarded rate of growth in the country leading to a stronger emphasis upon a man's origin. 10 Essentially the group of immigrant origins-whether it be homogenous or heterogenous in character-return s in a context filtered by the American experience. Thus a general question to be put forth, the following is posed: Who returns to what with whom under which conditions of the possible forms and contents of these returns? Individual behavior is meant as well as the process of returning evidenced by the Slovaks who are a religio-ethnic group. Some reasons might be: 1) a generalized interest which may remain diffused or may become crystallized around specific segments of an ethnic folk heritage, a Slovak heritage-languag e, holiday celebrations, foods, etc. 2) the institutional religious framework-the existence of 350 Slovak Roman Catholic parishes, plus prayer and certain holiday observances within the Church. 4) Literary, ideological-cultur al-the writing of immigrant history, and since the Slovaks had a greater sense of freedom in the short period of time since they first arrived in America, the field was very ripe. The sensitive position that Slovak Americans of the third generation have toward the Slovakia of the period 1939-1945. It posed an interesting history of political science. An ethnic Slovak press which was the second largest foreign Slav press in the free world, and a press which was larger than anything that had existed in old Austria-Hungary. All this added to the socially patterned rationalizations and apologetics affirming the Slovak group's identity. 5) An interest in the dress, manner, and speech cadence, employment, political affiliation etc. The renewed interest in things Slovak can be manifested by the present Slovak-American community in the SLOVAKIA 131 revival of Slovak customs in parishes, homes, schools and organizations throughout the United States. A major factor of this present day resurgence of the Slovak-American ethnic was the development and encouragement of the Black Power movement. This new awareness of blackness, and with it the new social and economic acceptances which world threaten all white Americans the ethnic groups all had a certain renascence. Centers for ethnic studies are proposed for many major cities in the United States so as to encourage and enbody the cultures and heritages that go into the American heritage. Due to this new interest in things Slovak some Universities have established Slovak chairs, notably at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Minnesota, Columbia, the University of Chicago and also Marquette University. 11 Some contemporary problems which face the SlovakAmerican organizations, churches, religious orders, press and communities are such things as narrow minded mentalities toward other minority groups, and in general polarization. Narrowmindedness persists in many Slovak parishes where although the Slovak parish in within a ghetto community which is no longer Slovak these parishes do nothing to serve the needs of the residents of the ghetto. Most Slovak parishes are no longer needed in the sense that they were needed three-quarters of a century ago. It is true however that certain large cities, points of settlement of newly arrived waves of immigrants, should be maintained. It seems quite ludicrous in many small towns to maintain five or six parishes, when five are national and one or two would adequately serve the needs of the Catholic community. One major factor for the persistence of many national parishes is the fact that their members feel that, although they no longer speak the language of their immigrant parents or grandparents, they nevertheless feel a certain protection from the majority group. The completely unbalanced ethnic background of the American hierarchy is one major reason why Americans born of Slovak descent or, for that matter, any ethnic group other than the Irish feel that their mentality and ideas are not understood by the Irish hierarchy. A more pluralistic hierarchy in America would tend to serve the needs and best wishes of all American Catholics. These 132 SLOVAKIA national parishes pose many juridical problems for the American church today. The problem of the national church, and there still exist in the United States at least 2,855 parishes serving the various ethnic groups, will be a problem which will have to dealt with much compassion and respect. To simply say that this, and that parish will close and all catholics must attend one church, will not settle the problem. It has been estimated that over ten million American Catholics belong to national parishes. 12 Many Slovak parishes in the United States not only serve the Slovak Catholics but serve other groups in inner cities. In most instances these parishes are without debt and are usually quite wealthy due to the fact that Slovak Catholics in America are known for their generosity. These parishes are able to finance large schools admitting many minority groups. An example is the parish of the Most Holy Trinity in Gary, Indiana, where the then Msgr. Andrew G. Grutka was pastor, now the bishop of the Diocese of Gary. Msgr. Grutka opened the parish school to the local Negroes of his parish. His parish school had two-thirds of its populations Black. He not only provided the Blacks with an education but he also gave them free lunches, free clothing and helped their families establish themselves as outstanding citizens of the community. This is an instance where the work, started by the Slovak immigrants, is continuing its service to all who come in contact with the parish. This is an outstanding example of a national parish which is providing not only services to its Slovak American people but, to serve in a true spirit of Christ, it is using its power to help who seek its aid. 13 The problem of polarization in America today is one of Black against White and the Slovaks must be open enough to see that polarization whether Black or White or ethnic is not a healthy attitude for America. Slovak ethnicity can go just so far until it becomes unhealthy and actually un-American. The days of the Slovaks and their sons and grandsons who feel that they are a subgroup and are inherently different and "not belonging" to the dominant American group are over and it is with this spirit of optimism that the Slovak-Americans will continue t o forge ahead to become outstanding American citizens. It is interesting to note that the Slovak organizations SLOVAKIA 133 in the United States and Canada are stronger than they have ever been in their history. Their membership stands at over one half million and their assets are over $150,000,000.00. These organizations have great potential to become leaders in the realm of Catholic Action works in America. One of these organizations, the largest and the most influential, the First Catholic Slovak Union with its 104,000 members is in the forefront of major reform with its new anticipated multi-million dollar educational. cultural and civic center which will be built on its vast acreage in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The complex will provide 1,800 units of senior citizen housing for the members and any person in need, also a college for 1,000 students. The facilities will be open to all regardless of race, color or creed.14 The Slovak press still has a circulation of over 250,000 in America, althougt Slovak has been replaced with English in many instances. Two members of the American hierarchy are of Slovak descent: the Most Rev. Joseph A. Durick, D. D., Bishop of Nashville, and the Most Rev. Andrew G. Grutka, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Gary. This number should be much higher when one considers that there are over 1,200 priest of Slovak descent in America. There are three religious communities for men and nine motherhouses of Sisters among the American Slovaks, their membership is better than 3,000. Among the most outstanding laymen of Slovak descent are Dr. Walter Tkach, who is the personal physician of President Richard Nixon; astronaut Eugene V. Cernan; the uranium king of Canada Stephen B. Roman, whose empire is valued at $250,000 ,000.00 , Michael Novak, noted lay Catholic theologian; Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, Protestant theologian, and many other notables. 15 Since the land of their ancestors is now ruled by the Communists it has been the necessity of American Slovaks to help Slovakia in many areas, particularly regarding the position of the Church. Under the leadership of Bishop Andrew G. Grutka the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, the representative organization of American Catholics of Slovak descent, American Catholics of Slovak origin raised over one million dollars for the establishment of the Slovak Institute of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Rome, Italy to train future priests for work in Slovakia. With 134 SLOVAKIA all Slovak dioceses vacant and all but one seminary opened the Church in Slovakia would have died had it not been for the generosity and interest of the American Slovaks . Today after nine years of existence this Institute has become the spiritual center of Slovaks throughout the world. Since the invasion of Czecho-Slovakia in 1968 tens of thousands have come to Rome and have been settled in Western Countries. Necessity calls for the Slovak Catholic Federation of America to remain a potent voice for the suffering church in Slovakia. The Slovak Catholic Federation along with the Slovak League of America, its counterpart in the socio-political sphere, have had to fight for the rights of the Slovak nation, at home and abroad, time and time again. These two dynamic ethnic organizations, whose philosophy is totally American, possess a fire for the rights of the Slovak nation whose story and traditions are among the most glorious in history yet whose plight in history has been among the most misunderstood. For some nativist Americans these organizations and philosophies are excessively chauvinistic, yet the role which has been played by American Slovaks is monumental in the development of the Slovak nation as a whole. Ethnic pride must never build walls but must always build bridges in these troubled times. Ethnic enclaves must give way to cultural identity whose philosophy can enrich the whole of society. It is quite evident in today's society that homogenization is certainly not possible in America. The pluralistic society which is a reality in America knows no single language, no single culture, no single ethnic stock and no single race. The America which we all know and love is a diverse enriching experience which has no equal in the history of the world. With an enriched diversity each one's potentials can be used to build a better America, an America immanent with the identity the individual possesses. Unless each person can experience what it really means to be an individual he can never be a part of a society. We have to use our Slovak identity to enrich our lives within the framework of the whole human experience. We must use our identity not as a barries but rather as a bridge. Unless we can come to know our roots we can never really know our history. SLOVAKIA 135 FOOTNOTES 1) Oddo, Gilbert, L., Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginning of the Slovaks in America ," Slovakia, (Middletown, Pa., 1965, p. 16. 3) Ibid. 4) Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, (New York, 1910, p . 110. 5) Oddo, op. cit. 6) Zatko, op. cit. 7) Pauco, Joseph, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), (Middletown , 1965), p. 35. 8) "The Problems of the Immigrants", Phylon, 1968, Volume 29, No. 4. Winter p. 362. 9) Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, (Boston, 1946) , p. 154. 10) Ibid. 11) Krajsa, Joseph C., "Slovaks Have Arrived!" , Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), p. 64. 12) Barron, Milton , L., American Minorities, (New York, 1957), pp. 418--19. 13) Pauco, op. cit. p. 468. 14) Krajsa, Joseph, C., "Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia, (Middletown , 1965), pp. 64-5. 15) Stolarik, Imrich, Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), (Passaic, N.J., 1967), pp. 167-8. BIB LI O G RA PHY Balch, Emily, Greene, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, New York, William F. Fell Company, 1910. Barron, Milton, L., American Minorities, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1957. Fairchild, Henry, Pratt, The Melting-Pot Mistake, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1946. Krajsa, Joseph, C., " Slovaks Have Arrived", Slovakia XV, Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 64-68. Oddo, Gilberit, L., Slovakia and Its People, New York, Robert Speller and Sons, 1960. Pauco, Joseph,75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (75 Year History of the First Catholic Slovak Union), Middletown, Jednota Press, 1965. Stolarik, lmrich , Kanadska Slovenska Liga 35rocna, (35 Year History of the Canadian Slovak League), Passaic, N.J., Slovak Catholic Sokol Press, 1967. Zatko, James, J., "Early Beginnings of the Slovaks in America", Slovakia XV , Middletown, Pa., Jednota Press, 1965, pp. 1-38.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Slovak Experience in Contemporary America Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 125-135 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/baa86b620a0ddcc8f8f978c58ea65751.pdf eeee6049adb987da89aae71e4b5ae408 PDF Text Text 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty �SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak �90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to �SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America. � 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty �SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak �90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to �SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America. � 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 1974, Vol. 24 Description An account of the resource Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974. 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 1974 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 88 SLOVAKIA The Youth Conference Slovak League of America SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1973, STATLER HILTON HOTEL, NEW YORK, N. Y. The Youth Conference of the Slovak League of America was held on Saturday, May 19, 1973 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. The panel was opened by Mr. Daniel F. Tanzone of Yonkers, N. Y. who served in the capacity of chairman of the panel and welcomed the delegates and introduced the members of the panel. Mr. Tanzone gave the opening address of the panel whose theme was 'Cultural Pluralism in contemporary American Society.' Each member of the panel read a brief address of a particular aspect relevant to the general theme of the conference. Members of the panel included: Miss Marilyn Blazek of Yonkers, N. Y. who spoke on the upcoming bill in copgress to establish ethnic centers in various parts of the U:nited States; Miss Susan Pojer of Yonkers, N. Y. who developed a talk within the aspect of Slovak culture and the ~rts; Miss Donna Sromovsky of Edison, N. J. who represented the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association and gave talk on the contribution made by her society to Slovak culture and heritage through its resent national youth . congress held in Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Luby Holy qf West Paterson, N. J. who spoke on her recent visit to Slovakia and developed the idea of the rich natural beauties offered by the land of our ancestors; Mr. Joseph J . Krajsa of Middletown, Pa., who represented the First Catholic Slovak Union, gave a talk on the role played by his society in the past, present and some ideas for the future of Slovak life in America; and finally Mr. John Kovalovsky of Passaic, N. J . who represented the Slovak Catholic Sokol and spoke of the outstanding program offered members of his society in the area of gymnastics and athletics. Various topics were discussed and several weighty SLOVAKIA 89 questions and observations were made by the participating delegates and panelists. The recommendations and observations were aimed at solving some of the pressing problems facing Slovak organizations and the preservation of the Slovak heritage in general. A general observation made was the evident lack of unity of Slovak fraternal societies in America today. The potential strength both in membership and achievement of one large Slovak fraternal society was discussed. Various programs both educational and cultural were suggested on a mass scale, possible if there were one Slovak fraternal with a membership of some one half million and assets of over one hundred million dollars with twenty or thirty millions of dollars in unassigned funds. The current losses were noted in all existing Slovak fraternals and membership loss is the greatest single factor which will usher the total demise of Slovak fraternalism if something is not done to alter the current trend. The youth present detected the very negative trait of jealousy among the leadership of our societies and advised that unless we can rid our ranks of this hazardous trait very little progress will be made. However a sharp warning was given Slovak fraternals who wish to become mere insurance companies - for then they serve no purpose in the cultural, social and fraternal lives of their memberships . The delegates seriously recommended that the Slovak fraternal societies within the framework of the Slovak League give serious consideration to merging by the end of this decade. The delegates wholeheartedly approved the bill now in congress aimed at establishing ethnic centers in various parts of the United States. The delegates recommended that the Slovak League of America, as the representative of organized Americans of Slovak descent, continue its interest and support for this program. Of major consequence to many delegates was the lack of sufficient research material in English on Slovak topics . The delegates encourage the Slovak League of America and the member societies to establish literary funds to aid in the translating of works from Slovak into English and other Western languages and to encourage young American students of Slovak descent to choose topics from Slovak 90 SLOVAKIA history, culture, and the arts for academic dissertations and to• publish such works as permanent contributions to American Slovakiana. There is a need for a Slovak encyclopedia written in English and also a Slovak Who's Who Unless we of Slovak origin can educate and if necessary re-educate the American public through literature in West• em languages, the Slovak nation will continue to · be misunderstood in historical and political science circles in America and other Western nations. Slovak organizations must not remain provincial in their outlook but must be willing to be innovative and tactful if we are to prove to American historians and political scientists that we are descended from a distinct nation with its own history culture, language and free from any appendage or colonial philosophy which exists in many academic circles in the West. Of paramount importance is to see that the present generations and those of the future born of Slovak parentage know their roots in order to be a contributing segment of American society. The delegates were in agreement that the Slovak nation at home be free of all outside intervention whether it be Prague or Moscow. Political, economic and ideological threats from outside sources must cease and the Slovak nation, like all nations under the sun, must be master of its own destiny and be free to choose the form of government best suited to its culture and traditions. The Slovak nation, like all other nations, is endowed with certain God-given rights of freedom, justice and self-deter• mination to stand among the great family of nations as master of its own destiny. The Slovaks should not be considered as an appendage or colony of any other nation but should stand on its own integrity as a civilized nation with a culture and tradition of over eleven centuries. The people of Slovakia should be afforded the right to choose their future path among the family of nations. A plebiscite should be the vehicle for the Slovak people to choose whether to stay within the federalized Central Europe or rather work for the re-establishment of a completely independent Slovakia free to choose its own destiny and capable to speak for the Slovak nation among the nations of the world. Always to SLOVAKIA 91 be condemned is chauvinism of the Czech or Russian school as diametrically oposed to true Slovak political expression. The delegates recommend that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI establish Metropolitan provinces for both the Roman and Byzantine Rites in Slovakia and to settle the long overdue question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Slovakia. The Slovak nation must not stand for any ecclesiastical chauvinism on the part of Czech or Magyar ecclesiastics. A Cardinal should be appointed for Slovakia, a staunchy Catholic country for over eleven centuries. In conclusion the Slovak League of America is to be commended for sponsoring a very productive conference of youth and encourages future conferences in various cities of the United States. Daniel F. T a n z o n e, Chairman, Youth Panel THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is an AMERICAN INSTITUTION; it was organized May 26, 1907, at Cleveland, 0 ., by the Rev. Stephen Furdek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA firmly believes in the American principle of self-determination of all nations, the inherent and God-given right of every nation, whether large or small, to freedom and independence, the right of every nation to freely choose its own form of government and freely elect persons of its own choice by v1hom it shall be governed. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interested primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the United States of America.  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 Youth Conference - Slovak League of America Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 24 (No. 47), 1974 pp. 88-91 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1974 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/09c9d654233e39f519dd3bbdc7173e42.pdf 62e8dff8a0a672f40d5e9cf7d5896631 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 119 Slovak Contributions to the American Cultural Mosaic By D aniel F . T a n z o n e FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION In recent years there has been a new awareness of the many and varied cultures which have gone to make the American cultural milieu a multi-faceted mosaic resplendent with the many faces of America. In past years the melting pot philosophy has given way to the philosophy of a pluralistic society within the concept of an American culture. Too often in the past generations only AngloAmerican traditions have prevailed and have almost totally dominated the American educational experience. The dominance of Anglo-American ethnocentrism has shaped the entire history of this country. The question I would ask as an American of Italian and Slovak ancestry is whether a total concentration on the upper-class culture based in the northeastern section of the nation is a sufficient intellectual guide to actual American life, or to the character of the other cultures on this planet? The phrase "common culture" has in recent years been used with more glibness than hard reflection. A culture is not put on like a suit of clothes. One can mimic a culture, absorb it, however, the culture does not flow out of one's own tutored instincts and aspirations, it is not yet one's own and does not yet exhaust one's own intelligence, perception or dreams. Thus for the non-Wasps-the WhiteAnglo-Saxon-Protestants, the millions of immigrants and their descendants-a majority of th_is nation have not been a part of the mainstream culture which springs from the heart. There seem to be three main locations of culture in America today. The actual ways of life of ordinary people, in their div,erse, loose and permeable communities are one location. The humanities are, in this sense, not primarily �120 SLOVAKIA what is written down in books, or celebrated in works of arts, but what is lived. Those relatively few artists, scholars and critical persons in whom a genuinely high culture is alive are a second location. The swarming army of professionals, highly educated but not necessarily in tune with the high traditions of the past, are a third location. Among these new professionals are many who call themselves humanists. Each of these groups is to be taken seriously. Each enhances our own individual identity as an American cogniscant of American culture. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. In the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of the Austro-Hung arian monarchy looked toward the United States as a haven. Between 1879 and 1891 some 80,000 Slovaks emigrated from the counties of Abauj, Spis, Zemplin, saris, Gerner, and Liptov and settled in America. By 1900 Slovakia, the ancient home of the Slovaks in Hungary, lost about 308,000 of its people to America. From 1910 to the beginning of World War I 34,000 Slovaks made America their home. In a word from about 1879 until 1918 Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people to America. However, it must be remembered that many Slovaks were classed as Magyars or Austrians since few Americans knew of the existence of the Slovak, a western Slav who closely resembled the Pole or Czech, also western Slavs but who possessed affinities with the eastern Slavs-the Russians and Ukrainians. Thus the total number of Slovaks who entered America was probably close to 750,000. Have these many thousands of ordinary people, one of the locations of culture as I see it, contributed anything substantial to the culture of America? True, the vast majority of these immigrants, who left their ancestral home and all its romantic traditions, for a strange new life in the stone and asphalt deserts of industrial and mining America, were simple individuals not a part of an elite group of immigrants. 1 As with all cultures, each develops endlessly complex individuals each with a world of its own both as individuals and as cultures. The Slovak contribution to American culture of the twentieth century has yet to be experienced �SLOVAKIA 121 by mainstream America for the Slovaks like other ethnics are today the White Negro-the decisively ethnic non-WASP whose cultural traditions and emotional feelings are the antithesis of WASP decorum and self-control.2 The Slovaks, like other ethnics, have remained in tightlyknit cultural and fraternal associations in the United States and unfortunately little if any of their contributions have received national acclaim. However, Slovak music, art and literature have been an enriching experience for hundreds of thousands of descendants of the pioneer generations who today are part of the American cultural mainstream. Music, for example has played a major role in the life of any immigrant group, especially an oppressed group as the Slovaks were. The deepest feelings and the keenest appreciation of beauty on the part of the Slovaks are expressed in their songs. Singing is an everyday necessity for the hard working Slovak. Slovak folk songs which were an outgrowth of sacred music, have followed the general clevelopment of Western European music adopting the harmonic and rhythmic patterns of the West but in an altogether unconventional manner which maintained the peculiarities of the Slovak folk style. These Slovak folk songs have been preserved and perpetuated down through the generations here in America by the various Slovak American institutions and religious communities. These organizations and institutions have preserved these folk songs in their original Slovak and have on numerous occasions published translations of these folk songs. Most Slovak folk songs are written in a minor key and possess a fire and zest common to the Slav musical experience. In 1950 the Rev. John J. Lach published the Treasury of Slovak Folk Songs, a collection of over one hundred Slovak folk songs translated into English with appropriate music. This was the first collection of Slovak folk songs which had been translated into English for the enjoyment of non-Slovak speaking Americans. True it was intended for those of Slovak ancestry whose lack uf knowledge of their ancestral tong-..ie hampered their total appreciation of the various Slovak folk songs which they had been exposed to since their childhood. More importantly this collection was aimed at the American musical public for �122 SLOVAKIA it would acquaint the music lover with the flavor and resonance of Slovak folk tunes. In the mid 1950's the Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius of Danville, Pa., a Slovak-American teaching community dedicated to the enrichment and cultivation of Slovak culture and art among their students began to develop translations of popular children's songs native to Slovakia. This community, which taught in 13 American dioceses, saw the need of translating and in some cases transposing, existing Slovak folk pieces to suit the needs of their eight thousand students who were of Slovak ancestry in the various elementary and secondary schools entrusted to their care. 3 Another important contribution which the Slovaks have made to American culture has been in the area of Slovak Church music. The Slovaks who are a very religious people, about 85 % are staunch Roman and Byzantine Catholics with the remaining members of the Lutheran and Calvinist persuasions, brought with them a wealth of ecclesiastical music. Slovak church music reflected the injustice and vexation which were the lot of the Slovak at home under the Austro-Hungarian control. For centuries this music was forbidden even in Slovak Church worship in Slovakia because the insidious pressure to Magyarize all non-Magyar elements within Hungary even permeated religious circles. The philosophy of Magyarization led all non-Magyar elements to accept Magyar language, customs and culture as theirs in order to exist. Anyone not complying was banished from any position of authority in government.4 Thus this latent emasculation of Slovak national pride even within the realm of church worship brought forth a treasury of Slovak church music filled with all the sentiments of a subjugated people. Even after their emigration the Slovak wished to always recall his bitter struggle and servitude in the homeland. Slovak churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sprang up both before and after the turn of the twentieth century. These 500 churches became the centers of the rich Slovak church music which were denied in the homeland of Slovakia.5 Early attempts at translating these works into English began in the 1930's by Professor Eugene Suchon, an American of Slovak ancestry. The two works which were �SLOVAKIA 123 included in the 1934 edition of the St. Gregory's Hymnal were the lenten hymn "Oh Come and Mourn with Me Awhile" and a "Tantum Ergo" listed merely as an adaptation of a Slovak hymn. 6 Among the most beautiful Slovak church pieces are the Christmas songs known as koledy. These songs are filled with an intimacy and childlike innocence and the listener finds himself clothed with a sublime delight while listening. The melancholy bursts into the fiery robust melodic-like quality in these beautiful musical works. Many of these have their origins in the early and late Middle-Ages. In 1965 the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius offered the American public a collection of Slovak Christmas songs entitled Bethlehem Carols which was a translation of over fifty Slovak carols. In 1966 this community under the direction of Sister M. James Tomko, SS.C.M. prepared a collection of a variety of translated Church pieces. Again the influence of Slovak folk life was evident and the influence of Eastern Church psalm tones blended to create some of the most beautiful songs of worship. Now the American Church public would adapt Slovak melodies to enrich their storehouse of appropriate church music. In 1964 the Rev. Florian J. Gall, director of ecclesiastical music for the Diocese of Trenton, composed a four-part mass entitled "A People's Hymn-Tune Mass" which was based on a Slovak "Adoro Te" melody. This mass was published by the Gregorian Institute of America. Another mass was published by Sister M. Paschal Valent, SS.C.M. entitled "A Mass in Honor of SS. Cyril and Methodius" based on Slovak church pieces. The World Library of Sacred Music in 1960 published a collection of twenty Slovak Christmas carols for three equal voices and for a four voice arrangement by Joseph f>uris, organist of the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland.7 Among the Lutheran congregations the Rev. John Zornan published the translations of Slovak church songs in 1963. Dr. John Zornan has translated many popular Slovak folk tunes and is published by the National Slovak Society of Pittsburgh, Pa. A form of Slovak musical expression finds itself present in the Polka which has become almost at home in American as in Slav countries. The Polka which is generally associated �124 SLOVAKIA with the Poles actually has its origin in Bohemia among the Czechs. The rhythmic quality of the Polka is found in many Slovak folk tunes especially from the high Tatra regions and Eastern Slovakia. An experimental Mass written with distinctly Slovak Polka melodies was compos~d by the Rev. Alexander:Blasko of Mineral Ridge, Ohio and was presented to an overflow crowd at St. Matthias Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Youngstown, Ohio on April 21, 1974. Entitled "A Mass for Christian Joy" the Mass was approved by the Bishop of Youngstown and its presentation has been repeated in several Slovak parishes in the Youngstown area. Here again a distinctly Slovak musical experience has found its way into American musical experience.8 Thus Slovak music, whether it be of folk origin or church oriented possesses a distinct character of its own which has been handed down to the generations of Americans of Slovak origin. The importance of music in Slovak life was always eminent, since the Slovaks expressed their innermost feelings and emotions from cradle to grave in songs: their joys and sorrows, griefs and needs, the close affinity to nature, the eternal conflict of the elemental powers of good and evil, their loves and hates and their aspirations and shortcomings. Contributions made by the Slovaks in the area of art are numerous but unfortunately because of provincial philosophies have been absent from academic circles in the United States. However my initial premise is that culture and in this case art may be found in the actual ways of life of ordinary people. One need only look in the attics of Slovak-Americans and find works of art abounding. Very popular among the Slovaks was the tradition of embroidery. Slovak folk costumes were a work of art which at times took entire lifetimes to complete and perfect. Both male and female costumes represented the individual village of origin in order that at a gathering of Slovaks one's particular village could at once be identified. Intricate geometrical and floral patterns, each with a particular significance, told a history of a particular village or mountain area. Richness of detail characterizes these works of art and rates them as distinct examples of Slovak folk art. These patterns have been handed down generation to generation and remain �SLOVAKIA 125 with countless thousands of American families of Slovak ancestry. These patterns have had a certain resurgence in many styles found popular among youth groups and have come to be known as "peasant look" in many American cities. Another area of folk art are the coloring of Easter eggs known as Pisanky or literally written designs. Although this custom is a Slav custom in general various Slav peoples have distinctive characteristics. Floral design patterns are distinctive of Polish Easter eggs. A distinctive characteristic of Slovak designs are simple angular designs using the symbols of the triangle, representing the Trinity; the circle, representing the immortality promised through Christ's resurrection; the various woven trims, representing the richness of life and the use of various colors, particularly red, symbolizing life, yellow, representing the brightness of the heavenly kingdom. These eggs are taken along with other appropriately prepared foods-lamb, a mixture of beets and horseradish, ham, butter, salt, wine, the Easter bread, the Paska and the cheese, are taken to the church on Holy Saturday to be blessed by the priest in order that on Easter Sunday morning the faithful may partake of the symbolic foods of resurrection avoided during the traditional fast of years past. This custom continues to flourish in hundreds of Slovak churches throughout America today. Among the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic and some two hundred Slovak Protestant churches many exemplify typical Slovak churches in architecture and interior design. Each has a distinctive Slovak folk characteristic either in its choice of symbolic designs and trims or in its choice of appointments and vestments each with intricate embroidery-like quality. Most noteworthy among American Slovak artisans is Dr. Joseph Cincik of Cleveland, Ohio who has designed numerous Slovak churches in the United States. His elongated figures with a blend of nortic and byzantine influence blend to form a distinctive Slovak art form. His most noteworthy achievement has been the Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland and the Church of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, Ohio. The cathedral-like structure of the Lakewood, Ohio church has been transformed into a cavern-like structure ablaze with images and �126 SLOVAKIA scenes of religious life in Slovakia and the United States.9 Another gem of Slovak-American art and architecture is the motherhouse and chapel of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, Pa. The magnificent stained glass windows depict the history of the Slovak immigrant in America with scenes of his labors in the mines and mills of this country. The windows depict the history and development of this community as well as that of the religious and cultural leaders among the early Slovak immigrants. Several Slovak cultural centers in the United States offer the American public the opportunity to observe the jewels of Slovak folk art, painting, music and history. The Jankola Library located at the motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius contains a large collection of Slovak folk art, painting, embroidery, crystal, and a vast collection of works on Slovak subjects. The center is named after the Rev. Matthew Jankola, founder of the congregation in 1909 and the founder of SS. Cyril and Methodius Church in Bridgeport, Conn. where copies of original paintings from the Basilica of St. Clement in Rome depicting the life and work of the Slovak apostles adorn the interior. This, as many other Slovak churches, depicts typical Slovak village life in Slovakia in its various paintings and appointments. Another center of Slovak culture is the Jednota Museum located at the Jednota Estates in Middletown, Pa. Dedicated in 1972 the museum is operated by the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States and Canada, a fraternal and cultural society with a national membership of over 100,000. Within the walls of the museum are numerous collections of Slovak folk art, tapestries, native costumes, memorabilia of Slovak fraternal societies, and a vast collection of Slovak works in the area of the humanities. 10 Several other centers exist in Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, at the campus of Wayne State University in Michigan and other centers are planned in Pittsburgh and Yonkers, N. Y. to be found under the ethnic-centers' bill introduced by Senator Richard Schweiker, Republican of ~nnsylvania. 11 The variety of cultural worlds in the United States is a powerful, subterranean influence in our national cultural life. It remains subterranean because it is often repressed, as though it were something dirty, disfunctional, and �SLOVAKIA 127 doomed to disappear. In its place, a "national" ideology has been created. True Black and Hispanic cultural achievements have been given prominence but true reality must represent the many and varied components which have gone to form the mosaic of American culture. It is with this thought in mind that I challenge the America that I know and love to discover the possibilities and the limits inherent in being what I am and openly display what heretofore my ancestors had disguised in silence. There is a new creativity and a new release, there is liberation and there is hope. America is becoming America. FOOTNOTES 1) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Michael ovak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, (New York, 1971 ), p. 145. 3) Mother M. Emerentia Petrasek, SS.C.M., The Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Told, in Five Decades, (Danville, Pennsylvania, 1959) , p. 110. 4) Oddo, p. 356. 5) Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks, (New York, 1947), p. 180. 6) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1959, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1959), p. 68. 7) Michael Lacko, S.J., SLovak Studies VII, (Rome, 1967), p. 197. 8) John C. Sciranka, Katolicky Sokol, "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," (Passaic, N. J.), April 24, 1974, p . 15. 9) Philip A. Hrobak, Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1955) , p. 35. 10) Joseph C. Krajsa, "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p . 56. 11 ) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p. 165. BIBLIOGRAPHY Hrobak, Philip A., Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, Middletown, Pa., 1955. Krajsa , Joseph C., "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973. Lacko, Michael S. J. , "Bibliographica," Slovak Studies VII, Rome, 1970. Novak, Michael, The Rise of the Umneltable Ethnics, New York, 1971. Pauco, Joseph, "Eleven Hundred Years of Prayerful Song. A Survey of Slovak Church Music," Middletown, Pa., 1959. Slovakia 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973 Pctrasek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Congregation of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Danville, Pa., 1959. Sciranka, John C., "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," Katolicky Sokol, Passaic, . J ., April 24, 1974. Yurchak, Peter P., The Slovaks, New York, 1947. � SLOVAKIA 119 Slovak Contributions to the American Cultural Mosaic By D aniel F . T a n z o n e FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION In recent years there has been a new awareness of the many and varied cultures which have gone to make the American cultural milieu a multi-faceted mosaic resplendent with the many faces of America. In past years the melting pot philosophy has given way to the philosophy of a pluralistic society within the concept of an American culture. Too often in the past generations only AngloAmerican traditions have prevailed and have almost totally dominated the American educational experience. The dominance of Anglo-American ethnocentrism has shaped the entire history of this country. The question I would ask as an American of Italian and Slovak ancestry is whether a total concentration on the upper-class culture based in the northeastern section of the nation is a sufficient intellectual guide to actual American life, or to the character of the other cultures on this planet? The phrase "common culture" has in recent years been used with more glibness than hard reflection. A culture is not put on like a suit of clothes. One can mimic a culture, absorb it, however, the culture does not flow out of one's own tutored instincts and aspirations, it is not yet one's own and does not yet exhaust one's own intelligence, perception or dreams. Thus for the non-Wasps-the WhiteAnglo-Saxon-Protestants, the millions of immigrants and their descendants-a majority of th_is nation have not been a part of the mainstream culture which springs from the heart. There seem to be three main locations of culture in America today. The actual ways of life of ordinary people, in their div,erse, loose and permeable communities are one location. The humanities are, in this sense, not primarily �120 SLOVAKIA what is written down in books, or celebrated in works of arts, but what is lived. Those relatively few artists, scholars and critical persons in whom a genuinely high culture is alive are a second location. The swarming army of professionals, highly educated but not necessarily in tune with the high traditions of the past, are a third location. Among these new professionals are many who call themselves humanists. Each of these groups is to be taken seriously. Each enhances our own individual identity as an American cogniscant of American culture. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. In the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of the Austro-Hung arian monarchy looked toward the United States as a haven. Between 1879 and 1891 some 80,000 Slovaks emigrated from the counties of Abauj, Spis, Zemplin, saris, Gerner, and Liptov and settled in America. By 1900 Slovakia, the ancient home of the Slovaks in Hungary, lost about 308,000 of its people to America. From 1910 to the beginning of World War I 34,000 Slovaks made America their home. In a word from about 1879 until 1918 Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people to America. However, it must be remembered that many Slovaks were classed as Magyars or Austrians since few Americans knew of the existence of the Slovak, a western Slav who closely resembled the Pole or Czech, also western Slavs but who possessed affinities with the eastern Slavs-the Russians and Ukrainians. Thus the total number of Slovaks who entered America was probably close to 750,000. Have these many thousands of ordinary people, one of the locations of culture as I see it, contributed anything substantial to the culture of America? True, the vast majority of these immigrants, who left their ancestral home and all its romantic traditions, for a strange new life in the stone and asphalt deserts of industrial and mining America, were simple individuals not a part of an elite group of immigrants. 1 As with all cultures, each develops endlessly complex individuals each with a world of its own both as individuals and as cultures. The Slovak contribution to American culture of the twentieth century has yet to be experienced �SLOVAKIA 121 by mainstream America for the Slovaks like other ethnics are today the White Negro-the decisively ethnic non-WASP whose cultural traditions and emotional feelings are the antithesis of WASP decorum and self-control.2 The Slovaks, like other ethnics, have remained in tightlyknit cultural and fraternal associations in the United States and unfortunately little if any of their contributions have received national acclaim. However, Slovak music, art and literature have been an enriching experience for hundreds of thousands of descendants of the pioneer generations who today are part of the American cultural mainstream. Music, for example has played a major role in the life of any immigrant group, especially an oppressed group as the Slovaks were. The deepest feelings and the keenest appreciation of beauty on the part of the Slovaks are expressed in their songs. Singing is an everyday necessity for the hard working Slovak. Slovak folk songs which were an outgrowth of sacred music, have followed the general clevelopment of Western European music adopting the harmonic and rhythmic patterns of the West but in an altogether unconventional manner which maintained the peculiarities of the Slovak folk style. These Slovak folk songs have been preserved and perpetuated down through the generations here in America by the various Slovak American institutions and religious communities. These organizations and institutions have preserved these folk songs in their original Slovak and have on numerous occasions published translations of these folk songs. Most Slovak folk songs are written in a minor key and possess a fire and zest common to the Slav musical experience. In 1950 the Rev. John J. Lach published the Treasury of Slovak Folk Songs, a collection of over one hundred Slovak folk songs translated into English with appropriate music. This was the first collection of Slovak folk songs which had been translated into English for the enjoyment of non-Slovak speaking Americans. True it was intended for those of Slovak ancestry whose lack uf knowledge of their ancestral tong-..ie hampered their total appreciation of the various Slovak folk songs which they had been exposed to since their childhood. More importantly this collection was aimed at the American musical public for �122 SLOVAKIA it would acquaint the music lover with the flavor and resonance of Slovak folk tunes. In the mid 1950's the Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius of Danville, Pa., a Slovak-American teaching community dedicated to the enrichment and cultivation of Slovak culture and art among their students began to develop translations of popular children's songs native to Slovakia. This community, which taught in 13 American dioceses, saw the need of translating and in some cases transposing, existing Slovak folk pieces to suit the needs of their eight thousand students who were of Slovak ancestry in the various elementary and secondary schools entrusted to their care. 3 Another important contribution which the Slovaks have made to American culture has been in the area of Slovak Church music. The Slovaks who are a very religious people, about 85 % are staunch Roman and Byzantine Catholics with the remaining members of the Lutheran and Calvinist persuasions, brought with them a wealth of ecclesiastical music. Slovak church music reflected the injustice and vexation which were the lot of the Slovak at home under the Austro-Hungarian control. For centuries this music was forbidden even in Slovak Church worship in Slovakia because the insidious pressure to Magyarize all non-Magyar elements within Hungary even permeated religious circles. The philosophy of Magyarization led all non-Magyar elements to accept Magyar language, customs and culture as theirs in order to exist. Anyone not complying was banished from any position of authority in government.4 Thus this latent emasculation of Slovak national pride even within the realm of church worship brought forth a treasury of Slovak church music filled with all the sentiments of a subjugated people. Even after their emigration the Slovak wished to always recall his bitter struggle and servitude in the homeland. Slovak churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sprang up both before and after the turn of the twentieth century. These 500 churches became the centers of the rich Slovak church music which were denied in the homeland of Slovakia.5 Early attempts at translating these works into English began in the 1930's by Professor Eugene Suchon, an American of Slovak ancestry. The two works which were �SLOVAKIA 123 included in the 1934 edition of the St. Gregory's Hymnal were the lenten hymn "Oh Come and Mourn with Me Awhile" and a "Tantum Ergo" listed merely as an adaptation of a Slovak hymn. 6 Among the most beautiful Slovak church pieces are the Christmas songs known as koledy. These songs are filled with an intimacy and childlike innocence and the listener finds himself clothed with a sublime delight while listening. The melancholy bursts into the fiery robust melodic-like quality in these beautiful musical works. Many of these have their origins in the early and late Middle-Ages. In 1965 the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius offered the American public a collection of Slovak Christmas songs entitled Bethlehem Carols which was a translation of over fifty Slovak carols. In 1966 this community under the direction of Sister M. James Tomko, SS.C.M. prepared a collection of a variety of translated Church pieces. Again the influence of Slovak folk life was evident and the influence of Eastern Church psalm tones blended to create some of the most beautiful songs of worship. Now the American Church public would adapt Slovak melodies to enrich their storehouse of appropriate church music. In 1964 the Rev. Florian J. Gall, director of ecclesiastical music for the Diocese of Trenton, composed a four-part mass entitled "A People's Hymn-Tune Mass" which was based on a Slovak "Adoro Te" melody. This mass was published by the Gregorian Institute of America. Another mass was published by Sister M. Paschal Valent, SS.C.M. entitled "A Mass in Honor of SS. Cyril and Methodius" based on Slovak church pieces. The World Library of Sacred Music in 1960 published a collection of twenty Slovak Christmas carols for three equal voices and for a four voice arrangement by Joseph f>uris, organist of the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland.7 Among the Lutheran congregations the Rev. John Zornan published the translations of Slovak church songs in 1963. Dr. John Zornan has translated many popular Slovak folk tunes and is published by the National Slovak Society of Pittsburgh, Pa. A form of Slovak musical expression finds itself present in the Polka which has become almost at home in American as in Slav countries. The Polka which is generally associated �124 SLOVAKIA with the Poles actually has its origin in Bohemia among the Czechs. The rhythmic quality of the Polka is found in many Slovak folk tunes especially from the high Tatra regions and Eastern Slovakia. An experimental Mass written with distinctly Slovak Polka melodies was compos~d by the Rev. Alexander:Blasko of Mineral Ridge, Ohio and was presented to an overflow crowd at St. Matthias Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Youngstown, Ohio on April 21, 1974. Entitled "A Mass for Christian Joy" the Mass was approved by the Bishop of Youngstown and its presentation has been repeated in several Slovak parishes in the Youngstown area. Here again a distinctly Slovak musical experience has found its way into American musical experience.8 Thus Slovak music, whether it be of folk origin or church oriented possesses a distinct character of its own which has been handed down to the generations of Americans of Slovak origin. The importance of music in Slovak life was always eminent, since the Slovaks expressed their innermost feelings and emotions from cradle to grave in songs: their joys and sorrows, griefs and needs, the close affinity to nature, the eternal conflict of the elemental powers of good and evil, their loves and hates and their aspirations and shortcomings. Contributions made by the Slovaks in the area of art are numerous but unfortunately because of provincial philosophies have been absent from academic circles in the United States. However my initial premise is that culture and in this case art may be found in the actual ways of life of ordinary people. One need only look in the attics of Slovak-Americans and find works of art abounding. Very popular among the Slovaks was the tradition of embroidery. Slovak folk costumes were a work of art which at times took entire lifetimes to complete and perfect. Both male and female costumes represented the individual village of origin in order that at a gathering of Slovaks one's particular village could at once be identified. Intricate geometrical and floral patterns, each with a particular significance, told a history of a particular village or mountain area. Richness of detail characterizes these works of art and rates them as distinct examples of Slovak folk art. These patterns have been handed down generation to generation and remain �SLOVAKIA 125 with countless thousands of American families of Slovak ancestry. These patterns have had a certain resurgence in many styles found popular among youth groups and have come to be known as "peasant look" in many American cities. Another area of folk art are the coloring of Easter eggs known as Pisanky or literally written designs. Although this custom is a Slav custom in general various Slav peoples have distinctive characteristics. Floral design patterns are distinctive of Polish Easter eggs. A distinctive characteristic of Slovak designs are simple angular designs using the symbols of the triangle, representing the Trinity; the circle, representing the immortality promised through Christ's resurrection; the various woven trims, representing the richness of life and the use of various colors, particularly red, symbolizing life, yellow, representing the brightness of the heavenly kingdom. These eggs are taken along with other appropriately prepared foods-lamb, a mixture of beets and horseradish, ham, butter, salt, wine, the Easter bread, the Paska and the cheese, are taken to the church on Holy Saturday to be blessed by the priest in order that on Easter Sunday morning the faithful may partake of the symbolic foods of resurrection avoided during the traditional fast of years past. This custom continues to flourish in hundreds of Slovak churches throughout America today. Among the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic and some two hundred Slovak Protestant churches many exemplify typical Slovak churches in architecture and interior design. Each has a distinctive Slovak folk characteristic either in its choice of symbolic designs and trims or in its choice of appointments and vestments each with intricate embroidery-like quality. Most noteworthy among American Slovak artisans is Dr. Joseph Cincik of Cleveland, Ohio who has designed numerous Slovak churches in the United States. His elongated figures with a blend of nortic and byzantine influence blend to form a distinctive Slovak art form. His most noteworthy achievement has been the Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland and the Church of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, Ohio. The cathedral-like structure of the Lakewood, Ohio church has been transformed into a cavern-like structure ablaze with images and �126 SLOVAKIA scenes of religious life in Slovakia and the United States.9 Another gem of Slovak-American art and architecture is the motherhouse and chapel of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, Pa. The magnificent stained glass windows depict the history of the Slovak immigrant in America with scenes of his labors in the mines and mills of this country. The windows depict the history and development of this community as well as that of the religious and cultural leaders among the early Slovak immigrants. Several Slovak cultural centers in the United States offer the American public the opportunity to observe the jewels of Slovak folk art, painting, music and history. The Jankola Library located at the motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius contains a large collection of Slovak folk art, painting, embroidery, crystal, and a vast collection of works on Slovak subjects. The center is named after the Rev. Matthew Jankola, founder of the congregation in 1909 and the founder of SS. Cyril and Methodius Church in Bridgeport, Conn. where copies of original paintings from the Basilica of St. Clement in Rome depicting the life and work of the Slovak apostles adorn the interior. This, as many other Slovak churches, depicts typical Slovak village life in Slovakia in its various paintings and appointments. Another center of Slovak culture is the Jednota Museum located at the Jednota Estates in Middletown, Pa. Dedicated in 1972 the museum is operated by the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States and Canada, a fraternal and cultural society with a national membership of over 100,000. Within the walls of the museum are numerous collections of Slovak folk art, tapestries, native costumes, memorabilia of Slovak fraternal societies, and a vast collection of Slovak works in the area of the humanities. 10 Several other centers exist in Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, at the campus of Wayne State University in Michigan and other centers are planned in Pittsburgh and Yonkers, N. Y. to be found under the ethnic-centers' bill introduced by Senator Richard Schweiker, Republican of ~nnsylvania. 11 The variety of cultural worlds in the United States is a powerful, subterranean influence in our national cultural life. It remains subterranean because it is often repressed, as though it were something dirty, disfunctional, and �SLOVAKIA 127 doomed to disappear. In its place, a "national" ideology has been created. True Black and Hispanic cultural achievements have been given prominence but true reality must represent the many and varied components which have gone to form the mosaic of American culture. It is with this thought in mind that I challenge the America that I know and love to discover the possibilities and the limits inherent in being what I am and openly display what heretofore my ancestors had disguised in silence. There is a new creativity and a new release, there is liberation and there is hope. America is becoming America. FOOTNOTES 1) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Michael ovak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, (New York, 1971 ), p. 145. 3) Mother M. Emerentia Petrasek, SS.C.M., The Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Told, in Five Decades, (Danville, Pennsylvania, 1959) , p. 110. 4) Oddo, p. 356. 5) Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks, (New York, 1947), p. 180. 6) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1959, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1959), p. 68. 7) Michael Lacko, S.J., SLovak Studies VII, (Rome, 1967), p. 197. 8) John C. Sciranka, Katolicky Sokol, "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," (Passaic, N. J.), April 24, 1974, p . 15. 9) Philip A. Hrobak, Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1955) , p. 35. 10) Joseph C. Krajsa, "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p . 56. 11 ) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p. 165. BIBLIOGRAPHY Hrobak, Philip A., Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, Middletown, Pa., 1955. Krajsa , Joseph C., "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973. Lacko, Michael S. J. , "Bibliographica," Slovak Studies VII, Rome, 1970. Novak, Michael, The Rise of the Umneltable Ethnics, New York, 1971. Pauco, Joseph, "Eleven Hundred Years of Prayerful Song. A Survey of Slovak Church Music," Middletown, Pa., 1959. Slovakia 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973 Pctrasek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Congregation of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Danville, Pa., 1959. Sciranka, John C., "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," Katolicky Sokol, Passaic, . J ., April 24, 1974. Yurchak, Peter P., The Slovaks, New York, 1947. � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document SLOVAKIA 119 Slovak Contributions to the American Cultural Mosaic By D aniel F . T a n z o n e FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION In recent years there has been a new awareness of the many and varied cultures which have gone to make the American cultural milieu a multi-faceted mosaic resplendent with the many faces of America. In past years the melting pot philosophy has given way to the philosophy of a pluralistic society within the concept of an American culture. Too often in the past generations only AngloAmerican traditions have prevailed and have almost totally dominated the American educational experience. The dominance of Anglo-American ethnocentrism has shaped the entire history of this country. The question I would ask as an American of Italian and Slovak ancestry is whether a total concentration on the upper-class culture based in the northeastern section of the nation is a sufficient intellectual guide to actual American life, or to the character of the other cultures on this planet? The phrase "common culture" has in recent years been used with more glibness than hard reflection. A culture is not put on like a suit of clothes. One can mimic a culture, absorb it, however, the culture does not flow out of one's own tutored instincts and aspirations, it is not yet one's own and does not yet exhaust one's own intelligence, perception or dreams. Thus for the non-Wasps-the WhiteAnglo-Saxon-Protestants, the millions of immigrants and their descendants-a majority of th_is nation have not been a part of the mainstream culture which springs from the heart. There seem to be three main locations of culture in America today. The actual ways of life of ordinary people, in their div,erse, loose and permeable communities are one location. The humanities are, in this sense, not primarily 120 SLOVAKIA what is written down in books, or celebrated in works of arts, but what is lived. Those relatively few artists, scholars and critical persons in whom a genuinely high culture is alive are a second location. The swarming army of professionals, highly educated but not necessarily in tune with the high traditions of the past, are a third location. Among these new professionals are many who call themselves humanists. Each of these groups is to be taken seriously. Each enhances our own individual identity as an American cogniscant of American culture. Victims of oppression have always looked upon migration to a land with a promise of freedom and equal opportunity as their mecca. In the late years of the last century in order to be free of social injustice, economic serfdom, or the threat of national liquidation, the oppressed peoples of the Austro-Hung arian monarchy looked toward the United States as a haven. Between 1879 and 1891 some 80,000 Slovaks emigrated from the counties of Abauj, Spis, Zemplin, saris, Gerner, and Liptov and settled in America. By 1900 Slovakia, the ancient home of the Slovaks in Hungary, lost about 308,000 of its people to America. From 1910 to the beginning of World War I 34,000 Slovaks made America their home. In a word from about 1879 until 1918 Slovakia lost more than 550,000 people to America. However, it must be remembered that many Slovaks were classed as Magyars or Austrians since few Americans knew of the existence of the Slovak, a western Slav who closely resembled the Pole or Czech, also western Slavs but who possessed affinities with the eastern Slavs-the Russians and Ukrainians. Thus the total number of Slovaks who entered America was probably close to 750,000. Have these many thousands of ordinary people, one of the locations of culture as I see it, contributed anything substantial to the culture of America? True, the vast majority of these immigrants, who left their ancestral home and all its romantic traditions, for a strange new life in the stone and asphalt deserts of industrial and mining America, were simple individuals not a part of an elite group of immigrants. 1 As with all cultures, each develops endlessly complex individuals each with a world of its own both as individuals and as cultures. The Slovak contribution to American culture of the twentieth century has yet to be experienced SLOVAKIA 121 by mainstream America for the Slovaks like other ethnics are today the White Negro-the decisively ethnic non-WASP whose cultural traditions and emotional feelings are the antithesis of WASP decorum and self-control.2 The Slovaks, like other ethnics, have remained in tightlyknit cultural and fraternal associations in the United States and unfortunately little if any of their contributions have received national acclaim. However, Slovak music, art and literature have been an enriching experience for hundreds of thousands of descendants of the pioneer generations who today are part of the American cultural mainstream. Music, for example has played a major role in the life of any immigrant group, especially an oppressed group as the Slovaks were. The deepest feelings and the keenest appreciation of beauty on the part of the Slovaks are expressed in their songs. Singing is an everyday necessity for the hard working Slovak. Slovak folk songs which were an outgrowth of sacred music, have followed the general clevelopment of Western European music adopting the harmonic and rhythmic patterns of the West but in an altogether unconventional manner which maintained the peculiarities of the Slovak folk style. These Slovak folk songs have been preserved and perpetuated down through the generations here in America by the various Slovak American institutions and religious communities. These organizations and institutions have preserved these folk songs in their original Slovak and have on numerous occasions published translations of these folk songs. Most Slovak folk songs are written in a minor key and possess a fire and zest common to the Slav musical experience. In 1950 the Rev. John J. Lach published the Treasury of Slovak Folk Songs, a collection of over one hundred Slovak folk songs translated into English with appropriate music. This was the first collection of Slovak folk songs which had been translated into English for the enjoyment of non-Slovak speaking Americans. True it was intended for those of Slovak ancestry whose lack uf knowledge of their ancestral tong-..ie hampered their total appreciation of the various Slovak folk songs which they had been exposed to since their childhood. More importantly this collection was aimed at the American musical public for 122 SLOVAKIA it would acquaint the music lover with the flavor and resonance of Slovak folk tunes. In the mid 1950's the Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius of Danville, Pa., a Slovak-American teaching community dedicated to the enrichment and cultivation of Slovak culture and art among their students began to develop translations of popular children's songs native to Slovakia. This community, which taught in 13 American dioceses, saw the need of translating and in some cases transposing, existing Slovak folk pieces to suit the needs of their eight thousand students who were of Slovak ancestry in the various elementary and secondary schools entrusted to their care. 3 Another important contribution which the Slovaks have made to American culture has been in the area of Slovak Church music. The Slovaks who are a very religious people, about 85 % are staunch Roman and Byzantine Catholics with the remaining members of the Lutheran and Calvinist persuasions, brought with them a wealth of ecclesiastical music. Slovak church music reflected the injustice and vexation which were the lot of the Slovak at home under the Austro-Hungarian control. For centuries this music was forbidden even in Slovak Church worship in Slovakia because the insidious pressure to Magyarize all non-Magyar elements within Hungary even permeated religious circles. The philosophy of Magyarization led all non-Magyar elements to accept Magyar language, customs and culture as theirs in order to exist. Anyone not complying was banished from any position of authority in government.4 Thus this latent emasculation of Slovak national pride even within the realm of church worship brought forth a treasury of Slovak church music filled with all the sentiments of a subjugated people. Even after their emigration the Slovak wished to always recall his bitter struggle and servitude in the homeland. Slovak churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sprang up both before and after the turn of the twentieth century. These 500 churches became the centers of the rich Slovak church music which were denied in the homeland of Slovakia.5 Early attempts at translating these works into English began in the 1930's by Professor Eugene Suchon, an American of Slovak ancestry. The two works which were SLOVAKIA 123 included in the 1934 edition of the St. Gregory's Hymnal were the lenten hymn "Oh Come and Mourn with Me Awhile" and a "Tantum Ergo" listed merely as an adaptation of a Slovak hymn. 6 Among the most beautiful Slovak church pieces are the Christmas songs known as koledy. These songs are filled with an intimacy and childlike innocence and the listener finds himself clothed with a sublime delight while listening. The melancholy bursts into the fiery robust melodic-like quality in these beautiful musical works. Many of these have their origins in the early and late Middle-Ages. In 1965 the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius offered the American public a collection of Slovak Christmas songs entitled Bethlehem Carols which was a translation of over fifty Slovak carols. In 1966 this community under the direction of Sister M. James Tomko, SS.C.M. prepared a collection of a variety of translated Church pieces. Again the influence of Slovak folk life was evident and the influence of Eastern Church psalm tones blended to create some of the most beautiful songs of worship. Now the American Church public would adapt Slovak melodies to enrich their storehouse of appropriate church music. In 1964 the Rev. Florian J. Gall, director of ecclesiastical music for the Diocese of Trenton, composed a four-part mass entitled "A People's Hymn-Tune Mass" which was based on a Slovak "Adoro Te" melody. This mass was published by the Gregorian Institute of America. Another mass was published by Sister M. Paschal Valent, SS.C.M. entitled "A Mass in Honor of SS. Cyril and Methodius" based on Slovak church pieces. The World Library of Sacred Music in 1960 published a collection of twenty Slovak Christmas carols for three equal voices and for a four voice arrangement by Joseph f>uris, organist of the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland.7 Among the Lutheran congregations the Rev. John Zornan published the translations of Slovak church songs in 1963. Dr. John Zornan has translated many popular Slovak folk tunes and is published by the National Slovak Society of Pittsburgh, Pa. A form of Slovak musical expression finds itself present in the Polka which has become almost at home in American as in Slav countries. The Polka which is generally associated 124 SLOVAKIA with the Poles actually has its origin in Bohemia among the Czechs. The rhythmic quality of the Polka is found in many Slovak folk tunes especially from the high Tatra regions and Eastern Slovakia. An experimental Mass written with distinctly Slovak Polka melodies was compos~d by the Rev. Alexander:Blasko of Mineral Ridge, Ohio and was presented to an overflow crowd at St. Matthias Slovak Roman Catholic Church in Youngstown, Ohio on April 21, 1974. Entitled "A Mass for Christian Joy" the Mass was approved by the Bishop of Youngstown and its presentation has been repeated in several Slovak parishes in the Youngstown area. Here again a distinctly Slovak musical experience has found its way into American musical experience.8 Thus Slovak music, whether it be of folk origin or church oriented possesses a distinct character of its own which has been handed down to the generations of Americans of Slovak origin. The importance of music in Slovak life was always eminent, since the Slovaks expressed their innermost feelings and emotions from cradle to grave in songs: their joys and sorrows, griefs and needs, the close affinity to nature, the eternal conflict of the elemental powers of good and evil, their loves and hates and their aspirations and shortcomings. Contributions made by the Slovaks in the area of art are numerous but unfortunately because of provincial philosophies have been absent from academic circles in the United States. However my initial premise is that culture and in this case art may be found in the actual ways of life of ordinary people. One need only look in the attics of Slovak-Americans and find works of art abounding. Very popular among the Slovaks was the tradition of embroidery. Slovak folk costumes were a work of art which at times took entire lifetimes to complete and perfect. Both male and female costumes represented the individual village of origin in order that at a gathering of Slovaks one's particular village could at once be identified. Intricate geometrical and floral patterns, each with a particular significance, told a history of a particular village or mountain area. Richness of detail characterizes these works of art and rates them as distinct examples of Slovak folk art. These patterns have been handed down generation to generation and remain SLOVAKIA 125 with countless thousands of American families of Slovak ancestry. These patterns have had a certain resurgence in many styles found popular among youth groups and have come to be known as "peasant look" in many American cities. Another area of folk art are the coloring of Easter eggs known as Pisanky or literally written designs. Although this custom is a Slav custom in general various Slav peoples have distinctive characteristics. Floral design patterns are distinctive of Polish Easter eggs. A distinctive characteristic of Slovak designs are simple angular designs using the symbols of the triangle, representing the Trinity; the circle, representing the immortality promised through Christ's resurrection; the various woven trims, representing the richness of life and the use of various colors, particularly red, symbolizing life, yellow, representing the brightness of the heavenly kingdom. These eggs are taken along with other appropriately prepared foods-lamb, a mixture of beets and horseradish, ham, butter, salt, wine, the Easter bread, the Paska and the cheese, are taken to the church on Holy Saturday to be blessed by the priest in order that on Easter Sunday morning the faithful may partake of the symbolic foods of resurrection avoided during the traditional fast of years past. This custom continues to flourish in hundreds of Slovak churches throughout America today. Among the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic and some two hundred Slovak Protestant churches many exemplify typical Slovak churches in architecture and interior design. Each has a distinctive Slovak folk characteristic either in its choice of symbolic designs and trims or in its choice of appointments and vestments each with intricate embroidery-like quality. Most noteworthy among American Slovak artisans is Dr. Joseph Cincik of Cleveland, Ohio who has designed numerous Slovak churches in the United States. His elongated figures with a blend of nortic and byzantine influence blend to form a distinctive Slovak art form. His most noteworthy achievement has been the Church of St. Benedict in Cleveland and the Church of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Lakewood, Ohio. The cathedral-like structure of the Lakewood, Ohio church has been transformed into a cavern-like structure ablaze with images and 126 SLOVAKIA scenes of religious life in Slovakia and the United States.9 Another gem of Slovak-American art and architecture is the motherhouse and chapel of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Danville, Pa. The magnificent stained glass windows depict the history of the Slovak immigrant in America with scenes of his labors in the mines and mills of this country. The windows depict the history and development of this community as well as that of the religious and cultural leaders among the early Slovak immigrants. Several Slovak cultural centers in the United States offer the American public the opportunity to observe the jewels of Slovak folk art, painting, music and history. The Jankola Library located at the motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius contains a large collection of Slovak folk art, painting, embroidery, crystal, and a vast collection of works on Slovak subjects. The center is named after the Rev. Matthew Jankola, founder of the congregation in 1909 and the founder of SS. Cyril and Methodius Church in Bridgeport, Conn. where copies of original paintings from the Basilica of St. Clement in Rome depicting the life and work of the Slovak apostles adorn the interior. This, as many other Slovak churches, depicts typical Slovak village life in Slovakia in its various paintings and appointments. Another center of Slovak culture is the Jednota Museum located at the Jednota Estates in Middletown, Pa. Dedicated in 1972 the museum is operated by the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States and Canada, a fraternal and cultural society with a national membership of over 100,000. Within the walls of the museum are numerous collections of Slovak folk art, tapestries, native costumes, memorabilia of Slovak fraternal societies, and a vast collection of Slovak works in the area of the humanities. 10 Several other centers exist in Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, at the campus of Wayne State University in Michigan and other centers are planned in Pittsburgh and Yonkers, N. Y. to be found under the ethnic-centers' bill introduced by Senator Richard Schweiker, Republican of ~nnsylvania. 11 The variety of cultural worlds in the United States is a powerful, subterranean influence in our national cultural life. It remains subterranean because it is often repressed, as though it were something dirty, disfunctional, and SLOVAKIA 127 doomed to disappear. In its place, a "national" ideology has been created. True Black and Hispanic cultural achievements have been given prominence but true reality must represent the many and varied components which have gone to form the mosaic of American culture. It is with this thought in mind that I challenge the America that I know and love to discover the possibilities and the limits inherent in being what I am and openly display what heretofore my ancestors had disguised in silence. There is a new creativity and a new release, there is liberation and there is hope. America is becoming America. FOOTNOTES 1) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), p. 330. 2) Michael ovak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, (New York, 1971 ), p. 145. 3) Mother M. Emerentia Petrasek, SS.C.M., The Congregation of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Told, in Five Decades, (Danville, Pennsylvania, 1959) , p. 110. 4) Oddo, p. 356. 5) Peter P. Yurchak, The Slovaks, (New York, 1947), p. 180. 6) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1959, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1959), p. 68. 7) Michael Lacko, S.J., SLovak Studies VII, (Rome, 1967), p. 197. 8) John C. Sciranka, Katolicky Sokol, "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," (Passaic, N. J.), April 24, 1974, p . 15. 9) Philip A. Hrobak, Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1955) , p. 35. 10) Joseph C. Krajsa, "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p . 56. 11 ) Joseph Pauco, Slovakia 1973, (Middletown, Pennsylvania, 1973), p. 165. BIBLIOGRAPHY Hrobak, Philip A., Slovak Catholic Parishes and Institutions in the United States and Canada, Middletown, Pa., 1955. Krajsa , Joseph C., "Jednota Museum Dedicated," Furdek 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973. Lacko, Michael S. J. , "Bibliographica," Slovak Studies VII, Rome, 1970. Novak, Michael, The Rise of the Umneltable Ethnics, New York, 1971. Pauco, Joseph, "Eleven Hundred Years of Prayerful Song. A Survey of Slovak Church Music," Middletown, Pa., 1959. Slovakia 1973, Middletown, Pa., 1973 Pctrasek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Congregation of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Danville, Pa., 1959. Sciranka, John C., "Polka Mass in Youngstown, Ohio," Katolicky Sokol, Passaic, . J ., April 24, 1974. Yurchak, Peter P., The Slovaks, New York, 1947.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Contributions to the American Cultural Mosaic Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 119-127 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8bff0062ce6f837cb54405e30d7dd4dc.pdf dbe6d73eb70c45cc2a51179d2cb350e1 PDF Text Text 68 S L O V A KIA Slovak Fraternal Organizations Daniel F. T a n z o n e Slovak fraternalism had its origins in the mining and mill towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. It was a product of the need to provide financial assistance to the victims of mine and mill disasters and their dependants; to provide a nucleus for social and religious activity among Slovak immigrants. Local groups began to develop in the early years of the 1880's and the first Slovak fraternal-benefit society was founded in New York City on March 3, 1883 under the name of the First Hungarian Slovak Fraternal Society. Soon other societies mushroomed in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Hazleton, Pennsylvania; Houtzdale, Pennsylvania; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and in 1885 the St. Stephen Society was established in Cleveland, Ohio, by the late Rev. Stephen Furdek. In 1887 the Society of Prince Rudolph in Bayone, New Jersey was established and a touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of this lodge when it had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Habsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Although each Slovak society had basically similar objectives it was not until 1890 that 9, concerted effort was made to organize these various loosely knit societies into a national organization. It can be said that two distinct philosophies developed in these early efforts at unification. One camp was totally nationalistic and desired to maintain the Slovak language, culture and traditions among its members regardless of religious affiliation. The second camp was staunchly religious and although it held similar objectives regarding Slovak language, culture and traditions it added the important element of religion. Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel because of his bitter objection to Slovak oppression at the hands �SLOVAKIA 69 of the Austria-Hungarian monarchy, was the leader of the former camp and on February 15, 1890 he organized a group of Slovak societies with similar beliefs into the National Slovak Society. Similarily the Rev. Stephen Furdek gather representatives of eight Slovak Catholic societies in Cleveland on September 4, 1890 and the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota, which means Union, was established. The objectives of this society were to preserve the Catholic faith, to support fellow members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and nationality. Soon Slovak women organized societies. In 1891 Slovak women organized the zivena Beneti.cial Society in Pittsburgh. In 1892 Slovak Catholic women under the leadership of Anna Hurban with the assistance of Father Furdek organized the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland. Divisions in these societies found the establishment of the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893 by societies in Pennsylvania. In 1900 a break in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union saw the establishment of the Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Slovak Byzantine Catholics joined hands with their Rutl;lenian brothers and organized the Greek Catholic Union, although not a Greek was among them. The Slovaks' love for gymnastics saw the establishment of Slovak Sokol organizations. In 1896 in the city of Chicago the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol was born and promoted gymnastics and athletics among its members. In 1905, because of religious differences a group of 43 members of the National Sokol, as it is known, organized the Slovak Catholic Sokol in the city of Passaic, New Jersey. Although similar in its objectives the Catholic Sokol remained faithful to the Catholic faith and has over the years been among the most out~tanding Slovak Catholic societies in the world. Slovak Lutherans mganized the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893. The Slovak Lutheran women followed with the establishment of the Slovak Evangelical Ladies Union. These two societies merged together in 1962 and are today known as the United Lutheran Brethren. Slov<:tk Calvinists organized the Slovak Calvinistic Union in 1894. �70 SLOVAKIA Smaller Slovak organizations developed such as the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union which merged with the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union; tl\e First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle which still exists today and other smaller societies which eventually merged with larger societies. It was these societies which developed a sense of pride and love for Slovak things among the early immigrants and which today still encourages that goal. Over the years these sccieties played a monumental role in the life of the Slovaks not only in America but also played an important role in the life of the Slovaks in Slovakia. Hundreds of churches both Catholic and Protestant were established by these societies. Noteworthy is the fact that almost every one of the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic churches in America were established by a local branch of the First Catholic Slovak Union. Millions of dollars have been spent for the Slovak cultural, civic and fraternal activities. In Cleveland where we have the headquarters of the two largest Slovak fraternal societies the First Catholic Slovak Union and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association the many churches, schools, convents and religious institutions were established and supported by these societies. One need only look at the list of benefactors of St. Andrew's Abbey of the Slovak Benedictines here and one will see that it was and is the Slovak fraternals which have and are still supporting this great institution. Today these societies provide not only the opportunity of excellent financial planning but also provide the impetus to belong to a society where one's Slovak culture and heritage is promoted and supported. These societies are as relevant as they were in the mine or mill town of the nineteenth century. These societies are second to none in their benefits. When it comes to insurance you will find that these societies are the best investment for your money. One need only look at the statistics of some of these societies. Did you know that the Jednota has a membership of 100,000 with assets of over thirty-six million dollars? Did you know that the Jednota has given over fifty million dollars in benefits to its membership, or the fact that it has given over eight million dollars to works of charity and cultural endeavors? Are you aware of the fact that the First Catholic Slovak �SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails, � 68 S L O V A KIA Slovak Fraternal Organizations Daniel F. T a n z o n e Slovak fraternalism had its origins in the mining and mill towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. It was a product of the need to provide financial assistance to the victims of mine and mill disasters and their dependants; to provide a nucleus for social and religious activity among Slovak immigrants. Local groups began to develop in the early years of the 1880's and the first Slovak fraternal-benefit society was founded in New York City on March 3, 1883 under the name of the First Hungarian Slovak Fraternal Society. Soon other societies mushroomed in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Hazleton, Pennsylvania; Houtzdale, Pennsylvania; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and in 1885 the St. Stephen Society was established in Cleveland, Ohio, by the late Rev. Stephen Furdek. In 1887 the Society of Prince Rudolph in Bayone, New Jersey was established and a touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of this lodge when it had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Habsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Although each Slovak society had basically similar objectives it was not until 1890 that 9, concerted effort was made to organize these various loosely knit societies into a national organization. It can be said that two distinct philosophies developed in these early efforts at unification. One camp was totally nationalistic and desired to maintain the Slovak language, culture and traditions among its members regardless of religious affiliation. The second camp was staunchly religious and although it held similar objectives regarding Slovak language, culture and traditions it added the important element of religion. Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel because of his bitter objection to Slovak oppression at the hands �SLOVAKIA 69 of the Austria-Hungarian monarchy, was the leader of the former camp and on February 15, 1890 he organized a group of Slovak societies with similar beliefs into the National Slovak Society. Similarily the Rev. Stephen Furdek gather representatives of eight Slovak Catholic societies in Cleveland on September 4, 1890 and the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota, which means Union, was established. The objectives of this society were to preserve the Catholic faith, to support fellow members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and nationality. Soon Slovak women organized societies. In 1891 Slovak women organized the zivena Beneti.cial Society in Pittsburgh. In 1892 Slovak Catholic women under the leadership of Anna Hurban with the assistance of Father Furdek organized the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland. Divisions in these societies found the establishment of the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893 by societies in Pennsylvania. In 1900 a break in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union saw the establishment of the Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Slovak Byzantine Catholics joined hands with their Rutl;lenian brothers and organized the Greek Catholic Union, although not a Greek was among them. The Slovaks' love for gymnastics saw the establishment of Slovak Sokol organizations. In 1896 in the city of Chicago the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol was born and promoted gymnastics and athletics among its members. In 1905, because of religious differences a group of 43 members of the National Sokol, as it is known, organized the Slovak Catholic Sokol in the city of Passaic, New Jersey. Although similar in its objectives the Catholic Sokol remained faithful to the Catholic faith and has over the years been among the most out~tanding Slovak Catholic societies in the world. Slovak Lutherans mganized the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893. The Slovak Lutheran women followed with the establishment of the Slovak Evangelical Ladies Union. These two societies merged together in 1962 and are today known as the United Lutheran Brethren. Slov<:tk Calvinists organized the Slovak Calvinistic Union in 1894. �70 SLOVAKIA Smaller Slovak organizations developed such as the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union which merged with the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union; tl\e First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle which still exists today and other smaller societies which eventually merged with larger societies. It was these societies which developed a sense of pride and love for Slovak things among the early immigrants and which today still encourages that goal. Over the years these sccieties played a monumental role in the life of the Slovaks not only in America but also played an important role in the life of the Slovaks in Slovakia. Hundreds of churches both Catholic and Protestant were established by these societies. Noteworthy is the fact that almost every one of the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic churches in America were established by a local branch of the First Catholic Slovak Union. Millions of dollars have been spent for the Slovak cultural, civic and fraternal activities. In Cleveland where we have the headquarters of the two largest Slovak fraternal societies the First Catholic Slovak Union and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association the many churches, schools, convents and religious institutions were established and supported by these societies. One need only look at the list of benefactors of St. Andrew's Abbey of the Slovak Benedictines here and one will see that it was and is the Slovak fraternals which have and are still supporting this great institution. Today these societies provide not only the opportunity of excellent financial planning but also provide the impetus to belong to a society where one's Slovak culture and heritage is promoted and supported. These societies are as relevant as they were in the mine or mill town of the nineteenth century. These societies are second to none in their benefits. When it comes to insurance you will find that these societies are the best investment for your money. One need only look at the statistics of some of these societies. Did you know that the Jednota has a membership of 100,000 with assets of over thirty-six million dollars? Did you know that the Jednota has given over fifty million dollars in benefits to its membership, or the fact that it has given over eight million dollars to works of charity and cultural endeavors? Are you aware of the fact that the First Catholic Slovak �SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails, � 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 1975, Vol. 25 Description An account of the resource Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975. 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 1975 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 68 S L O V A KIA Slovak Fraternal Organizations Daniel F. T a n z o n e Slovak fraternalism had its origins in the mining and mill towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. It was a product of the need to provide financial assistance to the victims of mine and mill disasters and their dependants; to provide a nucleus for social and religious activity among Slovak immigrants. Local groups began to develop in the early years of the 1880's and the first Slovak fraternal-benefit society was founded in New York City on March 3, 1883 under the name of the First Hungarian Slovak Fraternal Society. Soon other societies mushroomed in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Hazleton, Pennsylvania; Houtzdale, Pennsylvania; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and in 1885 the St. Stephen Society was established in Cleveland, Ohio, by the late Rev. Stephen Furdek. In 1887 the Society of Prince Rudolph in Bayone, New Jersey was established and a touch of humor accompanied the difficulties of this lodge when it had to change its name after the tragic death of Archduke Rudolph of Habsburg at Mayerling, because the other Slovaks ridiculed the members for having lost their patron. Although each Slovak society had basically similar objectives it was not until 1890 that 9, concerted effort was made to organize these various loosely knit societies into a national organization. It can be said that two distinct philosophies developed in these early efforts at unification. One camp was totally nationalistic and desired to maintain the Slovak language, culture and traditions among its members regardless of religious affiliation. The second camp was staunchly religious and although it held similar objectives regarding Slovak language, culture and traditions it added the important element of religion. Peter P. Rovnianek, known as the stormy petrel because of his bitter objection to Slovak oppression at the hands SLOVAKIA 69 of the Austria-Hungarian monarchy, was the leader of the former camp and on February 15, 1890 he organized a group of Slovak societies with similar beliefs into the National Slovak Society. Similarily the Rev. Stephen Furdek gather representatives of eight Slovak Catholic societies in Cleveland on September 4, 1890 and the First Catholic Slovak Union commonly known as Jednota, which means Union, was established. The objectives of this society were to preserve the Catholic faith, to support fellow members, widows, and orphans in need, to preserve and extend the use of the Slovak language and nationality. Soon Slovak women organized societies. In 1891 Slovak women organized the zivena Beneti.cial Society in Pittsburgh. In 1892 Slovak Catholic women under the leadership of Anna Hurban with the assistance of Father Furdek organized the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union in Cleveland. Divisions in these societies found the establishment of the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union in 1893 by societies in Pennsylvania. In 1900 a break in the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union saw the establishment of the Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Slovak Byzantine Catholics joined hands with their Rutl;lenian brothers and organized the Greek Catholic Union, although not a Greek was among them. The Slovaks' love for gymnastics saw the establishment of Slovak Sokol organizations. In 1896 in the city of Chicago the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol was born and promoted gymnastics and athletics among its members. In 1905, because of religious differences a group of 43 members of the National Sokol, as it is known, organized the Slovak Catholic Sokol in the city of Passaic, New Jersey. Although similar in its objectives the Catholic Sokol remained faithful to the Catholic faith and has over the years been among the most out~tanding Slovak Catholic societies in the world. Slovak Lutherans mganized the Slovak Evangelical Union in 1893. The Slovak Lutheran women followed with the establishment of the Slovak Evangelical Ladies Union. These two societies merged together in 1962 and are today known as the United Lutheran Brethren. Slov<:tk Calvinists organized the Slovak Calvinistic Union in 1894. 70 SLOVAKIA Smaller Slovak organizations developed such as the Slovak Catholic Cadet Union which merged with the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union; tl\e First Slovak Wreath of the Free Eagle which still exists today and other smaller societies which eventually merged with larger societies. It was these societies which developed a sense of pride and love for Slovak things among the early immigrants and which today still encourages that goal. Over the years these sccieties played a monumental role in the life of the Slovaks not only in America but also played an important role in the life of the Slovaks in Slovakia. Hundreds of churches both Catholic and Protestant were established by these societies. Noteworthy is the fact that almost every one of the more than three hundred Slovak Catholic churches in America were established by a local branch of the First Catholic Slovak Union. Millions of dollars have been spent for the Slovak cultural, civic and fraternal activities. In Cleveland where we have the headquarters of the two largest Slovak fraternal societies the First Catholic Slovak Union and the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association the many churches, schools, convents and religious institutions were established and supported by these societies. One need only look at the list of benefactors of St. Andrew's Abbey of the Slovak Benedictines here and one will see that it was and is the Slovak fraternals which have and are still supporting this great institution. Today these societies provide not only the opportunity of excellent financial planning but also provide the impetus to belong to a society where one's Slovak culture and heritage is promoted and supported. These societies are as relevant as they were in the mine or mill town of the nineteenth century. These societies are second to none in their benefits. When it comes to insurance you will find that these societies are the best investment for your money. One need only look at the statistics of some of these societies. Did you know that the Jednota has a membership of 100,000 with assets of over thirty-six million dollars? Did you know that the Jednota has given over fifty million dollars in benefits to its membership, or the fact that it has given over eight million dollars to works of charity and cultural endeavors? Are you aware of the fact that the First Catholic Slovak SLOVAKIA 71 Ladies Association assets are approaching fifty-five million dollars with over 95,000 members ranking as the largest ethnic society of women in America? Did you realize that the Slovak Catholic Sokol, with its over 51,000 members and assets of over twenty-five million dollars spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on gymnastic and athletic activities for its members annually? There is no better way of saying that I am proud to be of Slovak ancestry than to become a member of one of these organizations. I have faith in our Slovak societies because of what they represented in the past and I am optimistic that in the future they will continue to be the valiant supporters of a gallant Slovak nation. The Slovak fraternals have been very much a part of my life and I know that if you show some interest they will enlighten and enliven each one of you to become better Americans, better humanitarians and better Slovaks. The finest thing I can say is that I am a member of the Jednota, the Slovak Catholic Sokol, the zenska Jednota and the Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union. Praised-be in the Coal Region ( though a hardcoal fire simmers through the tunnels and shafts of the mine year in and year out, though on rainy days the culm bank steams and on the stillest, humid days the sulfur-fog chokes, and the governor investigates by helicopter; though the slovak papa dies of black lung, and his widow files for benefits when the congressman comes) pochvdleny bud' shamokin creek and furnace run, the colliery and cranes, the slag piled mountain-high, the oldtime coalminers in boots, overalls, helmets with headlamps who shouldered pickaxes and lugged lunchpails,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Slovak Fraternal Organizations Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 25 (No. 48), 1975 pp. 68-71 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/982cfdcfbfccf238bc9078687412e4fc.pdf 97318c3f7e7f0781d5bea6dfe8a72bb5 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 69 John J. Kubasek, Priest and Patriot DANIEL F. TANZONE Among the many colorful and noteworthy personalities of the Yonkers Slovak community was the Reverend John J . Kubasek . Born on April 14, 1885 in Stan& :Cubovna, Spis County (Spisska Zupa), Slovakia, then a part oftht:J old Austro-Hungarian monarchy, son of Jan and Maria Bobek Kubasek, he attended grammar and high school in his native village. He attended a six year classical college at Nova Ves and Podolan. He immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen in 1902 and settled in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. In Olyphant, the future Father Kubasek was employed as a bank teller and in the course of time, he began to interest himself in the Slovak press in America, realizing that here he would be able to develop into reality his dream of aiding his downtrodden compatriots in his homeland, who were suffering as subjects under the cruel forces of Hungary. It was his wish to aid in the liberation of the Slovaks from the yoke of Magyarization. (1) At this time , a program of Magyarization was at work in his native homeland, denying the Slovaks their God-given rights of self-identity, freedom, and national consciousness. The oppressive measures were inaugurated by the Hungarian government after the agreement known as the AUSGLEICH, or union , which split the monarchy into two convenient geographic regions . Ethnic and cultural considerations played no role in the decision. The jubilant Magyars obtained for Hungary her own Constitution, her own Diet, and an independent ministry headed by Count Julius Andrassy, with almost absolute control of every facet of Hungary's destiny. Emperor Francis Joseph I then had himself crowned emperor of Austria-Hungary. The Dual Monarchy had made its appearance. From this point of history on, the Hungarians promoted a policy of Magyarization, an insidious program which had as its goal the liquidation of all non-Hungarian ethnic groups in Hungary as national entities and attempted to create Hungarians from these groups. Special targets of Magyarization were the Slovaks who occupied the northern counties of Hungary, numbering about three million. It was the design of the Hungarian government to free itself of all non-Hungarian elements and promote the philosophy of the grand Magyar nation. Slovak names were changed to Hungarian, use of the Slovak language was forbidden in the schools, courts and government offices. The program went so far as to force the Church to use Hungarian as the only language of the people . Slovak was forbidden in sermons; Slovak books were destroyed; seminarians thought to harbor traits of Slovak national consciousness were expelled from the seminaries. The insidious program, along with economic and social �70 SLOVAKIA hardships caused thousands upon thousands of Slovaks to leave their homeland and venture on a new life in America. (2) Young John Kubasek began writing for the Slovak press in America, alerting American Slovaks of the God-given rights of freedom and self-determination to which they had every right as a national entity. However, he decided to interrupt his journalistic career in order to enter St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York and begin studies for the priesthood. He chose the New York Archdiocesan seminary because there was a great need for Slovak priests to serve the Slovak parishes established in the late years of the nineteenth century in New York City , Yonkers and Haverstraw. After six years of study, he graduated at the head of his class and was ordained by Bishop Thomas Cusack on February 14, 1912, at St. Stephen's Church in New York City. He was the first Slovak priest ordained in the history of the Archdiocese of New York. (3) A few weeks after ordination, young Father Kubasek was appointed assistant pastor of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers where he would assist the pastor, Reverend Julius Szabo. In 1914 Father Szabo returned to Europe and Father Kubasek was assigned to the pastorship of the Yonkers parish. He had never forgotten his earlier aim to aid in the liberation of the Slovak people from the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As pastor of a Slovak American congregation, he continued to work for the liberation of the Slovaks. With the advent of World War I, the entire free world saw the collapse of the various monarchies in Europe. Father Kubasek, along with other alert exiled Slovak patriots, saw with the defeat of the Axis powers the opportunity of self-expression and self-determination among the subjugated peoples of the Hapsburg monarchy. (4) Towards the end of 1914 Father Kubasek together with other Slovak priests from the states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania organized the Federation of Slovak Priests of the Eastern States. The initial meeting was held at the Yonkers rectory and Father Kubasek was the major promotor of the Federation. It was the plan of Father Kubasek to unite the Slovak priests so that their combined effort would promote Slovak cultural publications, catechisms ,and historical works. This group endeavored to counteract the effort of some Magyarone Slovak priests who still encouraged patriotism to the Hungarian crown. Father Kubasek also wished the Slovak Catholic clergy to work for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Strong opposition from these Magyarone clergymen came principally through the columns of ZAST AV A, a pro-Hungarian weekly founded by the Reverend Joseph Kossalko in 1889. (5) Father Kossalko, the leader of the Magyarone Catholic clergy, was educated in Hungarian seminaries, received a monthly stipend from the Hungarian crown, and consequently was faithful to the philosophy of the Crown Lands of St. Stephen - the great Hungarian empire. �SLOVAKIA 71 In 1915 Father Kubasek and his faithful friend Father Stephen J. Krasul'a (later Monsignor) undertook the administration of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, a federation of Slovak Catholic organizations , parishes, and institutions to promote Catholic action among Slovak Catholics in America. Founded in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania by Father Joseph Murgas, noted pioneer in wireless telegraphy, Father Kubaselc rescued the organization when it was at its lowest ebb. He was elected national president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and Father Stephen J. Krasul'a was elected financial secretary. At this time Father Krasul'a was appointed to assist Father John Kropac at the Church of St. John Nepomucene in New York City. Upon the death of Father Kropac in 1916, Father Krasul'a was named pastor of the Manhattan parish. During the years of Father Kubasek 's presidency, the Slovak Catholic Federation was again a flourishing organization of Catholic action among Slovak Catholics. (6) It was during the administration of Father Kubasek that the Slovak Catholic Federation began to publish the monthly DOBRY PASTIER, or Good Shepherd magazine. Father Andrew A. Novajovsky (later Monsignor), who was ordained in 1918 and was assigned to assist Father Krasul'a in New York City, aided Father Krasul'a with the editing of the DOBRY PASTIER. Because of the efforts of Father Kubasek, the Slovak Catholic Federation (or the SDRUZENIE SLOVENSKYCH KATOLIKOV) became a mighty force defending and supporting, by speech, writing, and material assistance, all the needs and demands of the Slovak Catholics in the period of World War I. It became the philosophy of Father Kubasek, as with other national movements, to make known to the American public the atrocities inflicted upon the Slovaks within the Austro-Hungarian empire. Like a number of Irish patriots, the Slovak leaders found that the best method of achieving freedom for their compatriots in the homeland was by working in the United States, molding public opinion, and focusing the attention of other countries on the deplorable conditions in their own land. Father Kubasek became well acquainted with the triumvi leading the movement for liberating of the Czechs and the Slovaks from Hapsburg domination. In America much service was rendered to the liberation movement by Thomas G. Masaryk, son of a Slovak mother and a Czech father, who later became the first president of the CzechoSlovak Republic ; General Milan R. Stefanik, a Slovak who served the French Army of Liberation ; Vladimir Hurban, who became ambassador of Czecho-Slovakia to the United States and the Reverend John J. Kubasek. At the congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Cleveland , Ohio , on February 22, 1917, the Slovak organizations in the United States allied under the banner of the Slovak League officially gave support to the movement to establish a common state for the Slovaks and Czechs. (7) �72 SLOVAKIA Czech and Slovak legionnaires were recruited in all the free world to fight on the side of the allies and ultimately to achieve the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Father Kubasek became the chaplain of these legionnaires whose embarkation camp was located on the property of the nationally famous sculptor, Gutzon Borglum in Stamford , Connecticut. Father Kubasek received this appointment at the request of Mr. Kopecky, later a Czecho-Slovak Counsul in New York, and as chaplain, Father Kubasek offered Mass and heard the confessions of the legionnaires regularly. Often he was accompanied by Mr. Vendel Galik, organist of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers, who served at these Masses. (8) Under the leadership of Father Kubasek , several interviews were held with General Milan R. Stefanik and a conference of Slovak Catholic priests was held in New York City on September 20, 1917. Meeting at the Hotel Plaza, the twenty priests conferred with General Stefanik, formulated a program of continued cooperation with the Czechs, and issued a proclamation and appeal to the people to promote the program of the Slovak League of America. This program envisioned the political federation of the united territories of the two brotherly nations - the Czechs and the Slovaks. (9) Finally an agreement was drawn up at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 30, 1918 in the presence of American representatives of the Czechs and Slovaks . Here Slovaks in America were represented by the Slovak League of America. It must be remembered that at that time the strongest supporters of the program of the Slovak League were the nonCatholic Slovak organizations; namely, the National Slovak Society, the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol, and the Zivena Beneficial Society. However, also affiliated with the Slovak League were the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (later changed in 1967 to Association) , The Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (later changed to Slovak Catholic Sokol), The Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Union (later changed to Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union), The Greek Catholic Union (Sojedinenja), the First Slovak Wreath of t};i.e Free Eagle, The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, The Slovak <;atholic Cadet Union, The Slovak Evangelical Union, The Ladies Slovak Evangelical Union, and other smaller Slovak associations and fraternal societies. The Czechs in America were represented by The Bohemian National Alliance and The Union of Czech Catholics. In the presence of Thomas G. Masaryk, who at that time was recognized by many States as the president of the provisional government of the rising Czecho-Slovak Republic, the Pittsburgh Agreement (PITTSBURGHSKA DOHODA), as it was known, was signed by all sixteen members of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in America, including Father Kubasek. Signed by Masaryk, in his capacity ·as president of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris, it specifically �SLOVAKIA 73 promised that "Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet, and its own courts" and that "Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in offices, and in public life generally ." (10) Despite the fact that a short time later it was ignored by some influential circles, it was a powerful weapon in the hands of those fighting to defend the rights of the Slovak people within the CzechoSlovak framework. Father Kubasek convinced Thomas Masaryk and the entire body of the Czecho-Slovak National Council of the need for such an agreement. Father Kubasek received a letter dated November 20, 1918 from Thomas G. Masaryk insuring that the question of religion in Slovakia would be negotiated legally and with the cooperation of the respective ecclesiastical authorities. As Monsignor Andrew Hlinka , patriot of Slovak autonomy, indicated at a later date, this guarantee, placed in proper hands and at the proper time, would benefit the Slovaks in their problems concerning religion. In 1919, after unfavorable reports from Czecho-Slovakia regarding the religious situation, Father Kubasek, then president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, convinced the board of directors of the need to send a delegate to investigate the situation first hand. He entrusted this responsibility to the Reverend Anthony Gracik, pastor of St. Stephen's Parish in Newark, New Jersey. After his personal visit to Slovakia, Father Gracik made his report and clarified many situations that had seemed enigmatic. A copy of this letter remains in the archives of Most Holy Trinity Parish. (11) The many activites of the Yonkers clergyman on behalf of the liberation of the Slovak and Czech peoples brought much recognition to Father Kubasek as an individual and to the entire Slovak community as well. After the establishment of the first Republic of Czecho-Slovakia President Thomas G. Masaryk offered him a high position in the government of the new nation but Father Kubasek declined the offer. He rightly felt that his first obligation was to serve the spiritual needs of his countrymen here in the United States. Aside from his international and national activities among the Slovaks, he was first and foremost a priest of God and the shepherd of the Slovak Catholics of Yonkers. He provided greatly for their spiritual and material progress. He constructed a new convent in 1914 for the Dominican Sisters of Sparkhill who staffed his school. In 1924 he constructed a new modern school built upon plans that he personally laid out after inspecting numerous school buildings in New York and New Jersey. This structure was a monument to the creativity of a pastor who sought to serve effectively every segment of his congregation. It was in 1927, after the construction of this school that Father Kubasek became blind. This affliction was attributed to a nervous ailment suffered from overwork during the building of the school. Despite his handicap, he continued parish activities and the efficient �74 SLOVAKIA management of the Holy Trinity Parish. A special dispensation from the Pope allowed him to say the Mass in honor of Our Blessed Lady, which he memorized. He performed marriage ceremonies , heard confessions and continued to direct major events of his parish. In February, 1937, he celebrated his Silver Jubilee in the priesthood with a solemn Mass and banquet. At the Mass, which preceeded the banquet, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael J . Lavelle , P.A ., Vicar General of the Archdiocese of New York, brought greetings from Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York. In speaking of Father Kubasek's handicap he observed that the priest '' sees more thoroughly than any of us, because he sees with the eyes of the mind." More than 1,200 attended the festive banquet in the evening, held in the auditorium of the school which he built and sacrificed so much for. Distinguished representatives of every walk of life in community participated in the generous outpouring of commendation and felicitation for a priest who served most effectively both his God, and his fellow man. (12) Over the years Father Kubasek remained an exemplary priest of God , an outstanding administrator and a highly respected citizen of his community. In 1945, on the Golden Jubilee of the establishment of his parish, he welcomed the Most Reverend Francis J. Spellman, D.D., Archbishop of New York (later Cardinal), into his parish. Finally, after many years of suffering but always cheerful and optimistic, Father John J. Kubasek, priest and patriot, friend of the great and not so great, a personality filled with an indomitable determination to bring to success the goals which he had set for himself and his parish, died during the ringing of the Angelus bells at noon on Friday June 16, 1950, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers . Thousands of parishioners , friends, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, came to pay their respects to a simple man who rose to the heights of greatness through hard work, dedicated spirit, and endless endurance. Father Kubasek helped to mold men's lives with his example of sacrifice and priestly character. Although l?lind for the last twentythree years of his life, he never gave up, \he never abandoned his people, his community and most importantly his God. His funeral was a tribute fitting the greatest of statesmen, yet it represented the simplicity of the faith of his people. Monsignor Stephen J. Krasul'a, P.A., his long time friend and co-worker, was the celebrant of the Solemn Mass of Requiem offered on Monday morning June 19. The Slovak clergy was headed by the Right Reverend Theodore G. Kojis, O.S.B ., Abbot of Saint Andrew-Svorad's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Scores of priests from the entire United States, as well as the local clergy came to pay final tribute to the greatness of Father Kubasek. (13) The editorial which appeared in the June 19, 1950 issue of THE HERALD STATES MAN sums up the philosophy of the person· of Father Kubasek: '' . . . he leaves to a sorrowing parish, a sorrowing �SLOVAKIA 75 city, a sorrowing Church and a sorrowing nation a rich and inspiring heritage. It is a heritage of courage, typified by the manner in which he went forward in his work after he had sacrificed his eyesight to the indefatigable discharge of his duties. It is a heritage of service to others, a heritage of selfishness and humility, demonstrated in his constant insistence that credit should go to others, it is the heritage of love of God, that impelled him to labor ceaselessly toward the realization of spiritual objectives. The world is better for his having lived in it, and the city in which he worked so long will hold him in affectionate memory.'' (Reprinted from Slovaks of Yonkers, New York, by Daniel F. Tanzone, First Catholic Slovak Union (Cleveland, Ohio, 1976).) FOOTNOTES (1) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 20, 1937, p . 1. (2) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), pp. 133-134. (3) Joseph Pauco, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike, (Middletown, 1972) , p. 258. (4) Konstantin Culen, Pittsburgska Dohoda, (Bratislava, 1937), p. 438. (5) Konstantin Culen , Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike vol. 1, (Bratislava, 1942), pp. 114-115. (6) Zlata Kniha R . K. Osady Najsv. Trojice, (New York , 1945), p . 81. (7) Joseph Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (Cleveland, 1965), p. 139. (8) Zlata Kniha, p . 83 . (9) Ibid . (10) Marian M. Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia 1914-1918." Slovak Studies vm, (Cleveland-Rome, 1968), p. 48. (11) Zlata K niha. (12) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 24, 1937. (13) THE HERALD STATESMAN, June 17, 1950. � SLOVAKIA 69 John J. Kubasek, Priest and Patriot DANIEL F. TANZONE Among the many colorful and noteworthy personalities of the Yonkers Slovak community was the Reverend John J . Kubasek . Born on April 14, 1885 in Stan& :Cubovna, Spis County (Spisska Zupa), Slovakia, then a part oftht:J old Austro-Hungarian monarchy, son of Jan and Maria Bobek Kubasek, he attended grammar and high school in his native village. He attended a six year classical college at Nova Ves and Podolan. He immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen in 1902 and settled in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. In Olyphant, the future Father Kubasek was employed as a bank teller and in the course of time, he began to interest himself in the Slovak press in America, realizing that here he would be able to develop into reality his dream of aiding his downtrodden compatriots in his homeland, who were suffering as subjects under the cruel forces of Hungary. It was his wish to aid in the liberation of the Slovaks from the yoke of Magyarization. (1) At this time , a program of Magyarization was at work in his native homeland, denying the Slovaks their God-given rights of self-identity, freedom, and national consciousness. The oppressive measures were inaugurated by the Hungarian government after the agreement known as the AUSGLEICH, or union , which split the monarchy into two convenient geographic regions . Ethnic and cultural considerations played no role in the decision. The jubilant Magyars obtained for Hungary her own Constitution, her own Diet, and an independent ministry headed by Count Julius Andrassy, with almost absolute control of every facet of Hungary's destiny. Emperor Francis Joseph I then had himself crowned emperor of Austria-Hungary. The Dual Monarchy had made its appearance. From this point of history on, the Hungarians promoted a policy of Magyarization, an insidious program which had as its goal the liquidation of all non-Hungarian ethnic groups in Hungary as national entities and attempted to create Hungarians from these groups. Special targets of Magyarization were the Slovaks who occupied the northern counties of Hungary, numbering about three million. It was the design of the Hungarian government to free itself of all non-Hungarian elements and promote the philosophy of the grand Magyar nation. Slovak names were changed to Hungarian, use of the Slovak language was forbidden in the schools, courts and government offices. The program went so far as to force the Church to use Hungarian as the only language of the people . Slovak was forbidden in sermons; Slovak books were destroyed; seminarians thought to harbor traits of Slovak national consciousness were expelled from the seminaries. The insidious program, along with economic and social �70 SLOVAKIA hardships caused thousands upon thousands of Slovaks to leave their homeland and venture on a new life in America. (2) Young John Kubasek began writing for the Slovak press in America, alerting American Slovaks of the God-given rights of freedom and self-determination to which they had every right as a national entity. However, he decided to interrupt his journalistic career in order to enter St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York and begin studies for the priesthood. He chose the New York Archdiocesan seminary because there was a great need for Slovak priests to serve the Slovak parishes established in the late years of the nineteenth century in New York City , Yonkers and Haverstraw. After six years of study, he graduated at the head of his class and was ordained by Bishop Thomas Cusack on February 14, 1912, at St. Stephen's Church in New York City. He was the first Slovak priest ordained in the history of the Archdiocese of New York. (3) A few weeks after ordination, young Father Kubasek was appointed assistant pastor of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers where he would assist the pastor, Reverend Julius Szabo. In 1914 Father Szabo returned to Europe and Father Kubasek was assigned to the pastorship of the Yonkers parish. He had never forgotten his earlier aim to aid in the liberation of the Slovak people from the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As pastor of a Slovak American congregation, he continued to work for the liberation of the Slovaks. With the advent of World War I, the entire free world saw the collapse of the various monarchies in Europe. Father Kubasek, along with other alert exiled Slovak patriots, saw with the defeat of the Axis powers the opportunity of self-expression and self-determination among the subjugated peoples of the Hapsburg monarchy. (4) Towards the end of 1914 Father Kubasek together with other Slovak priests from the states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania organized the Federation of Slovak Priests of the Eastern States. The initial meeting was held at the Yonkers rectory and Father Kubasek was the major promotor of the Federation. It was the plan of Father Kubasek to unite the Slovak priests so that their combined effort would promote Slovak cultural publications, catechisms ,and historical works. This group endeavored to counteract the effort of some Magyarone Slovak priests who still encouraged patriotism to the Hungarian crown. Father Kubasek also wished the Slovak Catholic clergy to work for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Strong opposition from these Magyarone clergymen came principally through the columns of ZAST AV A, a pro-Hungarian weekly founded by the Reverend Joseph Kossalko in 1889. (5) Father Kossalko, the leader of the Magyarone Catholic clergy, was educated in Hungarian seminaries, received a monthly stipend from the Hungarian crown, and consequently was faithful to the philosophy of the Crown Lands of St. Stephen - the great Hungarian empire. �SLOVAKIA 71 In 1915 Father Kubasek and his faithful friend Father Stephen J. Krasul'a (later Monsignor) undertook the administration of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, a federation of Slovak Catholic organizations , parishes, and institutions to promote Catholic action among Slovak Catholics in America. Founded in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania by Father Joseph Murgas, noted pioneer in wireless telegraphy, Father Kubaselc rescued the organization when it was at its lowest ebb. He was elected national president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and Father Stephen J. Krasul'a was elected financial secretary. At this time Father Krasul'a was appointed to assist Father John Kropac at the Church of St. John Nepomucene in New York City. Upon the death of Father Kropac in 1916, Father Krasul'a was named pastor of the Manhattan parish. During the years of Father Kubasek 's presidency, the Slovak Catholic Federation was again a flourishing organization of Catholic action among Slovak Catholics. (6) It was during the administration of Father Kubasek that the Slovak Catholic Federation began to publish the monthly DOBRY PASTIER, or Good Shepherd magazine. Father Andrew A. Novajovsky (later Monsignor), who was ordained in 1918 and was assigned to assist Father Krasul'a in New York City, aided Father Krasul'a with the editing of the DOBRY PASTIER. Because of the efforts of Father Kubasek, the Slovak Catholic Federation (or the SDRUZENIE SLOVENSKYCH KATOLIKOV) became a mighty force defending and supporting, by speech, writing, and material assistance, all the needs and demands of the Slovak Catholics in the period of World War I. It became the philosophy of Father Kubasek, as with other national movements, to make known to the American public the atrocities inflicted upon the Slovaks within the Austro-Hungarian empire. Like a number of Irish patriots, the Slovak leaders found that the best method of achieving freedom for their compatriots in the homeland was by working in the United States, molding public opinion, and focusing the attention of other countries on the deplorable conditions in their own land. Father Kubasek became well acquainted with the triumvi leading the movement for liberating of the Czechs and the Slovaks from Hapsburg domination. In America much service was rendered to the liberation movement by Thomas G. Masaryk, son of a Slovak mother and a Czech father, who later became the first president of the CzechoSlovak Republic ; General Milan R. Stefanik, a Slovak who served the French Army of Liberation ; Vladimir Hurban, who became ambassador of Czecho-Slovakia to the United States and the Reverend John J. Kubasek. At the congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Cleveland , Ohio , on February 22, 1917, the Slovak organizations in the United States allied under the banner of the Slovak League officially gave support to the movement to establish a common state for the Slovaks and Czechs. (7) �72 SLOVAKIA Czech and Slovak legionnaires were recruited in all the free world to fight on the side of the allies and ultimately to achieve the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Father Kubasek became the chaplain of these legionnaires whose embarkation camp was located on the property of the nationally famous sculptor, Gutzon Borglum in Stamford , Connecticut. Father Kubasek received this appointment at the request of Mr. Kopecky, later a Czecho-Slovak Counsul in New York, and as chaplain, Father Kubasek offered Mass and heard the confessions of the legionnaires regularly. Often he was accompanied by Mr. Vendel Galik, organist of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers, who served at these Masses. (8) Under the leadership of Father Kubasek , several interviews were held with General Milan R. Stefanik and a conference of Slovak Catholic priests was held in New York City on September 20, 1917. Meeting at the Hotel Plaza, the twenty priests conferred with General Stefanik, formulated a program of continued cooperation with the Czechs, and issued a proclamation and appeal to the people to promote the program of the Slovak League of America. This program envisioned the political federation of the united territories of the two brotherly nations - the Czechs and the Slovaks. (9) Finally an agreement was drawn up at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 30, 1918 in the presence of American representatives of the Czechs and Slovaks . Here Slovaks in America were represented by the Slovak League of America. It must be remembered that at that time the strongest supporters of the program of the Slovak League were the nonCatholic Slovak organizations; namely, the National Slovak Society, the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol, and the Zivena Beneficial Society. However, also affiliated with the Slovak League were the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (later changed in 1967 to Association) , The Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (later changed to Slovak Catholic Sokol), The Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Union (later changed to Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union), The Greek Catholic Union (Sojedinenja), the First Slovak Wreath of t};i.e Free Eagle, The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, The Slovak <;atholic Cadet Union, The Slovak Evangelical Union, The Ladies Slovak Evangelical Union, and other smaller Slovak associations and fraternal societies. The Czechs in America were represented by The Bohemian National Alliance and The Union of Czech Catholics. In the presence of Thomas G. Masaryk, who at that time was recognized by many States as the president of the provisional government of the rising Czecho-Slovak Republic, the Pittsburgh Agreement (PITTSBURGHSKA DOHODA), as it was known, was signed by all sixteen members of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in America, including Father Kubasek. Signed by Masaryk, in his capacity ·as president of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris, it specifically �SLOVAKIA 73 promised that "Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet, and its own courts" and that "Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in offices, and in public life generally ." (10) Despite the fact that a short time later it was ignored by some influential circles, it was a powerful weapon in the hands of those fighting to defend the rights of the Slovak people within the CzechoSlovak framework. Father Kubasek convinced Thomas Masaryk and the entire body of the Czecho-Slovak National Council of the need for such an agreement. Father Kubasek received a letter dated November 20, 1918 from Thomas G. Masaryk insuring that the question of religion in Slovakia would be negotiated legally and with the cooperation of the respective ecclesiastical authorities. As Monsignor Andrew Hlinka , patriot of Slovak autonomy, indicated at a later date, this guarantee, placed in proper hands and at the proper time, would benefit the Slovaks in their problems concerning religion. In 1919, after unfavorable reports from Czecho-Slovakia regarding the religious situation, Father Kubasek, then president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, convinced the board of directors of the need to send a delegate to investigate the situation first hand. He entrusted this responsibility to the Reverend Anthony Gracik, pastor of St. Stephen's Parish in Newark, New Jersey. After his personal visit to Slovakia, Father Gracik made his report and clarified many situations that had seemed enigmatic. A copy of this letter remains in the archives of Most Holy Trinity Parish. (11) The many activites of the Yonkers clergyman on behalf of the liberation of the Slovak and Czech peoples brought much recognition to Father Kubasek as an individual and to the entire Slovak community as well. After the establishment of the first Republic of Czecho-Slovakia President Thomas G. Masaryk offered him a high position in the government of the new nation but Father Kubasek declined the offer. He rightly felt that his first obligation was to serve the spiritual needs of his countrymen here in the United States. Aside from his international and national activities among the Slovaks, he was first and foremost a priest of God and the shepherd of the Slovak Catholics of Yonkers. He provided greatly for their spiritual and material progress. He constructed a new convent in 1914 for the Dominican Sisters of Sparkhill who staffed his school. In 1924 he constructed a new modern school built upon plans that he personally laid out after inspecting numerous school buildings in New York and New Jersey. This structure was a monument to the creativity of a pastor who sought to serve effectively every segment of his congregation. It was in 1927, after the construction of this school that Father Kubasek became blind. This affliction was attributed to a nervous ailment suffered from overwork during the building of the school. Despite his handicap, he continued parish activities and the efficient �74 SLOVAKIA management of the Holy Trinity Parish. A special dispensation from the Pope allowed him to say the Mass in honor of Our Blessed Lady, which he memorized. He performed marriage ceremonies , heard confessions and continued to direct major events of his parish. In February, 1937, he celebrated his Silver Jubilee in the priesthood with a solemn Mass and banquet. At the Mass, which preceeded the banquet, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael J . Lavelle , P.A ., Vicar General of the Archdiocese of New York, brought greetings from Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York. In speaking of Father Kubasek's handicap he observed that the priest '' sees more thoroughly than any of us, because he sees with the eyes of the mind." More than 1,200 attended the festive banquet in the evening, held in the auditorium of the school which he built and sacrificed so much for. Distinguished representatives of every walk of life in community participated in the generous outpouring of commendation and felicitation for a priest who served most effectively both his God, and his fellow man. (12) Over the years Father Kubasek remained an exemplary priest of God , an outstanding administrator and a highly respected citizen of his community. In 1945, on the Golden Jubilee of the establishment of his parish, he welcomed the Most Reverend Francis J. Spellman, D.D., Archbishop of New York (later Cardinal), into his parish. Finally, after many years of suffering but always cheerful and optimistic, Father John J. Kubasek, priest and patriot, friend of the great and not so great, a personality filled with an indomitable determination to bring to success the goals which he had set for himself and his parish, died during the ringing of the Angelus bells at noon on Friday June 16, 1950, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers . Thousands of parishioners , friends, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, came to pay their respects to a simple man who rose to the heights of greatness through hard work, dedicated spirit, and endless endurance. Father Kubasek helped to mold men's lives with his example of sacrifice and priestly character. Although l?lind for the last twentythree years of his life, he never gave up, \he never abandoned his people, his community and most importantly his God. His funeral was a tribute fitting the greatest of statesmen, yet it represented the simplicity of the faith of his people. Monsignor Stephen J. Krasul'a, P.A., his long time friend and co-worker, was the celebrant of the Solemn Mass of Requiem offered on Monday morning June 19. The Slovak clergy was headed by the Right Reverend Theodore G. Kojis, O.S.B ., Abbot of Saint Andrew-Svorad's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Scores of priests from the entire United States, as well as the local clergy came to pay final tribute to the greatness of Father Kubasek. (13) The editorial which appeared in the June 19, 1950 issue of THE HERALD STATES MAN sums up the philosophy of the person· of Father Kubasek: '' . . . he leaves to a sorrowing parish, a sorrowing �SLOVAKIA 75 city, a sorrowing Church and a sorrowing nation a rich and inspiring heritage. It is a heritage of courage, typified by the manner in which he went forward in his work after he had sacrificed his eyesight to the indefatigable discharge of his duties. It is a heritage of service to others, a heritage of selfishness and humility, demonstrated in his constant insistence that credit should go to others, it is the heritage of love of God, that impelled him to labor ceaselessly toward the realization of spiritual objectives. The world is better for his having lived in it, and the city in which he worked so long will hold him in affectionate memory.'' (Reprinted from Slovaks of Yonkers, New York, by Daniel F. Tanzone, First Catholic Slovak Union (Cleveland, Ohio, 1976).) FOOTNOTES (1) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 20, 1937, p . 1. (2) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), pp. 133-134. (3) Joseph Pauco, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike, (Middletown, 1972) , p. 258. (4) Konstantin Culen, Pittsburgska Dohoda, (Bratislava, 1937), p. 438. (5) Konstantin Culen , Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike vol. 1, (Bratislava, 1942), pp. 114-115. (6) Zlata Kniha R . K. Osady Najsv. Trojice, (New York , 1945), p . 81. (7) Joseph Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (Cleveland, 1965), p. 139. (8) Zlata Kniha, p . 83 . (9) Ibid . (10) Marian M. Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia 1914-1918." Slovak Studies vm, (Cleveland-Rome, 1968), p. 48. (11) Zlata K niha. (12) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 24, 1937. (13) THE HERALD STATESMAN, June 17, 1950. � 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 1976, Vol. 26 Description An account of the resource Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976. 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 1976 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 69 John J. Kubasek, Priest and Patriot DANIEL F. TANZONE Among the many colorful and noteworthy personalities of the Yonkers Slovak community was the Reverend John J . Kubasek . Born on April 14, 1885 in Stan& :Cubovna, Spis County (Spisska Zupa), Slovakia, then a part oftht:J old Austro-Hungarian monarchy, son of Jan and Maria Bobek Kubasek, he attended grammar and high school in his native village. He attended a six year classical college at Nova Ves and Podolan. He immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen in 1902 and settled in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. In Olyphant, the future Father Kubasek was employed as a bank teller and in the course of time, he began to interest himself in the Slovak press in America, realizing that here he would be able to develop into reality his dream of aiding his downtrodden compatriots in his homeland, who were suffering as subjects under the cruel forces of Hungary. It was his wish to aid in the liberation of the Slovaks from the yoke of Magyarization. (1) At this time , a program of Magyarization was at work in his native homeland, denying the Slovaks their God-given rights of self-identity, freedom, and national consciousness. The oppressive measures were inaugurated by the Hungarian government after the agreement known as the AUSGLEICH, or union , which split the monarchy into two convenient geographic regions . Ethnic and cultural considerations played no role in the decision. The jubilant Magyars obtained for Hungary her own Constitution, her own Diet, and an independent ministry headed by Count Julius Andrassy, with almost absolute control of every facet of Hungary's destiny. Emperor Francis Joseph I then had himself crowned emperor of Austria-Hungary. The Dual Monarchy had made its appearance. From this point of history on, the Hungarians promoted a policy of Magyarization, an insidious program which had as its goal the liquidation of all non-Hungarian ethnic groups in Hungary as national entities and attempted to create Hungarians from these groups. Special targets of Magyarization were the Slovaks who occupied the northern counties of Hungary, numbering about three million. It was the design of the Hungarian government to free itself of all non-Hungarian elements and promote the philosophy of the grand Magyar nation. Slovak names were changed to Hungarian, use of the Slovak language was forbidden in the schools, courts and government offices. The program went so far as to force the Church to use Hungarian as the only language of the people . Slovak was forbidden in sermons; Slovak books were destroyed; seminarians thought to harbor traits of Slovak national consciousness were expelled from the seminaries. The insidious program, along with economic and social 70 SLOVAKIA hardships caused thousands upon thousands of Slovaks to leave their homeland and venture on a new life in America. (2) Young John Kubasek began writing for the Slovak press in America, alerting American Slovaks of the God-given rights of freedom and self-determination to which they had every right as a national entity. However, he decided to interrupt his journalistic career in order to enter St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York and begin studies for the priesthood. He chose the New York Archdiocesan seminary because there was a great need for Slovak priests to serve the Slovak parishes established in the late years of the nineteenth century in New York City , Yonkers and Haverstraw. After six years of study, he graduated at the head of his class and was ordained by Bishop Thomas Cusack on February 14, 1912, at St. Stephen's Church in New York City. He was the first Slovak priest ordained in the history of the Archdiocese of New York. (3) A few weeks after ordination, young Father Kubasek was appointed assistant pastor of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers where he would assist the pastor, Reverend Julius Szabo. In 1914 Father Szabo returned to Europe and Father Kubasek was assigned to the pastorship of the Yonkers parish. He had never forgotten his earlier aim to aid in the liberation of the Slovak people from the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As pastor of a Slovak American congregation, he continued to work for the liberation of the Slovaks. With the advent of World War I, the entire free world saw the collapse of the various monarchies in Europe. Father Kubasek, along with other alert exiled Slovak patriots, saw with the defeat of the Axis powers the opportunity of self-expression and self-determination among the subjugated peoples of the Hapsburg monarchy. (4) Towards the end of 1914 Father Kubasek together with other Slovak priests from the states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania organized the Federation of Slovak Priests of the Eastern States. The initial meeting was held at the Yonkers rectory and Father Kubasek was the major promotor of the Federation. It was the plan of Father Kubasek to unite the Slovak priests so that their combined effort would promote Slovak cultural publications, catechisms ,and historical works. This group endeavored to counteract the effort of some Magyarone Slovak priests who still encouraged patriotism to the Hungarian crown. Father Kubasek also wished the Slovak Catholic clergy to work for the liberation of the Slovak nation. Strong opposition from these Magyarone clergymen came principally through the columns of ZAST AV A, a pro-Hungarian weekly founded by the Reverend Joseph Kossalko in 1889. (5) Father Kossalko, the leader of the Magyarone Catholic clergy, was educated in Hungarian seminaries, received a monthly stipend from the Hungarian crown, and consequently was faithful to the philosophy of the Crown Lands of St. Stephen - the great Hungarian empire. SLOVAKIA 71 In 1915 Father Kubasek and his faithful friend Father Stephen J. Krasul'a (later Monsignor) undertook the administration of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, a federation of Slovak Catholic organizations , parishes, and institutions to promote Catholic action among Slovak Catholics in America. Founded in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania by Father Joseph Murgas, noted pioneer in wireless telegraphy, Father Kubaselc rescued the organization when it was at its lowest ebb. He was elected national president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America and Father Stephen J. Krasul'a was elected financial secretary. At this time Father Krasul'a was appointed to assist Father John Kropac at the Church of St. John Nepomucene in New York City. Upon the death of Father Kropac in 1916, Father Krasul'a was named pastor of the Manhattan parish. During the years of Father Kubasek 's presidency, the Slovak Catholic Federation was again a flourishing organization of Catholic action among Slovak Catholics. (6) It was during the administration of Father Kubasek that the Slovak Catholic Federation began to publish the monthly DOBRY PASTIER, or Good Shepherd magazine. Father Andrew A. Novajovsky (later Monsignor), who was ordained in 1918 and was assigned to assist Father Krasul'a in New York City, aided Father Krasul'a with the editing of the DOBRY PASTIER. Because of the efforts of Father Kubasek, the Slovak Catholic Federation (or the SDRUZENIE SLOVENSKYCH KATOLIKOV) became a mighty force defending and supporting, by speech, writing, and material assistance, all the needs and demands of the Slovak Catholics in the period of World War I. It became the philosophy of Father Kubasek, as with other national movements, to make known to the American public the atrocities inflicted upon the Slovaks within the Austro-Hungarian empire. Like a number of Irish patriots, the Slovak leaders found that the best method of achieving freedom for their compatriots in the homeland was by working in the United States, molding public opinion, and focusing the attention of other countries on the deplorable conditions in their own land. Father Kubasek became well acquainted with the triumvi leading the movement for liberating of the Czechs and the Slovaks from Hapsburg domination. In America much service was rendered to the liberation movement by Thomas G. Masaryk, son of a Slovak mother and a Czech father, who later became the first president of the CzechoSlovak Republic ; General Milan R. Stefanik, a Slovak who served the French Army of Liberation ; Vladimir Hurban, who became ambassador of Czecho-Slovakia to the United States and the Reverend John J. Kubasek. At the congress of the Slovak League of America, held in Cleveland , Ohio , on February 22, 1917, the Slovak organizations in the United States allied under the banner of the Slovak League officially gave support to the movement to establish a common state for the Slovaks and Czechs. (7) 72 SLOVAKIA Czech and Slovak legionnaires were recruited in all the free world to fight on the side of the allies and ultimately to achieve the liberation of the Czech and Slovak peoples. Father Kubasek became the chaplain of these legionnaires whose embarkation camp was located on the property of the nationally famous sculptor, Gutzon Borglum in Stamford , Connecticut. Father Kubasek received this appointment at the request of Mr. Kopecky, later a Czecho-Slovak Counsul in New York, and as chaplain, Father Kubasek offered Mass and heard the confessions of the legionnaires regularly. Often he was accompanied by Mr. Vendel Galik, organist of Most Holy Trinity Church in Yonkers, who served at these Masses. (8) Under the leadership of Father Kubasek , several interviews were held with General Milan R. Stefanik and a conference of Slovak Catholic priests was held in New York City on September 20, 1917. Meeting at the Hotel Plaza, the twenty priests conferred with General Stefanik, formulated a program of continued cooperation with the Czechs, and issued a proclamation and appeal to the people to promote the program of the Slovak League of America. This program envisioned the political federation of the united territories of the two brotherly nations - the Czechs and the Slovaks. (9) Finally an agreement was drawn up at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 30, 1918 in the presence of American representatives of the Czechs and Slovaks . Here Slovaks in America were represented by the Slovak League of America. It must be remembered that at that time the strongest supporters of the program of the Slovak League were the nonCatholic Slovak organizations; namely, the National Slovak Society, the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol, and the Zivena Beneficial Society. However, also affiliated with the Slovak League were the First Catholic Slovak Union, the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Union (later changed in 1967 to Association) , The Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol (later changed to Slovak Catholic Sokol), The Pennsylvania Roman and Greek Catholic Slovak Union (later changed to Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union), The Greek Catholic Union (Sojedinenja), the First Slovak Wreath of t};i.e Free Eagle, The Slovak Catholic Federation of America, The Slovak <;atholic Cadet Union, The Slovak Evangelical Union, The Ladies Slovak Evangelical Union, and other smaller Slovak associations and fraternal societies. The Czechs in America were represented by The Bohemian National Alliance and The Union of Czech Catholics. In the presence of Thomas G. Masaryk, who at that time was recognized by many States as the president of the provisional government of the rising Czecho-Slovak Republic, the Pittsburgh Agreement (PITTSBURGHSKA DOHODA), as it was known, was signed by all sixteen members of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in America, including Father Kubasek. Signed by Masaryk, in his capacity ·as president of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris, it specifically SLOVAKIA 73 promised that "Slovakia will have its own administration, its own Diet, and its own courts" and that "Slovak will be the official language in the schools, in offices, and in public life generally ." (10) Despite the fact that a short time later it was ignored by some influential circles, it was a powerful weapon in the hands of those fighting to defend the rights of the Slovak people within the CzechoSlovak framework. Father Kubasek convinced Thomas Masaryk and the entire body of the Czecho-Slovak National Council of the need for such an agreement. Father Kubasek received a letter dated November 20, 1918 from Thomas G. Masaryk insuring that the question of religion in Slovakia would be negotiated legally and with the cooperation of the respective ecclesiastical authorities. As Monsignor Andrew Hlinka , patriot of Slovak autonomy, indicated at a later date, this guarantee, placed in proper hands and at the proper time, would benefit the Slovaks in their problems concerning religion. In 1919, after unfavorable reports from Czecho-Slovakia regarding the religious situation, Father Kubasek, then president of the Slovak Catholic Federation of America, convinced the board of directors of the need to send a delegate to investigate the situation first hand. He entrusted this responsibility to the Reverend Anthony Gracik, pastor of St. Stephen's Parish in Newark, New Jersey. After his personal visit to Slovakia, Father Gracik made his report and clarified many situations that had seemed enigmatic. A copy of this letter remains in the archives of Most Holy Trinity Parish. (11) The many activites of the Yonkers clergyman on behalf of the liberation of the Slovak and Czech peoples brought much recognition to Father Kubasek as an individual and to the entire Slovak community as well. After the establishment of the first Republic of Czecho-Slovakia President Thomas G. Masaryk offered him a high position in the government of the new nation but Father Kubasek declined the offer. He rightly felt that his first obligation was to serve the spiritual needs of his countrymen here in the United States. Aside from his international and national activities among the Slovaks, he was first and foremost a priest of God and the shepherd of the Slovak Catholics of Yonkers. He provided greatly for their spiritual and material progress. He constructed a new convent in 1914 for the Dominican Sisters of Sparkhill who staffed his school. In 1924 he constructed a new modern school built upon plans that he personally laid out after inspecting numerous school buildings in New York and New Jersey. This structure was a monument to the creativity of a pastor who sought to serve effectively every segment of his congregation. It was in 1927, after the construction of this school that Father Kubasek became blind. This affliction was attributed to a nervous ailment suffered from overwork during the building of the school. Despite his handicap, he continued parish activities and the efficient 74 SLOVAKIA management of the Holy Trinity Parish. A special dispensation from the Pope allowed him to say the Mass in honor of Our Blessed Lady, which he memorized. He performed marriage ceremonies , heard confessions and continued to direct major events of his parish. In February, 1937, he celebrated his Silver Jubilee in the priesthood with a solemn Mass and banquet. At the Mass, which preceeded the banquet, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael J . Lavelle , P.A ., Vicar General of the Archdiocese of New York, brought greetings from Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York. In speaking of Father Kubasek's handicap he observed that the priest '' sees more thoroughly than any of us, because he sees with the eyes of the mind." More than 1,200 attended the festive banquet in the evening, held in the auditorium of the school which he built and sacrificed so much for. Distinguished representatives of every walk of life in community participated in the generous outpouring of commendation and felicitation for a priest who served most effectively both his God, and his fellow man. (12) Over the years Father Kubasek remained an exemplary priest of God , an outstanding administrator and a highly respected citizen of his community. In 1945, on the Golden Jubilee of the establishment of his parish, he welcomed the Most Reverend Francis J. Spellman, D.D., Archbishop of New York (later Cardinal), into his parish. Finally, after many years of suffering but always cheerful and optimistic, Father John J. Kubasek, priest and patriot, friend of the great and not so great, a personality filled with an indomitable determination to bring to success the goals which he had set for himself and his parish, died during the ringing of the Angelus bells at noon on Friday June 16, 1950, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers . Thousands of parishioners , friends, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, came to pay their respects to a simple man who rose to the heights of greatness through hard work, dedicated spirit, and endless endurance. Father Kubasek helped to mold men's lives with his example of sacrifice and priestly character. Although l?lind for the last twentythree years of his life, he never gave up, \he never abandoned his people, his community and most importantly his God. His funeral was a tribute fitting the greatest of statesmen, yet it represented the simplicity of the faith of his people. Monsignor Stephen J. Krasul'a, P.A., his long time friend and co-worker, was the celebrant of the Solemn Mass of Requiem offered on Monday morning June 19. The Slovak clergy was headed by the Right Reverend Theodore G. Kojis, O.S.B ., Abbot of Saint Andrew-Svorad's Abbey in Cleveland, Ohio. Scores of priests from the entire United States, as well as the local clergy came to pay final tribute to the greatness of Father Kubasek. (13) The editorial which appeared in the June 19, 1950 issue of THE HERALD STATES MAN sums up the philosophy of the person· of Father Kubasek: '' . . . he leaves to a sorrowing parish, a sorrowing SLOVAKIA 75 city, a sorrowing Church and a sorrowing nation a rich and inspiring heritage. It is a heritage of courage, typified by the manner in which he went forward in his work after he had sacrificed his eyesight to the indefatigable discharge of his duties. It is a heritage of service to others, a heritage of selfishness and humility, demonstrated in his constant insistence that credit should go to others, it is the heritage of love of God, that impelled him to labor ceaselessly toward the realization of spiritual objectives. The world is better for his having lived in it, and the city in which he worked so long will hold him in affectionate memory.'' (Reprinted from Slovaks of Yonkers, New York, by Daniel F. Tanzone, First Catholic Slovak Union (Cleveland, Ohio, 1976).) FOOTNOTES (1) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 20, 1937, p . 1. (2) Gilbert L. Oddo, Slovakia and Its People, (New York, 1960), pp. 133-134. (3) Joseph Pauco, Slovenski priekopnici v Amerike, (Middletown, 1972) , p. 258. (4) Konstantin Culen, Pittsburgska Dohoda, (Bratislava, 1937), p. 438. (5) Konstantin Culen , Dejiny Slovakov v Amerike vol. 1, (Bratislava, 1942), pp. 114-115. (6) Zlata Kniha R . K. Osady Najsv. Trojice, (New York , 1945), p . 81. (7) Joseph Pauco, 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty, (Cleveland, 1965), p. 139. (8) Zlata Kniha, p . 83 . (9) Ibid . (10) Marian M. Stolarik, "The Role of American Slovaks in the Creation of CzechoSlovakia 1914-1918." Slovak Studies vm, (Cleveland-Rome, 1968), p. 48. (11) Zlata K niha. (12) THE HERALD STATESMAN, February 24, 1937. (13) THE HERALD STATESMAN, June 17, 1950.  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 John J. Kubašek, Priest and Patriot Description An account of the resource Daniel F. Tanzone Slovakia, Vol. 26 (No. 49), 1976 pp. 69-75 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/d97f04d4aa6e3f519fd92cf2286ee0a5.pdf f8110f0be2bce5adf4ef7afe7f8764af PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXII 1985-1986 NUMBERS 58-59 A scholarly annua l devoted to the history, literature , and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Associate Editor THOMAS D. MARZIK Saint Joseph's University Editorial Board GEORGE J. DEMKO U.S. Department of State MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute DAVID P. DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary STANLEY Z. PECH University of British Columbia OWEN V. JOHNSON Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A . HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher The Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson , NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $6 .00 Manuscripts for poss ible publication and books for review should be se nt to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Ave., Havertown , PA 19083. �Printed by JEDNOTA PRESS A Division of Jednota Communications, Inc. Middletown , Pennsylvania 17057 U.S .A. �SLOVAKIA 3 Table of Contents A Message from the President Daniel F. Tanzone .......... . ............... . ...... .. .. . . 5 HISTORY Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir Joseph Stasko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Slovak-American Newspapers , 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M . Mark Stolarik ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 LITERATURE Excerpt from "In Due Season" (II) Paul Wilkes .... ... .. . ... . ..... .. . .......... . 73 REVIEWS Historicky tasopis , 33 , 2 (1985), "K Vel 'komoravskemu vyrociu," and Anna Holla , Metod - utitel' Slovienov. K 1100 vyrotiu umrtia {885-1985} Theodoric f. Zubek . 85 Julius Sopko , Stredoveke latinske k6dexy v slovenskych knizniciach, and Stredoveke latinskekodexy slovenskej proveniencie v Mad 'arsku av Rumunsku Gerald f. Sabo .................... 88 L'ubomir Juck , ed ., Vysady miest a mestetiek na Slovensku, and Richard Marsina, ed., Narodnostny vyvoj miest na Slovensku David P. Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Juraj Zudel, Stolice na Slovensku R. Vladimir Baumgerten 92 �4 SLOVAKIA Joseph Stasko , ed., Tvorcovia noveho Slovenskat' - The Shaping of Modern Slovakia 96 George Virsik Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, ed., Slovak Politics George Virsik 97 Frantisek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantrna Culena Owen V. Johnson 100 Miroslav Kropilak a kolektlv , Dejiny Slovenska V James R. Felak 102 Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power Robert K. Evanson . . . . . . . . .. . ... . 106 M. Mark Stolarik , Growing Up on the South Side June G. Alexander 108 Ferenc Feher & Agnes Heller , Hungary 1956 Revisited Peter R . Hruby 111 Jozef Ciger-Hronsky, Jozef Mak William E. Harkins 113 Pavol Stevcek, Contemporary Slovak Literature Gerald J. Sabo 115 Contributors 11 7 Guidelines for Manuscripts 119 �SLOVAKIA 5 A Message from the President It is a distinct pleasure to introduce another excellent volume of Slovakia, a scholarly annual of the Slovak League of America, an organization founded in Cleveland in 1907 as the voice of most Slovak-American fraternals. Since its creation in 1951 by the late Philip Hrobak, editor of Jednota and President of the Slovak League of America, Slovakia has presented to the English-speaking world the often-neglected history and culture of one of Europe 's oldest nations . This 1985-1986 double issue offers the reader the opportunity to gain yet another glimpse of the life of the Slovaks, both at home and in diaspora . It honors the centennial of the Slovak press in America because our first newspaper arose in Pittsburgh in 1885. The 220 newspapers that followed (listed as they appeared each year by our editor, Dr. Stolarik) , testify to the vibrant and important chapter that the Slovak-American press played in the life of the Slovak nation. In diaspora the aspirations and ideals of the Slovaks received the necessary spark to ignite a movement for selfdetermination , the likes of which had not been seen for a thousand years. It is providential that in 1987 we celebrate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. This document has had a farreaching impact on countries and peoples all over the world . In many ways the Constitution legitimized revolutions which brought freedom to numerous nations in various parts of the world . The Slovaks, too, learned from this document that they also had the right to seek their just and God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were inspired by this document to seek for their brothers and sisters in Slovakia the same freedom which belongs to all peoples . In conclusion, the Slovak League of America is pleased to publish such a wonderful volume of history and culture in the hope that Slovaks and non-Slovaks, free or not, may learn something of the rich heritage and culture of Slovakia and how its people contributed to the American cultural mosaic. DANIEL F. TANZONE , President Slovak League of America ��SLOVAKIA HISTORY 7 �� SLOVAKIA Published By THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA ��SLOVAKIA VOLUME XXXII 1985-1986 NUMBERS 58-59 A scholarly annua l devoted to the history, literature , and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Associate Editor THOMAS D. MARZIK Saint Joseph's University Editorial Board GEORGE J. DEMKO U.S. Department of State MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute DAVID P. DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary STANLEY Z. PECH University of British Columbia OWEN V. JOHNSON Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A . HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher The Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson , NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $6 .00 Manuscripts for poss ible publication and books for review should be se nt to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Ave., Havertown , PA 19083. �Printed by JEDNOTA PRESS A Division of Jednota Communications, Inc. Middletown , Pennsylvania 17057 U.S .A. �SLOVAKIA 3 Table of Contents A Message from the President Daniel F. Tanzone .......... . ............... . ...... .. .. . . 5 HISTORY Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir Joseph Stasko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Slovak-American Newspapers , 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M . Mark Stolarik ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 LITERATURE Excerpt from "In Due Season" (II) Paul Wilkes .... ... .. . ... . ..... .. . .......... . 73 REVIEWS Historicky tasopis , 33 , 2 (1985), "K Vel 'komoravskemu vyrociu," and Anna Holla , Metod - utitel' Slovienov. K 1100 vyrotiu umrtia {885-1985} Theodoric f. Zubek . 85 Julius Sopko , Stredoveke latinske k6dexy v slovenskych knizniciach, and Stredoveke latinskekodexy slovenskej proveniencie v Mad 'arsku av Rumunsku Gerald f. Sabo .................... 88 L'ubomir Juck , ed ., Vysady miest a mestetiek na Slovensku, and Richard Marsina, ed., Narodnostny vyvoj miest na Slovensku David P. Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Juraj Zudel, Stolice na Slovensku R. Vladimir Baumgerten 92 �4 SLOVAKIA Joseph Stasko , ed., Tvorcovia noveho Slovenskat' - The Shaping of Modern Slovakia 96 George Virsik Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, ed., Slovak Politics George Virsik 97 Frantisek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantrna Culena Owen V. Johnson 100 Miroslav Kropilak a kolektlv , Dejiny Slovenska V James R. Felak 102 Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power Robert K. Evanson . . . . . . . . .. . ... . 106 M. Mark Stolarik , Growing Up on the South Side June G. Alexander 108 Ferenc Feher & Agnes Heller , Hungary 1956 Revisited Peter R . Hruby 111 Jozef Ciger-Hronsky, Jozef Mak William E. Harkins 113 Pavol Stevcek, Contemporary Slovak Literature Gerald J. Sabo 115 Contributors 11 7 Guidelines for Manuscripts 119 �SLOVAKIA 5 A Message from the President It is a distinct pleasure to introduce another excellent volume of Slovakia, a scholarly annual of the Slovak League of America, an organization founded in Cleveland in 1907 as the voice of most Slovak-American fraternals. Since its creation in 1951 by the late Philip Hrobak, editor of Jednota and President of the Slovak League of America, Slovakia has presented to the English-speaking world the often-neglected history and culture of one of Europe 's oldest nations . This 1985-1986 double issue offers the reader the opportunity to gain yet another glimpse of the life of the Slovaks, both at home and in diaspora . It honors the centennial of the Slovak press in America because our first newspaper arose in Pittsburgh in 1885. The 220 newspapers that followed (listed as they appeared each year by our editor, Dr. Stolarik) , testify to the vibrant and important chapter that the Slovak-American press played in the life of the Slovak nation. In diaspora the aspirations and ideals of the Slovaks received the necessary spark to ignite a movement for selfdetermination , the likes of which had not been seen for a thousand years. It is providential that in 1987 we celebrate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. This document has had a farreaching impact on countries and peoples all over the world . In many ways the Constitution legitimized revolutions which brought freedom to numerous nations in various parts of the world . The Slovaks, too, learned from this document that they also had the right to seek their just and God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were inspired by this document to seek for their brothers and sisters in Slovakia the same freedom which belongs to all peoples . In conclusion, the Slovak League of America is pleased to publish such a wonderful volume of history and culture in the hope that Slovaks and non-Slovaks, free or not, may learn something of the rich heritage and culture of Slovakia and how its people contributed to the American cultural mosaic. DANIEL F. TANZONE , President Slovak League of America ��SLOVAKIA HISTORY 7 �� 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 1985-86, Vol. 32 Description An account of the resource Vol. 32 (No. 58-59), 1985-86. 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 1985-86 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 XXXII 1985-1986 NUMBERS 58-59 A scholarly annua l devoted to the history, literature , and culture of the Slovaks the world over. Editor M. MARK STOLARIK The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies Associate Editor THOMAS D. MARZIK Saint Joseph's University Editorial Board GEORGE J. DEMKO U.S. Department of State MICHAEL NOV AK American Enterprise Institute DAVID P. DANIEL Concordia Theological Seminary STANLEY Z. PECH University of British Columbia OWEN V. JOHNSON Indiana University NORMAL. RUDINSKY Oregon State University Slovak League Advisory Board DANIEL F. TANZONE EDWARD J. BEHUNCIK DRAGA DIVINSKA JOHN A . HOLY JOSEPH C. KRAJSA Publisher The Slovak League of America 870 Rifle Camp Road West Paterson , NJ 07424 Inquiries regarding subscriptions should be sent to the above address. The cost of a single issue is U.S. $6 .00 Manuscripts for poss ible publication and books for review should be se nt to M. Mark Stolarik, Editor, Slovakia, 700 Penfield Ave., Havertown , PA 19083. Printed by JEDNOTA PRESS A Division of Jednota Communications, Inc. Middletown , Pennsylvania 17057 U.S .A. SLOVAKIA 3 Table of Contents A Message from the President Daniel F. Tanzone .......... . ............... . ...... .. .. . . 5 HISTORY Stefan Osusky's Attempts to Establish Contacts with Slovakia in 1939: A Personal Memoir Joseph Stasko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Slovak-American Newspapers , 1885-1975: A Preliminary Listing M . Mark Stolarik ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 LITERATURE Excerpt from "In Due Season" (II) Paul Wilkes .... ... .. . ... . ..... .. . .......... . 73 REVIEWS Historicky tasopis , 33 , 2 (1985), "K Vel 'komoravskemu vyrociu," and Anna Holla , Metod - utitel' Slovienov. K 1100 vyrotiu umrtia {885-1985} Theodoric f. Zubek . 85 Julius Sopko , Stredoveke latinske k6dexy v slovenskych knizniciach, and Stredoveke latinskekodexy slovenskej proveniencie v Mad 'arsku av Rumunsku Gerald f. Sabo .................... 88 L'ubomir Juck , ed ., Vysady miest a mestetiek na Slovensku, and Richard Marsina, ed., Narodnostny vyvoj miest na Slovensku David P. Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Juraj Zudel, Stolice na Slovensku R. Vladimir Baumgerten 92 4 SLOVAKIA Joseph Stasko , ed., Tvorcovia noveho Slovenskat' - The Shaping of Modern Slovakia 96 George Virsik Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, ed., Slovak Politics George Virsik 97 Frantisek Vnuk, Zivotopis Konstantrna Culena Owen V. Johnson 100 Miroslav Kropilak a kolektlv , Dejiny Slovenska V James R. Felak 102 Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, The Lust for Power Robert K. Evanson . . . . . . . . .. . ... . 106 M. Mark Stolarik , Growing Up on the South Side June G. Alexander 108 Ferenc Feher & Agnes Heller , Hungary 1956 Revisited Peter R . Hruby 111 Jozef Ciger-Hronsky, Jozef Mak William E. Harkins 113 Pavol Stevcek, Contemporary Slovak Literature Gerald J. Sabo 115 Contributors 11 7 Guidelines for Manuscripts 119 SLOVAKIA 5 A Message from the President It is a distinct pleasure to introduce another excellent volume of Slovakia, a scholarly annual of the Slovak League of America, an organization founded in Cleveland in 1907 as the voice of most Slovak-American fraternals. Since its creation in 1951 by the late Philip Hrobak, editor of Jednota and President of the Slovak League of America, Slovakia has presented to the English-speaking world the often-neglected history and culture of one of Europe 's oldest nations . This 1985-1986 double issue offers the reader the opportunity to gain yet another glimpse of the life of the Slovaks, both at home and in diaspora . It honors the centennial of the Slovak press in America because our first newspaper arose in Pittsburgh in 1885. The 220 newspapers that followed (listed as they appeared each year by our editor, Dr. Stolarik) , testify to the vibrant and important chapter that the Slovak-American press played in the life of the Slovak nation. In diaspora the aspirations and ideals of the Slovaks received the necessary spark to ignite a movement for selfdetermination , the likes of which had not been seen for a thousand years. It is providential that in 1987 we celebrate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. This document has had a farreaching impact on countries and peoples all over the world . In many ways the Constitution legitimized revolutions which brought freedom to numerous nations in various parts of the world . The Slovaks, too, learned from this document that they also had the right to seek their just and God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They were inspired by this document to seek for their brothers and sisters in Slovakia the same freedom which belongs to all peoples . In conclusion, the Slovak League of America is pleased to publish such a wonderful volume of history and culture in the hope that Slovaks and non-Slovaks, free or not, may learn something of the rich heritage and culture of Slovakia and how its people contributed to the American cultural mosaic. DANIEL F. TANZONE , President Slovak League of America SLOVAKIA HISTORY 7  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. 32 (No. 58-59) Description An account of the resource includes A Message from the President (Daniel F. Tanzone) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tanzone, Daniel F. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-86 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/ce5fa98de66319d31fd8aaa1f6549131.pdf 26df22af09220c5330e97a6ac9b22f8d PDF Text Text 48 SLOVAKIA COMMUNIST TACTICAL "FLEXIBILITY" Dr. Fraiio Tiso Die-hard coexistentialists in the western world repeatedly call for "Flexibility" in political negotiations with Moscow. Among their number are those who in their naivete sincerely believe it possible, by applying a flexible method of negotiation, to bring about a relaxation of tension between East and West. Among them are also masked Communists who, by the aid of "flexibility," seek to effeot a more rapid capitulation of the West. Oddly enough not one of the two .types of coexistentialists has so far given a concrete example as to just how the West should practice this flexibility wilth respect to the East. Hence it may be interesting to demonstrate "flexibility" as the Communists practice it. Communist tactics operate primarily 1by "mental reservation." I experienced the first typical case of such :tactics in Moscow. During the early summer of 1940, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Comrade Molotov, presented Rumanian Consul Davidescu an ultimatum in which Rumania was asked to evacuate and immediately turn over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. After delivering the ultimatum Comrade Molotov consoled the painfully perplexed consul with the following words: "And wihen you have ca,,rried out our demand, the Soviet Union will no longeT interfere in Rumania's domestic affairs." This generous promise was an easy one for Molotov to make. It was not even necessary for the Soviet Union to interfere directly in Rumanian domestic affairs since the Rumanian Oommunist Party - on order of Moscow - could do so anyway whenever it liked. Stalin, for example, was frequently asked in writing, mostly by American journalists, such questions as: "Do you believe that the two divergent political, economic and social systems can satisfactorily live side by side?" Stalin's answer was always: "I believe it." At no time, however, has the question been asked: "How long will you continue to believe it?" During the Magyar popular revolt in 1956, an agree- �SLOVAKIA 49 ment was made between Premier Nagy and the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet troops, according to which Soviet forces would move out of Hungary at a certain border point. Premier Nagy, himself a Communist and Communist-educated, failed to have it included in the agreement that other Sovii.et troops would not enter Hungary via a different border point. Wihen, then, the units of the Soviet Army left Budapest only to call a halt some kilometers away, and when in consternation, Nagy inquired as to the cause for this halt, he was told the troops were merely being regrouped. The unhappy premier had forgotten to ask fur what purpose this regrouping was being made. Comrade Khrushchev declared in Peking, immediately after his visit to the United States, that it was wrong to want to force a people. into the Communist camp against its will. That it was wrong "to test ilie stability of the capitalist system by force, since the peoples would never understand and back ilie person who mentally pursues such a tactic." Did Comrade Khrushchev, however, worry about being understood when he was brutally forcing peoples into the Communist sphere? Did he worry about the understanding of the Magyar people? Did he ever solicit the support of the enslaved peoples, among these ihis own Russian people? "Flexibility''. of tactics; tactic of "flexibility" ! The Czech Communists behaved nobly indeed toward the autonomous movement of the Slovaks during the years from 1918 to 1938: they repeatedly emphasized in their news organs that the Slovaks, too, have a right to self-determination and they allowed for this to the day when the Slovaks were separated from Czecho-Slovakia. In April, 1945, they forced Benes to relinquish the national identilty of Slovaks and Czechs, which he had so tenaciously insisted on up to that time, to proclaim the popular independence of the Slovaks and to guarantee to Slovakia the rights of a federal state (the Kosice agreement" of April 1945). As part of :bhe election propaganda of 1946, they presented to the Slovak voters a program which favored the restoration of Slovak independence. When, however, the elections were won not by the Com- �50 SLOVAKIA munists but by the middle class, the Communists began to steer an opposite course. In the new constitution of Czecho-4Slovakia, presented to and accepted by the parliament upon the complete Communist seizure of power in February 1948, they permitted the Slovak provincial government to remain, but with severely curtailed authority. Czedh Communists took over its important administrative dep-artments and the leadership of the Slovak Communist Party. Slovak party leaders were either executed or sentenced to lengthy terms in the penitentiary. Others took !their lives. Key positions in the party press were given to Czechs. Czechs also took over leading jobs in Slovak industry. Inasmuch as these and sim'ilar dispositions on the part of Prague merely served to humble old Slovak Communists and reinforce their opposition to Prague, Comrade Antonin Novotny, first secretary of the Czech Communist Party and the country's president, caused a widespread centralization of the over-all state economic life and the drafting of a new "socialist" constitution. Centraliza!tiion of the economy meant additional sU'bo:ridination of Slovak industry to Czech management. The new basic law, however, was to do away with the provincial or territorial government of Slovakia, which had become almost insignificant. This was .truly a "flexibility" tihat led to the exact opposite of what was demanded so impressively thirty years ago. Flexibility in the tactics of the West? Moscow was able to apply the flexibility, cited above in several examples, not only by dint of Communist morality which says .that that is moral which serves the Party, but also for the reason that Communism has so far been on the offensive. The West, however, is still on the defensive. But a defensive stand, does not offer much of a chance or method of application, for to be "flexible" the West must also convert to a counter-offensive. To advise the vanguard country on the East-West front, the West German Federal Repu·blic, to be fle~ible, while those who do the advising sit and play caros in bunkers that are not even expertly and reliably built, such is not the great art of war, and certainly it is not a form of protection. � 48 SLOVAKIA COMMUNIST TACTICAL "FLEXIBILITY" Dr. Fraiio Tiso Die-hard coexistentialists in the western world repeatedly call for "Flexibility" in political negotiations with Moscow. Among their number are those who in their naivete sincerely believe it possible, by applying a flexible method of negotiation, to bring about a relaxation of tension between East and West. Among them are also masked Communists who, by the aid of "flexibility," seek to effeot a more rapid capitulation of the West. Oddly enough not one of the two .types of coexistentialists has so far given a concrete example as to just how the West should practice this flexibility wilth respect to the East. Hence it may be interesting to demonstrate "flexibility" as the Communists practice it. Communist tactics operate primarily 1by "mental reservation." I experienced the first typical case of such :tactics in Moscow. During the early summer of 1940, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Comrade Molotov, presented Rumanian Consul Davidescu an ultimatum in which Rumania was asked to evacuate and immediately turn over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. After delivering the ultimatum Comrade Molotov consoled the painfully perplexed consul with the following words: "And wihen you have ca,,rried out our demand, the Soviet Union will no longeT interfere in Rumania's domestic affairs." This generous promise was an easy one for Molotov to make. It was not even necessary for the Soviet Union to interfere directly in Rumanian domestic affairs since the Rumanian Oommunist Party - on order of Moscow - could do so anyway whenever it liked. Stalin, for example, was frequently asked in writing, mostly by American journalists, such questions as: "Do you believe that the two divergent political, economic and social systems can satisfactorily live side by side?" Stalin's answer was always: "I believe it." At no time, however, has the question been asked: "How long will you continue to believe it?" During the Magyar popular revolt in 1956, an agree- �SLOVAKIA 49 ment was made between Premier Nagy and the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet troops, according to which Soviet forces would move out of Hungary at a certain border point. Premier Nagy, himself a Communist and Communist-educated, failed to have it included in the agreement that other Sovii.et troops would not enter Hungary via a different border point. Wihen, then, the units of the Soviet Army left Budapest only to call a halt some kilometers away, and when in consternation, Nagy inquired as to the cause for this halt, he was told the troops were merely being regrouped. The unhappy premier had forgotten to ask fur what purpose this regrouping was being made. Comrade Khrushchev declared in Peking, immediately after his visit to the United States, that it was wrong to want to force a people. into the Communist camp against its will. That it was wrong "to test ilie stability of the capitalist system by force, since the peoples would never understand and back ilie person who mentally pursues such a tactic." Did Comrade Khrushchev, however, worry about being understood when he was brutally forcing peoples into the Communist sphere? Did he worry about the understanding of the Magyar people? Did he ever solicit the support of the enslaved peoples, among these ihis own Russian people? "Flexibility''. of tactics; tactic of "flexibility" ! The Czech Communists behaved nobly indeed toward the autonomous movement of the Slovaks during the years from 1918 to 1938: they repeatedly emphasized in their news organs that the Slovaks, too, have a right to self-determination and they allowed for this to the day when the Slovaks were separated from Czecho-Slovakia. In April, 1945, they forced Benes to relinquish the national identilty of Slovaks and Czechs, which he had so tenaciously insisted on up to that time, to proclaim the popular independence of the Slovaks and to guarantee to Slovakia the rights of a federal state (the Kosice agreement" of April 1945). As part of :bhe election propaganda of 1946, they presented to the Slovak voters a program which favored the restoration of Slovak independence. When, however, the elections were won not by the Com- �50 SLOVAKIA munists but by the middle class, the Communists began to steer an opposite course. In the new constitution of Czecho-4Slovakia, presented to and accepted by the parliament upon the complete Communist seizure of power in February 1948, they permitted the Slovak provincial government to remain, but with severely curtailed authority. Czedh Communists took over its important administrative dep-artments and the leadership of the Slovak Communist Party. Slovak party leaders were either executed or sentenced to lengthy terms in the penitentiary. Others took !their lives. Key positions in the party press were given to Czechs. Czechs also took over leading jobs in Slovak industry. Inasmuch as these and sim'ilar dispositions on the part of Prague merely served to humble old Slovak Communists and reinforce their opposition to Prague, Comrade Antonin Novotny, first secretary of the Czech Communist Party and the country's president, caused a widespread centralization of the over-all state economic life and the drafting of a new "socialist" constitution. Centraliza!tiion of the economy meant additional sU'bo:ridination of Slovak industry to Czech management. The new basic law, however, was to do away with the provincial or territorial government of Slovakia, which had become almost insignificant. This was .truly a "flexibility" tihat led to the exact opposite of what was demanded so impressively thirty years ago. Flexibility in the tactics of the West? Moscow was able to apply the flexibility, cited above in several examples, not only by dint of Communist morality which says .that that is moral which serves the Party, but also for the reason that Communism has so far been on the offensive. The West, however, is still on the defensive. But a defensive stand, does not offer much of a chance or method of application, for to be "flexible" the West must also convert to a counter-offensive. To advise the vanguard country on the East-West front, the West German Federal Repu·blic, to be fle~ible, while those who do the advising sit and play caros in bunkers that are not even expertly and reliably built, such is not the great art of war, and certainly it is not a form of protection. � 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 1960, Vol. 10 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 6 [sic] (No. 31), March-June 1960.</li> <li>Issue 7 [sic] (No. 32), September-December 1960.</li> </ul> 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 1960 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 48 SLOVAKIA COMMUNIST TACTICAL "FLEXIBILITY" Dr. Fraiio Tiso Die-hard coexistentialists in the western world repeatedly call for "Flexibility" in political negotiations with Moscow. Among their number are those who in their naivete sincerely believe it possible, by applying a flexible method of negotiation, to bring about a relaxation of tension between East and West. Among them are also masked Communists who, by the aid of "flexibility," seek to effeot a more rapid capitulation of the West. Oddly enough not one of the two .types of coexistentialists has so far given a concrete example as to just how the West should practice this flexibility wilth respect to the East. Hence it may be interesting to demonstrate "flexibility" as the Communists practice it. Communist tactics operate primarily 1by "mental reservation." I experienced the first typical case of such :tactics in Moscow. During the early summer of 1940, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Comrade Molotov, presented Rumanian Consul Davidescu an ultimatum in which Rumania was asked to evacuate and immediately turn over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. After delivering the ultimatum Comrade Molotov consoled the painfully perplexed consul with the following words: "And wihen you have ca,,rried out our demand, the Soviet Union will no longeT interfere in Rumania's domestic affairs." This generous promise was an easy one for Molotov to make. It was not even necessary for the Soviet Union to interfere directly in Rumanian domestic affairs since the Rumanian Oommunist Party - on order of Moscow - could do so anyway whenever it liked. Stalin, for example, was frequently asked in writing, mostly by American journalists, such questions as: "Do you believe that the two divergent political, economic and social systems can satisfactorily live side by side?" Stalin's answer was always: "I believe it." At no time, however, has the question been asked: "How long will you continue to believe it?" During the Magyar popular revolt in 1956, an agree- SLOVAKIA 49 ment was made between Premier Nagy and the Commander-in-Chief of Soviet troops, according to which Soviet forces would move out of Hungary at a certain border point. Premier Nagy, himself a Communist and Communist-educated, failed to have it included in the agreement that other Sovii.et troops would not enter Hungary via a different border point. Wihen, then, the units of the Soviet Army left Budapest only to call a halt some kilometers away, and when in consternation, Nagy inquired as to the cause for this halt, he was told the troops were merely being regrouped. The unhappy premier had forgotten to ask fur what purpose this regrouping was being made. Comrade Khrushchev declared in Peking, immediately after his visit to the United States, that it was wrong to want to force a people. into the Communist camp against its will. That it was wrong "to test ilie stability of the capitalist system by force, since the peoples would never understand and back ilie person who mentally pursues such a tactic." Did Comrade Khrushchev, however, worry about being understood when he was brutally forcing peoples into the Communist sphere? Did he worry about the understanding of the Magyar people? Did he ever solicit the support of the enslaved peoples, among these ihis own Russian people? "Flexibility''. of tactics; tactic of "flexibility" ! The Czech Communists behaved nobly indeed toward the autonomous movement of the Slovaks during the years from 1918 to 1938: they repeatedly emphasized in their news organs that the Slovaks, too, have a right to self-determination and they allowed for this to the day when the Slovaks were separated from Czecho-Slovakia. In April, 1945, they forced Benes to relinquish the national identilty of Slovaks and Czechs, which he had so tenaciously insisted on up to that time, to proclaim the popular independence of the Slovaks and to guarantee to Slovakia the rights of a federal state (the Kosice agreement" of April 1945). As part of :bhe election propaganda of 1946, they presented to the Slovak voters a program which favored the restoration of Slovak independence. When, however, the elections were won not by the Com- 50 SLOVAKIA munists but by the middle class, the Communists began to steer an opposite course. In the new constitution of Czecho-4Slovakia, presented to and accepted by the parliament upon the complete Communist seizure of power in February 1948, they permitted the Slovak provincial government to remain, but with severely curtailed authority. Czedh Communists took over its important administrative dep-artments and the leadership of the Slovak Communist Party. Slovak party leaders were either executed or sentenced to lengthy terms in the penitentiary. Others took !their lives. Key positions in the party press were given to Czechs. Czechs also took over leading jobs in Slovak industry. Inasmuch as these and sim'ilar dispositions on the part of Prague merely served to humble old Slovak Communists and reinforce their opposition to Prague, Comrade Antonin Novotny, first secretary of the Czech Communist Party and the country's president, caused a widespread centralization of the over-all state economic life and the drafting of a new "socialist" constitution. Centraliza!tiion of the economy meant additional sU'bo:ridination of Slovak industry to Czech management. The new basic law, however, was to do away with the provincial or territorial government of Slovakia, which had become almost insignificant. This was .truly a "flexibility" tihat led to the exact opposite of what was demanded so impressively thirty years ago. Flexibility in the tactics of the West? Moscow was able to apply the flexibility, cited above in several examples, not only by dint of Communist morality which says .that that is moral which serves the Party, but also for the reason that Communism has so far been on the offensive. The West, however, is still on the defensive. But a defensive stand, does not offer much of a chance or method of application, for to be "flexible" the West must also convert to a counter-offensive. To advise the vanguard country on the East-West front, the West German Federal Repu·blic, to be fle~ible, while those who do the advising sit and play caros in bunkers that are not even expertly and reliably built, such is not the great art of war, and certainly it is not a form of protection.  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 Communist Tactical "Flexibility" Description An account of the resource Dr. Fraňo Tiso Slovakia, Vol. 10, No. 7 (32), September-December 1960 pp. 48-50 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiso, Fraňo Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September-December 1960 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/eb1d6340b2bbe1b294801953ebfa8501.pdf a085e310acd3ef0b5c8710012d6b1111 PDF Text Text 46 SLOVAKIA government, the U. S. Department of State ordered the U. S. Army authorities in Austria to surrender Tlso and his group to the CzechoSlovak War Crimes Commlsslon. In November 1945 Dr. Tlso and members of the Slovak government were delivered to Czecho-Slovak authorities as war criminals, though their status was never lnvesti· gated by the U. S. authorities. From Pra.g ue Dr. Tiso and several of hls group were sent to Bra• tislava to stand tria! before the Natlonal Court The tria! began December 2, 1946, and ended March 14, 1947. Sentence was pronounced by the Court on Aplil 15, and Father Tiso, reciting the rosary out loud, was Jed to the gallows at 5: 30 a. m. on April 19, 1947; he was pronounced dead seven mlnutes Jater. SJovaks the world over agree wlth Father Tiso's aged mother: Dr. Tlso died a martyr for the cause of his people and his Church. • • • ;}IJHIIIIIIIIUll ttlllUlltltllll l lllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIHIUII IIIIIIIIIIIIUI IIIUhl lllllll llllUOttlllflllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllflllllHIIIHIIIUIIIIIIIIIUI UIUIUtl. PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO ms PEOPLE " In the spirit of the sacrlfice I am about. to make, 1 aend thl• message to the Slovak natlon : " In harmony and un lson pursue alway,, everywhere and In every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND F-OR THE NATION. I=== _ ::}f;:~~i'.:I~~~.:~;: : : ~.:=;:~•::~~:::;.:~: I===_ "That precept I have ,erved all my llfe and, therefore, 1 '=- != 1 1 ~ ;:;ľi:he;t ~y:f afi:,.:;,. a~~ :h::~:n:: :o:~,.::~~n~:co::~:~,! bolshevism, against which our nation must in all ponlble way, :::•::..:<;:•~;::,:~:: :,:~• ,:~:;:: of 1t, Chri,tlan cha~oto•, '=- 1 "A• 1 beg you to remember me In your praye,.., so do I pro. _ Br atislava, April 18 , 1947, 3 a. m. 1 ~~:~_0[;:t:f:;: : i~}~~};,~f!J~:;.:.1;.:-t: 1 DR. JOSEPH TISO. ~ (ltl1111111UIIIIIHU lllllllllltlllUIIIIIIUUIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIIIINUlllllUlMIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIUIIIIIUHI IIIIIIUll111111111111111111UUl'11WIIIIIIIUIIHUIUlfUUIHIIIIIHfUl l~ � 46 SLOVAKIA government, the U. S. Department of State ordered the U. S. Army authorities in Austria to surrender Tlso and his group to the CzechoSlovak War Crimes Commlsslon. In November 1945 Dr. Tlso and members of the Slovak government were delivered to Czecho-Slovak authorities as war criminals, though their status was never lnvesti· gated by the U. S. authorities. From Pra.g ue Dr. Tiso and several of hls group were sent to Bra• tislava to stand tria! before the Natlonal Court The tria! began December 2, 1946, and ended March 14, 1947. Sentence was pronounced by the Court on Aplil 15, and Father Tiso, reciting the rosary out loud, was Jed to the gallows at 5: 30 a. m. on April 19, 1947; he was pronounced dead seven mlnutes Jater. SJovaks the world over agree wlth Father Tiso's aged mother: Dr. Tlso died a martyr for the cause of his people and his Church. • • • ;}IJHIIIIIIIIUll ttlllUlltltllll l lllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIHIUII IIIIIIIIIIIIUI IIIUhl lllllll llllUOttlllflllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllflllllHIIIHIIIUIIIIIIIIIUI UIUIUtl. PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO ms PEOPLE " In the spirit of the sacrlfice I am about. to make, 1 aend thl• message to the Slovak natlon : " In harmony and un lson pursue alway,, everywhere and In every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND F-OR THE NATION. I=== _ ::}f;:~~i'.:I~~~.:~;: : : ~.:=;:~•::~~:::;.:~: I===_ "That precept I have ,erved all my llfe and, therefore, 1 '=- != 1 1 ~ ;:;ľi:he;t ~y:f afi:,.:;,. a~~ :h::~:n:: :o:~,.::~~n~:co::~:~,! bolshevism, against which our nation must in all ponlble way, :::•::..:<;:•~;::,:~:: :,:~• ,:~:;:: of 1t, Chri,tlan cha~oto•, '=- 1 "A• 1 beg you to remember me In your praye,.., so do I pro. _ Br atislava, April 18 , 1947, 3 a. m. 1 ~~:~_0[;:t:f:;: : i~}~~};,~f!J~:;.:.1;.:-t: 1 DR. JOSEPH TISO. ~ (ltl1111111UIIIIIHU lllllllllltlllUIIIIIIUUIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIIIINUlllllUlMIIIUIIIIIIIIUIIUIIIIIUHI IIIIIIUll111111111111111111UUl'11WIIIIIIIUIIHUIUlfUUIHIIIIIHfUl l~ � 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 1952, Vol. 2 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 1952 Description An account of the resource <ul><li>Issue 1 (No. 3), March 1952.</li> <li>Issue 2 (No. 4), August 1952.</li> <li>Issue 3 (No. 5), December 1952.</li> </ul> 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 PRESIDENT TISO'S LAST MESSAGE TO HIS PEOPLE In the spirit of the sacrifice I am about to make, I send this message to the Slovak nation: In harmony and unison pursue always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION. THAT IS NOT ONLY THE UNEQUIVOCAL INTENT OF Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, Who has made it the law of nature and has inculcated it into the soul of the nation and every one of its members. That precept I have served all my life and, therefore, I consider myself first of all a martyr of God’s law. Secondly, I feel that I am a martyr of the defense of Christianity against bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, not only in the spirit of its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future. As I beg you to remember me in your prayers, so do I promise to pray to God Almighty for you and supplicate that He bless the Slovak nation in its vital struggle for God and for the nation, so that the Slovak nation will always remain a faithful and devoted son of the Church of Christ. Bratislava, April 18, 1947, 3 a.m. DR. JOSEPH TISO. 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 Tiso's Last Message to His People Description An account of the resource Slovakia, Vol. 2, No. 1 (3), March 1952 p. 46 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiso, Jozef, 1887-1947 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 1952 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/f9288cf8d18ff709ac08247a75df8ed5.pdf 51bd81874bd9e51112561089d782b497 PDF Text Text SLOVAKlA 3 Dr. Tiso's Last Message to the Slovak People ( Two hours before he died on the gallows, Dr. Joseph Tiso, wartime P resident of the Slovak Republic, wrote the following last message to the Slovak people in Bratislava prison.) In the spirit of this sacrifice which I am about to make, these are my words to the Slovak people: Be unanimous and united in pursuing always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: "FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION!" This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, who made it the law of nature, and inculcated it in the nation and all its members. This law I have served all my life. And for this r eason I regard myself as a martyr in the defense of Christianity against Bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, and only in order to remain true to its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future survival. In the same way as I am asking all of you to remember me in your prayers, so will I also pray to God Almighty on your behalf and supplicate that He bless the Slovak people in their life-struggle for God and for the nation, and that the Slovak nation shall always remain a faithful and devoted son to the Church of Christ. Bratislava. April 18, 1947, 3 o'clock a. m. Dr. Joseph Ti s o � SLOVAKlA 3 Dr. Tiso's Last Message to the Slovak People ( Two hours before he died on the gallows, Dr. Joseph Tiso, wartime P resident of the Slovak Republic, wrote the following last message to the Slovak people in Bratislava prison.) In the spirit of this sacrifice which I am about to make, these are my words to the Slovak people: Be unanimous and united in pursuing always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: "FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION!" This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, who made it the law of nature, and inculcated it in the nation and all its members. This law I have served all my life. And for this r eason I regard myself as a martyr in the defense of Christianity against Bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, and only in order to remain true to its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future survival. In the same way as I am asking all of you to remember me in your prayers, so will I also pray to God Almighty on your behalf and supplicate that He bless the Slovak people in their life-struggle for God and for the nation, and that the Slovak nation shall always remain a faithful and devoted son to the Church of Christ. Bratislava. April 18, 1947, 3 o'clock a. m. Dr. Joseph Ti s o � 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 1972, Vol. 22 Description An account of the resource Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972. 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 1972 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 SLOVAKlA 3 Dr. Tiso's Last Message to the Slovak People ( Two hours before he died on the gallows, Dr. Joseph Tiso, wartime P resident of the Slovak Republic, wrote the following last message to the Slovak people in Bratislava prison.) In the spirit of this sacrifice which I am about to make, these are my words to the Slovak people: Be unanimous and united in pursuing always, everywhere and in every respect the great principle: "FOR GOD AND FOR THE NATION!" This is not only the unequivocal intent of Slovak history, but also the explicit command of God, who made it the law of nature, and inculcated it in the nation and all its members. This law I have served all my life. And for this r eason I regard myself as a martyr in the defense of Christianity against Bolshevism, against which our nation must in all possible ways defend itself, and only in order to remain true to its Christian character, but also in the interest of its future survival. In the same way as I am asking all of you to remember me in your prayers, so will I also pray to God Almighty on your behalf and supplicate that He bless the Slovak people in their life-struggle for God and for the nation, and that the Slovak nation shall always remain a faithful and devoted son to the Church of Christ. Bratislava. April 18, 1947, 3 o'clock a. m. Dr. Joseph Ti s o  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 Dr. Tiso's Last Message to the Slovak People Description An account of the resource Dr. Joseph Tiso Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 p. 3 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiso, Jozef, 1887-1947 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/ca8a360d8ac991db9b6625a020e8a193.pdf 46e305dc05ad4a4f6891a0b844271e2d PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA Published by the Slovak League of America VOL. XVIII 1968 NO. 4 1 A AGREEME T WHICH ,VAS NE"\ ER RE.AT1IZED ]'h e SloYak Lrag;ne of ~\.merica, an 01·gani:wtion Yoi<·ing Slm·ak politiral nncl social aspi1·ations in the frcr ,Yorld, v,as founded in CleYeland, Ohio eleven ~·e,ns beforn the rreation of the Czerho-Slon1 k Republir. ~rhr main objerti-..-e of its founder, Rev. Stephen l,' m·dek ,r~u, to amplif~· to the \Yorld federation of nations the sentiments of the SloYak people v,ho had lwl:'n mwble to express theiT ideas and desires freely cln(' to their continuing- subjugation by ali en regimes. Rev. Furdek's ,rnrk ,ras not in vain, foT with the nration of the Czerho-SloYak Republic by the Allied Po\\·ers at the end of World War I, the Slovaks were offered equal reprrsentation within the Czecho-SloYak federative goveTnment in an agTeernent commonly known among the Czech and SloYak peoples as the Pittsburgh Agreement. Among the reknown figures adding anthentirity to the Pittsburgh Agreement was P1·ofessm· Thoma. G. MasaTyk, forerunner of Dr. Ech,·m·cl Benes, who piloted Czecho-Slovak destiny until his demise at the hands of the Communists in 194:8. In signing the Pittsburgh Agreement in behalf of the Czech people, P1·ofe sor Masaryk made it clear that it " ·as the intent of the Czech leaders to make the Czecho-SloYak Republir a model state in which the �2 SLOVAKIA wo1-ld would see a ·w orking model of a federation with leadership eminating from the finest of two distinct ethnic cultures, the Czech and the Slovak peoples. But it soon became apparent to the SloYak people that the intent of the Pittsburgh Agreement was never to be realized. With the formation of the CzechoSlovak state, Czech educators, civil servants, and poljticians assumed all responsible positions within both the Czech and Slovak territorial limits of the ne\vlr created Republic. All attempts by the Slovaks to put jnto operation the promises of the Pittsburgh Agreement met with abject frustration. Slovak political leaders were imprisoned, and some Slovak citizens exterminated. The Slovak press was censored. The • Slovak people were humiliated, and subjected to a continuous planned strategy of keeping them in subservient positions. Slovakia historically has been rich in natural resources. It is no ·w onder then that the Slovak territories were kept completely j11dustrially unclm~elopecl while Slovak natural resOluces ,,;ere used over the years to keep the Czech industrial empire healthr and profitable. The Slovak League of America, spokesman for SloYak affairs on an international level, repudiates the Pittsburgh Agreement, but not because of the prjnciples fOl' which it ,vas undertaken, nor for its failure of fruition. Rather the Slovak League of America repudiates this agreement because of the insincerity and untrustworthiness of its Czech authors, because of its exposition as a delaying tactic solely for Czech nationalism, but mostly because of fifty years of historical, liYing proof that the Czech leader ·hip �SLOVAKIA 3 ne,er intended, and does not intend e,en today to rec·ognize the SloYab; eYer as a distinct, separate ethnic cultm·e. For this reason ,rn call upon the United Nations to look into the SloYak situation, for the Slovak situation ·c·ries for so(·ial jnstiee for the Slovak people. We c-all npon the SoYiet Union to recognize the plight of the 810"\·ak people, and exe1·t their infh1ence in creating a climate health fn] for SlO"\·ak ec-onomic grnwth and nationhood. And finally ·we call npon the president of the United States, ·who as a leade1· of the ,Y esten1 V-l orld has supported the principle of self determination for all peoples in the world. EYery great president since the era of Woodrow v\'ilson, during \\·hose administrabon the Czecbo-Slovak Republic was created, has maintained his belief in the principle of ' elf determination. To the Slovaks in Slovakia we urge them to keep the fn ith of thei1· fathers, which they have already maintained for over fifty years. To the Slovaks in the Lnited States, ,rn ask that they cont:ume their efforts in behalf of their SloYak counterparts :iJ.1 Slovakia. In this atomic age, where new African nations emerge daily, ,,·c hope and pray tbat with God's help the thousand year old SloYak dream will finally be realized and tho e famous SloYak words r;t e na.fo, slov e11sh-ri rd zije, bucle zie 11aveky will forever rema:iJ.1 true. ,'-,'te phrn J. Tkach, P1·esident SloYak League of . . .\rn ericn 1 �j t !t ko-$1outn9kll mohob llt ltlllltrtnti 1' i)ittsbur9hu.l)tt.. bnll ~o. tnajn. 1918. ",Prrbsbn•ittlin slootu,kicha cei;kf ,h organisocifuo ~poj. ~tatorh. ~louttt!lktj i!Ifg~~ ~!skrho3Tarobniho ~btruftttill tt ~uil1u irsk~th1Katoli~90. por~k~o,,li ta pntoumosti prc,,~c,\u ecsko-Slown-. :-h~.i 01,f\·. 6R,,~y. pr,,f. qu,..;,w~1 b.,,. 6 ~.::,;l\o-:-lol1.:n:-kc3 ,.,t.i1 lh· 4\ •" \M~i,·b }-""::-,w,{l\n!1~b 1""·"~1~l\.,h''-'~'d, pw_i,w,..~b ~, uini.:~li :,;,, n,,il~,'""l'\l( ~ .._, "SdH1.-duj.:\\'l.: pditid,y' p\·.,~;\·,,1~ 1.1:-i.lu.\tt.:i :-,\ ,, Sp""j,ni~ €.:d-,N1 ., $1,.,v,llt,"l.1 \,I $1\\\l•"$t,,tn""\1l ~t,t.: t ei:iol\\fd, SIN•cn~k,t. "Sl"wi:ni-lt"" bu"'" \lh\t -:-\•(\ju ,,l,utm.f ,,~m,ni~h,·.t{vu,S'-'',j l.:\11(., $\'""\C Hl~\.j. ·,,sl-,l•;n~hhl bu~i: ttM,\nym j,,1yt,,.. m V';k.,t\', 1,.1 ttr,,~, ,, ...,, i•~W~\lNll ?\\.'""ti: t,~l,I!'-•· l,.,-::-l"w\l :-l\\f~½.H ~ ..,~.: r~1m ~ li. ~"u· \Ch"" ~C\i~ti hi-:i,, bu,'.: ,\n,wl\r,,tid\4{. • · " "<9r~1,~i~,,~i,, ~1,,.,lupr,,~1? e~~b"t' ,, Sl.:-l1,,lwv \1" Sp""j. St,,t,-.,·b h1,\1? p,.. ,,~, p,,trcby ,, ml?iii,wci ~,•.$ih,,,~i.:,t,ri $l'""l.,";:ncu1 ' , p,·cb l'·,,~\h\, ,, upr,w,n,,. , • r "'~l·.,,m,1(\l\, "'11'.:-~rch,l \lS t,, n"\1,mi,, ., I,t\·,,.~l.'n{l.i~h,.,-:il"""'4?\'lSh (be ;tai, p,"\')~~h4.\\.14'\_\\l•h1 "":W1o.'h.,~,nym €ttl?.9(\\11 ,, Sl,.. v,Hh"\ll 4\ id, p1·,ft•cpl,,tn:1\,., }"N'-\:iot 1.,vit"l"\11." $\H\ll •• . .,e.: - -~=== ===:---- � SLOVAKIA Published by the Slovak League of America VOL. XVIII 1968 NO. 4 1 A AGREEME T WHICH ,VAS NE"\ ER RE.AT1IZED ]'h e SloYak Lrag;ne of ~\.merica, an 01·gani:wtion Yoi<·ing Slm·ak politiral nncl social aspi1·ations in the frcr ,Yorld, v,as founded in CleYeland, Ohio eleven ~·e,ns beforn the rreation of the Czerho-Slon1 k Republir. ~rhr main objerti-..-e of its founder, Rev. Stephen l,' m·dek ,r~u, to amplif~· to the \Yorld federation of nations the sentiments of the SloYak people v,ho had lwl:'n mwble to express theiT ideas and desires freely cln(' to their continuing- subjugation by ali en regimes. Rev. Furdek's ,rnrk ,ras not in vain, foT with the nration of the Czerho-SloYak Republic by the Allied Po\\·ers at the end of World War I, the Slovaks were offered equal reprrsentation within the Czecho-SloYak federative goveTnment in an agTeernent commonly known among the Czech and SloYak peoples as the Pittsburgh Agreement. Among the reknown figures adding anthentirity to the Pittsburgh Agreement was P1·ofessm· Thoma. G. MasaTyk, forerunner of Dr. Ech,·m·cl Benes, who piloted Czecho-Slovak destiny until his demise at the hands of the Communists in 194:8. In signing the Pittsburgh Agreement in behalf of the Czech people, P1·ofe sor Masaryk made it clear that it " ·as the intent of the Czech leaders to make the Czecho-SloYak Republir a model state in which the �2 SLOVAKIA wo1-ld would see a ·w orking model of a federation with leadership eminating from the finest of two distinct ethnic cultures, the Czech and the Slovak peoples. But it soon became apparent to the SloYak people that the intent of the Pittsburgh Agreement was never to be realized. With the formation of the CzechoSlovak state, Czech educators, civil servants, and poljticians assumed all responsible positions within both the Czech and Slovak territorial limits of the ne\vlr created Republic. All attempts by the Slovaks to put jnto operation the promises of the Pittsburgh Agreement met with abject frustration. Slovak political leaders were imprisoned, and some Slovak citizens exterminated. The Slovak press was censored. The • Slovak people were humiliated, and subjected to a continuous planned strategy of keeping them in subservient positions. Slovakia historically has been rich in natural resources. It is no ·w onder then that the Slovak territories were kept completely j11dustrially unclm~elopecl while Slovak natural resOluces ,,;ere used over the years to keep the Czech industrial empire healthr and profitable. The Slovak League of America, spokesman for SloYak affairs on an international level, repudiates the Pittsburgh Agreement, but not because of the prjnciples fOl' which it ,vas undertaken, nor for its failure of fruition. Rather the Slovak League of America repudiates this agreement because of the insincerity and untrustworthiness of its Czech authors, because of its exposition as a delaying tactic solely for Czech nationalism, but mostly because of fifty years of historical, liYing proof that the Czech leader ·hip �SLOVAKIA 3 ne,er intended, and does not intend e,en today to rec·ognize the SloYab; eYer as a distinct, separate ethnic cultm·e. For this reason ,rn call upon the United Nations to look into the SloYak situation, for the Slovak situation ·c·ries for so(·ial jnstiee for the Slovak people. We c-all npon the SoYiet Union to recognize the plight of the 810"\·ak people, and exe1·t their infh1ence in creating a climate health fn] for SlO"\·ak ec-onomic grnwth and nationhood. And finally ·we call npon the president of the United States, ·who as a leade1· of the ,Y esten1 V-l orld has supported the principle of self determination for all peoples in the world. EYery great president since the era of Woodrow v\'ilson, during \\·hose administrabon the Czecbo-Slovak Republic was created, has maintained his belief in the principle of ' elf determination. To the Slovaks in Slovakia we urge them to keep the fn ith of thei1· fathers, which they have already maintained for over fifty years. To the Slovaks in the Lnited States, ,rn ask that they cont:ume their efforts in behalf of their SloYak counterparts :iJ.1 Slovakia. In this atomic age, where new African nations emerge daily, ,,·c hope and pray tbat with God's help the thousand year old SloYak dream will finally be realized and tho e famous SloYak words r;t e na.fo, slov e11sh-ri rd zije, bucle zie 11aveky will forever rema:iJ.1 true. ,'-,'te phrn J. Tkach, P1·esident SloYak League of . . .\rn ericn 1 �j t !t ko-$1outn9kll mohob llt ltlllltrtnti 1' i)ittsbur9hu.l)tt.. bnll ~o. tnajn. 1918. ",Prrbsbn•ittlin slootu,kicha cei;kf ,h organisocifuo ~poj. ~tatorh. ~louttt!lktj i!Ifg~~ ~!skrho3Tarobniho ~btruftttill tt ~uil1u irsk~th1Katoli~90. por~k~o,,li ta pntoumosti prc,,~c,\u ecsko-Slown-. :-h~.i 01,f\·. 6R,,~y. pr,,f. qu,..;,w~1 b.,,. 6 ~.::,;l\o-:-lol1.:n:-kc3 ,.,t.i1 lh· 4\ •" \M~i,·b }-""::-,w,{l\n!1~b 1""·"~1~l\.,h''-'~'d, pw_i,w,..~b ~, uini.:~li :,;,, n,,il~,'""l'\l( ~ .._, "SdH1.-duj.:\\'l.: pditid,y' p\·.,~;\·,,1~ 1.1:-i.lu.\tt.:i :-,\ ,, Sp""j,ni~ €.:d-,N1 ., $1,.,v,llt,"l.1 \,I $1\\\l•"$t,,tn""\1l ~t,t.: t ei:iol\\fd, SIN•cn~k,t. "Sl"wi:ni-lt"" bu"'" \lh\t -:-\•(\ju ,,l,utm.f ,,~m,ni~h,·.t{vu,S'-'',j l.:\11(., $\'""\C Hl~\.j. ·,,sl-,l•;n~hhl bu~i: ttM,\nym j,,1yt,,.. m V';k.,t\', 1,.1 ttr,,~, ,, ...,, i•~W~\lNll ?\\.'""ti: t,~l,I!'-•· l,.,-::-l"w\l :-l\\f~½.H ~ ..,~.: r~1m ~ li. ~"u· \Ch"" ~C\i~ti hi-:i,, bu,'.: ,\n,wl\r,,tid\4{. • · " "<9r~1,~i~,,~i,, ~1,,.,lupr,,~1? e~~b"t' ,, Sl.:-l1,,lwv \1" Sp""j. St,,t,-.,·b h1,\1? p,.. ,,~, p,,trcby ,, ml?iii,wci ~,•.$ih,,,~i.:,t,ri $l'""l.,";:ncu1 ' , p,·cb l'·,,~\h\, ,, upr,w,n,,. , • r "'~l·.,,m,1(\l\, "'11'.:-~rch,l \lS t,, n"\1,mi,, ., I,t\·,,.~l.'n{l.i~h,.,-:il"""'4?\'lSh (be ;tai, p,"\')~~h4.\\.14'\_\\l•h1 "":W1o.'h.,~,nym €ttl?.9(\\11 ,, Sl,.. v,Hh"\ll 4\ id, p1·,ft•cpl,,tn:1\,., }"N'-\:iot 1.,vit"l"\11." $\H\ll •• . .,e.: - -~=== ===:---- � 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 1968, Vol. 18 Description An account of the resource Vol. 18 (No. 41), 1968. 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 1968 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 VOL. XVIII 1968 NO. 4 1 A AGREEME T WHICH ,VAS NE"\ ER RE.AT1IZED ]'h e SloYak Lrag;ne of ~\.merica, an 01·gani:wtion Yoi<·ing Slm·ak politiral nncl social aspi1·ations in the frcr ,Yorld, v,as founded in CleYeland, Ohio eleven ~·e,ns beforn the rreation of the Czerho-Slon1 k Republir. ~rhr main objerti-..-e of its founder, Rev. Stephen l,' m·dek ,r~u, to amplif~· to the \Yorld federation of nations the sentiments of the SloYak people v,ho had lwl:'n mwble to express theiT ideas and desires freely cln(' to their continuing- subjugation by ali en regimes. Rev. Furdek's ,rnrk ,ras not in vain, foT with the nration of the Czerho-SloYak Republic by the Allied Po\\·ers at the end of World War I, the Slovaks were offered equal reprrsentation within the Czecho-SloYak federative goveTnment in an agTeernent commonly known among the Czech and SloYak peoples as the Pittsburgh Agreement. Among the reknown figures adding anthentirity to the Pittsburgh Agreement was P1·ofessm· Thoma. G. MasaTyk, forerunner of Dr. Ech,·m·cl Benes, who piloted Czecho-Slovak destiny until his demise at the hands of the Communists in 194:8. In signing the Pittsburgh Agreement in behalf of the Czech people, P1·ofe sor Masaryk made it clear that it " ·as the intent of the Czech leaders to make the Czecho-SloYak Republir a model state in which the 2 SLOVAKIA wo1-ld would see a ·w orking model of a federation with leadership eminating from the finest of two distinct ethnic cultures, the Czech and the Slovak peoples. But it soon became apparent to the SloYak people that the intent of the Pittsburgh Agreement was never to be realized. With the formation of the CzechoSlovak state, Czech educators, civil servants, and poljticians assumed all responsible positions within both the Czech and Slovak territorial limits of the ne\vlr created Republic. All attempts by the Slovaks to put jnto operation the promises of the Pittsburgh Agreement met with abject frustration. Slovak political leaders were imprisoned, and some Slovak citizens exterminated. The Slovak press was censored. The • Slovak people were humiliated, and subjected to a continuous planned strategy of keeping them in subservient positions. Slovakia historically has been rich in natural resources. It is no ·w onder then that the Slovak territories were kept completely j11dustrially unclm~elopecl while Slovak natural resOluces ,,;ere used over the years to keep the Czech industrial empire healthr and profitable. The Slovak League of America, spokesman for SloYak affairs on an international level, repudiates the Pittsburgh Agreement, but not because of the prjnciples fOl' which it ,vas undertaken, nor for its failure of fruition. Rather the Slovak League of America repudiates this agreement because of the insincerity and untrustworthiness of its Czech authors, because of its exposition as a delaying tactic solely for Czech nationalism, but mostly because of fifty years of historical, liYing proof that the Czech leader ·hip SLOVAKIA 3 ne,er intended, and does not intend e,en today to rec·ognize the SloYab; eYer as a distinct, separate ethnic cultm·e. For this reason ,rn call upon the United Nations to look into the SloYak situation, for the Slovak situation ·c·ries for so(·ial jnstiee for the Slovak people. We c-all npon the SoYiet Union to recognize the plight of the 810"\·ak people, and exe1·t their infh1ence in creating a climate health fn] for SlO"\·ak ec-onomic grnwth and nationhood. And finally ·we call npon the president of the United States, ·who as a leade1· of the ,Y esten1 V-l orld has supported the principle of self determination for all peoples in the world. EYery great president since the era of Woodrow v\'ilson, during \\·hose administrabon the Czecbo-Slovak Republic was created, has maintained his belief in the principle of ' elf determination. To the Slovaks in Slovakia we urge them to keep the fn ith of thei1· fathers, which they have already maintained for over fifty years. To the Slovaks in the Lnited States, ,rn ask that they cont:ume their efforts in behalf of their SloYak counterparts :iJ.1 Slovakia. In this atomic age, where new African nations emerge daily, ,,·c hope and pray tbat with God's help the thousand year old SloYak dream will finally be realized and tho e famous SloYak words r;t e na.fo, slov e11sh-ri rd zije, bucle zie 11aveky will forever rema:iJ.1 true. ,'-,'te phrn J. Tkach, P1·esident SloYak League of . . .\rn ericn 1 j t !t ko-$1outn9kll mohob llt ltlllltrtnti 1' i)ittsbur9hu.l)tt.. bnll ~o. tnajn. 1918. ",Prrbsbn•ittlin slootu,kicha cei;kf ,h organisocifuo ~poj. ~tatorh. ~louttt!lktj i!Ifg~~ ~!skrho3Tarobniho ~btruftttill tt ~uil1u irsk~th1Katoli~90. por~k~o,,li ta pntoumosti prc,,~c,\u ecsko-Slown-. :-h~.i 01,f\·. 6R,,~y. pr,,f. qu,..;,w~1 b.,,. 6 ~.::,;l\o-:-lol1.:n:-kc3 ,.,t.i1 lh· 4\ •" \M~i,·b }-""::-,w,{l\n!1~b 1""·"~1~l\.,h''-'~'d, pw_i,w,..~b ~, uini.:~li :,;,, n,,il~,'""l'\l( ~ .._, "SdH1.-duj.:\\'l.: pditid,y' p\·.,~;\·,,1~ 1.1:-i.lu.\tt.:i :-,\ ,, Sp""j,ni~ €.:d-,N1 ., $1,.,v,llt,"l.1 \,I $1\\\l•"$t,,tn""\1l ~t,t.: t ei:iol\\fd, SIN•cn~k,t. "Sl"wi:ni-lt"" bu"'" \lh\t -:-\•(\ju ,,l,utm.f ,,~m,ni~h,·.t{vu,S'-'',j l.:\11(., $\'""\C Hl~\.j. ·,,sl-,l•;n~hhl bu~i: ttM,\nym j,,1yt,,.. m V';k.,t\', 1,.1 ttr,,~, ,, ...,, i•~W~\lNll ?\\.'""ti: t,~l,I!'-•· l,.,-::-l"w\l :-l\\f~½.H ~ ..,~.: r~1m ~ li. ~"u· \Ch"" ~C\i~ti hi-:i,, bu,'.: ,\n,wl\r,,tid\4{. • · " "<9r~1,~i~,,~i,, ~1,,.,lupr,,~1? e~~b"t' ,, Sl.:-l1,,lwv \1" Sp""j. St,,t,-.,·b h1,\1? p,.. ,,~, p,,trcby ,, ml?iii,wci ~,•.$ih,,,~i.:,t,ri $l'""l.,";:ncu1 ' , p,·cb l'·,,~\h\, ,, upr,w,n,,. , • r "'~l·.,,m,1(\l\, "'11'.:-~rch,l \lS t,, n"\1,mi,, ., I,t\·,,.~l.'n{l.i~h,.,-:il"""'4?\'lSh (be ;tai, p,"\')~~h4.\\.14'\_\\l•h1 "":W1o.'h.,~,nym €ttl?.9(\\11 ,, Sl,.. v,Hh"\ll 4\ id, p1·,ft•cpl,,tn:1\,., }"N'-\:iot 1.,vit"l"\11." $\H\ll •• . .,e.: - -~=== ===:----  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Agreement Which Was Never Realized Description An account of the resource Stephen J. Tkach, President, Slovak League of America includes photographic copy of original Pittsburgh Pact Slovakia, Vol. 18 (No. 41), 1968 pp. 1-4 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tkach, Stephen J. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/a11c37fb481196f1ad5d26d821390ff2.pdf 82adf1a4320c33f596dc00d8ff6c963e PDF Text Text 68 SLOVAKIA A "LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY" IN PRAGUE By Adolf Tosch Approximately one year ago a university was foun- • ded in Moscow to accomodate several thousand students. from the underdeveloped countries. Obviousiy it is in-· tended that education be given along communist lines .. The name of the murdered Congolese communist sympathizer, Patrice Lumumba, is supposed to attract all the· people previously or still under colonial rule in such man-· ner as to convince them of the benevolence and unselfishness of the first socialist world State and to win for Prague trustworthy and grateful supporters who will co-· operate, together with their respective nations, with the communist States. This new school of higher learning, equipped to hand out an abundance of scholarships, hopes. to draw promising young folk to its halls, serve as a central training center for specialists and radiate like a lighthouse of Soviet scientific and cultural achievement into, all four corners of the globe. A similar university has now opened its doors in Czecho-Slovakia, the new "University of November 17." Its first students were the high school graduates of the class of 1962. By no means a competitor to the Soviet Russian Lumumba University, this new Czech institu-• tion does hope to improve international and political relations by peaceful means. Economic factors play an important role, too, since the CSR, with its growing industrial potential, is seeking to dispose of its products in new markets as they open up. To this end it has need of" native experts in the various foreign countries concerned. The very name of this new school confirms this surmise; after all, its purpose is to strike a blow at the German Federal Republic, presently a serious bar to Czech eco-· nomic expansion. Actually there is no connection between the closing of the Czech univ•~rsities on November 17, 1939 by the National Socialists and this new school. The name has been chosen strictly to serve domestic and foreign propaganda. · �SLOVAKIA 69 At present there are 1,800 foreign students in the CSR from 70 different countries. The Africans are the largest group, welded together in the Union of African Students (Ucitelske noviny, Novem'b er 17, 1961). Fifty per cent of them are students of medicine, thirty per cent technology and about twenty per cent are enrolled in economics courses. The remainder are pursuing other specialized fields. All foreign - for the most part colored students are registered at the School of Economics in Prague. (Tvorba 47-1961). A new regulation has gone into effect, however, stipulating that new arrivals shall belong to the new university, be registered there and put into strict camps where they will be briefed in preparation for their studies and groomed for contact and association with the native population. In October 1961, for example, 44 students arrived from Cambodia, Mexico, Cameroun, Angola, Chile, Columbia, and Argentina to enroll in a one-year course in the Czech language. They were quartered in a former court house building in Dobruschka in northern Bohemia.. In November, 1961, 120 Cuban students of a total of 200 were sent to Senec and Topolcianky for a course in Slovak, while the rest presumably went to Dobruschka. It would seem that so far the foreign students have caused the universities quite a headache, partly because of the varying types of college preparatory training and also because of difficulties with the language. A variety of political reasons are also involved. These problems have led the a.uthorities to formulate new regulations for foreign students which include, as far as the University 17th of November is concerned, courses in the Czech and Slovak languages, plus a technical knowledge of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and descriptive geometry. The language courses given at the Slovak centers of Senec and Topolcianky are part of preparatory schooling for as many as 100 students (Praca 298-61). The first group of freshmen were registered with great ceremony on December 12, 1961, by the rector of the new university, Dr. Jaroslav Martinie. The �70 SLOVAKIA group consists of students from Iraq, Iran, Cameroun, Jordania, Mali, Sudan and several dozen other African, Asian, Latin American and European States, as well as students from Bulgaria and even the Soviet sector of Germany. The student in this age group may enroll at one of the other Czech or Slovak schools of higher learning or may continue his studies at the two other schools of the University 17th of November, i.e., the School of Natural Sciences and Technology and/or the School of Social Sciences, which are to open their doors at the beginning of the 1962-63 school year. The difference between the two kinds of university education lies in the fact that schooling at the regular Czech universities applies to Czecho ..Slovak conditions and is very heavily specialized, even where curricula have been altered to meet the needs of individual forei·g n students, especially from the underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, courses at the University 17th of November are much broader and not as thorough. At the School of Natural Sciences and Technology, for example, teacher training courses will be introduced plus construction engineering. This decision was made, according to Rector Martinie, because political economy in the underdeveloped , countries is still in its infancy. It will take time for it to reach a point where special training in that field becomes requisite. For the present a student interested, for example, in bridge construction must attend one of the other universities. In the School of Social Sciences, teacher training courses will be given for those desiring to teach in the elementary and secondary schols and a course in social sciences, combined with the training of political functionaries, will also be added. The regular schools (faculties) within the University of November 17 are counting of complete or partial instruction in one of the world languages (English, French, Spanish), to facilitate communication between instructors and students. One year's instruction in Czech or Slovak alone will not suffice. Five or six years are required for a student to com- �SLOVAKIA 71 plete his university education in a specialized field such as technology. This period is one year longer for foreign students requiring language training. Curriculum planners have proposed shortening the length of study for .foreigners in certain subjects while keeping the quality at university level, a step that would speed up the training -0f national specialists for the countries concerned. The .subject matter would be highly concentrated and much more practical than theoretical. The University of November 17, with its three schools, is intended to become a uniform, State center for the training of foreign students in the CSR. It seems quite likely that study at this university will become more and more .strict, new curricula will be worked out and rigid controls put into operation. Its status is to be raised by granting it authority to issue diplomas and by setting certain standards of achievement. Those of the School of Social Sciences are of particular interest as this school trains teachers for elementary and secondary schools and offers courses in the particular field of social sciences which is combined with the training of political functionaries. This fact seems to characterize most acurately the purpose behind the founding of this new university. Czecho-Slovak teachers are also assigned to tasks abroad. They assist, for example, in the African school system where they not only teach but also "organize the school system" (Mlada Fronta 285/61). An exhibition of polytechnical teaching in Conakry is designed to popularize Czecho-Slovak experiences, although this type of teaching has been introdueed in Czecho-Slovakia itself only a short time ago for experimental reasons. Furthermore the inhabitants of Africa are shown pictures of the education and culture of the CSR, a culture to which the Communists themselves have contributed but very little, for the culture of Czecho-Slovakia is still minted by an older, Occidental past. SLOVAK LESSONS - a two year course for adults is still available. Bound in cloth - $3.50. � 68 SLOVAKIA A "LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY" IN PRAGUE By Adolf Tosch Approximately one year ago a university was foun- • ded in Moscow to accomodate several thousand students. from the underdeveloped countries. Obviousiy it is in-· tended that education be given along communist lines .. The name of the murdered Congolese communist sympathizer, Patrice Lumumba, is supposed to attract all the· people previously or still under colonial rule in such man-· ner as to convince them of the benevolence and unselfishness of the first socialist world State and to win for Prague trustworthy and grateful supporters who will co-· operate, together with their respective nations, with the communist States. This new school of higher learning, equipped to hand out an abundance of scholarships, hopes. to draw promising young folk to its halls, serve as a central training center for specialists and radiate like a lighthouse of Soviet scientific and cultural achievement into, all four corners of the globe. A similar university has now opened its doors in Czecho-Slovakia, the new "University of November 17." Its first students were the high school graduates of the class of 1962. By no means a competitor to the Soviet Russian Lumumba University, this new Czech institu-• tion does hope to improve international and political relations by peaceful means. Economic factors play an important role, too, since the CSR, with its growing industrial potential, is seeking to dispose of its products in new markets as they open up. To this end it has need of" native experts in the various foreign countries concerned. The very name of this new school confirms this surmise; after all, its purpose is to strike a blow at the German Federal Republic, presently a serious bar to Czech eco-· nomic expansion. Actually there is no connection between the closing of the Czech univ•~rsities on November 17, 1939 by the National Socialists and this new school. The name has been chosen strictly to serve domestic and foreign propaganda. · �SLOVAKIA 69 At present there are 1,800 foreign students in the CSR from 70 different countries. The Africans are the largest group, welded together in the Union of African Students (Ucitelske noviny, Novem'b er 17, 1961). Fifty per cent of them are students of medicine, thirty per cent technology and about twenty per cent are enrolled in economics courses. The remainder are pursuing other specialized fields. All foreign - for the most part colored students are registered at the School of Economics in Prague. (Tvorba 47-1961). A new regulation has gone into effect, however, stipulating that new arrivals shall belong to the new university, be registered there and put into strict camps where they will be briefed in preparation for their studies and groomed for contact and association with the native population. In October 1961, for example, 44 students arrived from Cambodia, Mexico, Cameroun, Angola, Chile, Columbia, and Argentina to enroll in a one-year course in the Czech language. They were quartered in a former court house building in Dobruschka in northern Bohemia.. In November, 1961, 120 Cuban students of a total of 200 were sent to Senec and Topolcianky for a course in Slovak, while the rest presumably went to Dobruschka. It would seem that so far the foreign students have caused the universities quite a headache, partly because of the varying types of college preparatory training and also because of difficulties with the language. A variety of political reasons are also involved. These problems have led the a.uthorities to formulate new regulations for foreign students which include, as far as the University 17th of November is concerned, courses in the Czech and Slovak languages, plus a technical knowledge of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and descriptive geometry. The language courses given at the Slovak centers of Senec and Topolcianky are part of preparatory schooling for as many as 100 students (Praca 298-61). The first group of freshmen were registered with great ceremony on December 12, 1961, by the rector of the new university, Dr. Jaroslav Martinie. The �70 SLOVAKIA group consists of students from Iraq, Iran, Cameroun, Jordania, Mali, Sudan and several dozen other African, Asian, Latin American and European States, as well as students from Bulgaria and even the Soviet sector of Germany. The student in this age group may enroll at one of the other Czech or Slovak schools of higher learning or may continue his studies at the two other schools of the University 17th of November, i.e., the School of Natural Sciences and Technology and/or the School of Social Sciences, which are to open their doors at the beginning of the 1962-63 school year. The difference between the two kinds of university education lies in the fact that schooling at the regular Czech universities applies to Czecho ..Slovak conditions and is very heavily specialized, even where curricula have been altered to meet the needs of individual forei·g n students, especially from the underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, courses at the University 17th of November are much broader and not as thorough. At the School of Natural Sciences and Technology, for example, teacher training courses will be introduced plus construction engineering. This decision was made, according to Rector Martinie, because political economy in the underdeveloped , countries is still in its infancy. It will take time for it to reach a point where special training in that field becomes requisite. For the present a student interested, for example, in bridge construction must attend one of the other universities. In the School of Social Sciences, teacher training courses will be given for those desiring to teach in the elementary and secondary schols and a course in social sciences, combined with the training of political functionaries, will also be added. The regular schools (faculties) within the University of November 17 are counting of complete or partial instruction in one of the world languages (English, French, Spanish), to facilitate communication between instructors and students. One year's instruction in Czech or Slovak alone will not suffice. Five or six years are required for a student to com- �SLOVAKIA 71 plete his university education in a specialized field such as technology. This period is one year longer for foreign students requiring language training. Curriculum planners have proposed shortening the length of study for .foreigners in certain subjects while keeping the quality at university level, a step that would speed up the training -0f national specialists for the countries concerned. The .subject matter would be highly concentrated and much more practical than theoretical. The University of November 17, with its three schools, is intended to become a uniform, State center for the training of foreign students in the CSR. It seems quite likely that study at this university will become more and more .strict, new curricula will be worked out and rigid controls put into operation. Its status is to be raised by granting it authority to issue diplomas and by setting certain standards of achievement. Those of the School of Social Sciences are of particular interest as this school trains teachers for elementary and secondary schools and offers courses in the particular field of social sciences which is combined with the training of political functionaries. This fact seems to characterize most acurately the purpose behind the founding of this new university. Czecho-Slovak teachers are also assigned to tasks abroad. They assist, for example, in the African school system where they not only teach but also "organize the school system" (Mlada Fronta 285/61). An exhibition of polytechnical teaching in Conakry is designed to popularize Czecho-Slovak experiences, although this type of teaching has been introdueed in Czecho-Slovakia itself only a short time ago for experimental reasons. Furthermore the inhabitants of Africa are shown pictures of the education and culture of the CSR, a culture to which the Communists themselves have contributed but very little, for the culture of Czecho-Slovakia is still minted by an older, Occidental past. SLOVAK LESSONS - a two year course for adults is still available. Bound in cloth - $3.50. � 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 1962, Vol. 12 Description An account of the resource Issue 1 (No. 35), March-June 1962. 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 1962 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 68 SLOVAKIA A "LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY" IN PRAGUE By Adolf Tosch Approximately one year ago a university was foun- • ded in Moscow to accomodate several thousand students. from the underdeveloped countries. Obviousiy it is in-· tended that education be given along communist lines .. The name of the murdered Congolese communist sympathizer, Patrice Lumumba, is supposed to attract all the· people previously or still under colonial rule in such man-· ner as to convince them of the benevolence and unselfishness of the first socialist world State and to win for Prague trustworthy and grateful supporters who will co-· operate, together with their respective nations, with the communist States. This new school of higher learning, equipped to hand out an abundance of scholarships, hopes. to draw promising young folk to its halls, serve as a central training center for specialists and radiate like a lighthouse of Soviet scientific and cultural achievement into, all four corners of the globe. A similar university has now opened its doors in Czecho-Slovakia, the new "University of November 17." Its first students were the high school graduates of the class of 1962. By no means a competitor to the Soviet Russian Lumumba University, this new Czech institu-• tion does hope to improve international and political relations by peaceful means. Economic factors play an important role, too, since the CSR, with its growing industrial potential, is seeking to dispose of its products in new markets as they open up. To this end it has need of" native experts in the various foreign countries concerned. The very name of this new school confirms this surmise; after all, its purpose is to strike a blow at the German Federal Republic, presently a serious bar to Czech eco-· nomic expansion. Actually there is no connection between the closing of the Czech univ•~rsities on November 17, 1939 by the National Socialists and this new school. The name has been chosen strictly to serve domestic and foreign propaganda. · SLOVAKIA 69 At present there are 1,800 foreign students in the CSR from 70 different countries. The Africans are the largest group, welded together in the Union of African Students (Ucitelske noviny, Novem'b er 17, 1961). Fifty per cent of them are students of medicine, thirty per cent technology and about twenty per cent are enrolled in economics courses. The remainder are pursuing other specialized fields. All foreign - for the most part colored students are registered at the School of Economics in Prague. (Tvorba 47-1961). A new regulation has gone into effect, however, stipulating that new arrivals shall belong to the new university, be registered there and put into strict camps where they will be briefed in preparation for their studies and groomed for contact and association with the native population. In October 1961, for example, 44 students arrived from Cambodia, Mexico, Cameroun, Angola, Chile, Columbia, and Argentina to enroll in a one-year course in the Czech language. They were quartered in a former court house building in Dobruschka in northern Bohemia.. In November, 1961, 120 Cuban students of a total of 200 were sent to Senec and Topolcianky for a course in Slovak, while the rest presumably went to Dobruschka. It would seem that so far the foreign students have caused the universities quite a headache, partly because of the varying types of college preparatory training and also because of difficulties with the language. A variety of political reasons are also involved. These problems have led the a.uthorities to formulate new regulations for foreign students which include, as far as the University 17th of November is concerned, courses in the Czech and Slovak languages, plus a technical knowledge of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and descriptive geometry. The language courses given at the Slovak centers of Senec and Topolcianky are part of preparatory schooling for as many as 100 students (Praca 298-61). The first group of freshmen were registered with great ceremony on December 12, 1961, by the rector of the new university, Dr. Jaroslav Martinie. The 70 SLOVAKIA group consists of students from Iraq, Iran, Cameroun, Jordania, Mali, Sudan and several dozen other African, Asian, Latin American and European States, as well as students from Bulgaria and even the Soviet sector of Germany. The student in this age group may enroll at one of the other Czech or Slovak schools of higher learning or may continue his studies at the two other schools of the University 17th of November, i.e., the School of Natural Sciences and Technology and/or the School of Social Sciences, which are to open their doors at the beginning of the 1962-63 school year. The difference between the two kinds of university education lies in the fact that schooling at the regular Czech universities applies to Czecho ..Slovak conditions and is very heavily specialized, even where curricula have been altered to meet the needs of individual forei·g n students, especially from the underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, courses at the University 17th of November are much broader and not as thorough. At the School of Natural Sciences and Technology, for example, teacher training courses will be introduced plus construction engineering. This decision was made, according to Rector Martinie, because political economy in the underdeveloped , countries is still in its infancy. It will take time for it to reach a point where special training in that field becomes requisite. For the present a student interested, for example, in bridge construction must attend one of the other universities. In the School of Social Sciences, teacher training courses will be given for those desiring to teach in the elementary and secondary schols and a course in social sciences, combined with the training of political functionaries, will also be added. The regular schools (faculties) within the University of November 17 are counting of complete or partial instruction in one of the world languages (English, French, Spanish), to facilitate communication between instructors and students. One year's instruction in Czech or Slovak alone will not suffice. Five or six years are required for a student to com- SLOVAKIA 71 plete his university education in a specialized field such as technology. This period is one year longer for foreign students requiring language training. Curriculum planners have proposed shortening the length of study for .foreigners in certain subjects while keeping the quality at university level, a step that would speed up the training -0f national specialists for the countries concerned. The .subject matter would be highly concentrated and much more practical than theoretical. The University of November 17, with its three schools, is intended to become a uniform, State center for the training of foreign students in the CSR. It seems quite likely that study at this university will become more and more .strict, new curricula will be worked out and rigid controls put into operation. Its status is to be raised by granting it authority to issue diplomas and by setting certain standards of achievement. Those of the School of Social Sciences are of particular interest as this school trains teachers for elementary and secondary schools and offers courses in the particular field of social sciences which is combined with the training of political functionaries. This fact seems to characterize most acurately the purpose behind the founding of this new university. Czecho-Slovak teachers are also assigned to tasks abroad. They assist, for example, in the African school system where they not only teach but also "organize the school system" (Mlada Fronta 285/61). An exhibition of polytechnical teaching in Conakry is designed to popularize Czecho-Slovak experiences, although this type of teaching has been introdueed in Czecho-Slovakia itself only a short time ago for experimental reasons. Furthermore the inhabitants of Africa are shown pictures of the education and culture of the CSR, a culture to which the Communists themselves have contributed but very little, for the culture of Czecho-Slovakia is still minted by an older, Occidental past. SLOVAK LESSONS - a two year course for adults is still available. Bound in cloth - $3.50.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A "Lumumba University" in Prague Description An account of the resource Adolf Tosch Slovakia, Vol. 12, No. 1 (35), March-June 1962 pp. 68-71 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tosch, Adolf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March-June 1962 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/cb665c54899f47f05f37ef860ea5effe.pdf 6eb41d4c74957911d3a1dacb3983faae PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 107 Broken Line Carol Towarnicky The day she found out her great-grandmother had died was the day she found out her great-grandmother had lived. It was when her father came from Chevy, and he always came home at exactly quarterto-four. She and her little brother Jeffie were watching '' American Bandstand . " Ali the girls in the sixth grade watched it , and Frankie Avalon was supposed to be on. Her mother was upstairs somewhere . When she and Jeffie had come home from school , they had found two slices of rye bread and a stick of butter on the kitchen table. The butter was hard. Jackie could hear her father stomping snow off his shoes. Daddy never wore rubbers, like fathers in her readers in school, but there were so many differences between her father and those in the books that she had long ago stopped wondering about them. The fathers in the readers wore suits and ties, and when they came home they put their briefcases on the table. Sometimes, on television, they had a drink. A martini . But Daddy wore gray pants and a gray suit, and he had this metal lunchbox that looked like a small black barn. Her mother spent a lot of time cooking chicken and ham for it. Daddy hated sandwiches. Sometimes Jackie would ask for peanut butter and jelly for lunch , but they always had soup and meat. When her father came home from work, the first thing he always did was wash his hands with cleanser. He would scrape under his nails with a nail file and wash again. But his hands never seemed really clean . Sometimes, like the day before her First Holy Communion, he washed and washed, and they looked better . But for everyday, he just did his best and let it go. But this day , Daddy did not stop to wash his hands. When he came into the living room, a strange expression was on his face, like the time Jackie had run into the street and you could hear the brakes screech all over the neighborhood, and Daddy had spanked her for the only time . "Where's your mother?" Jackie pointed upstairs. �SLOVAKIA "Hey, Marge," he called loudly, "you sick or something?" There was a muffled reply and a wail. Baby Janet was up. Her mother came down the steps quickly, without the baby. She had her coat on, which was strange because she usually kept it with the others in the downstairs closet. Her coat wouldn't button all the way. They were going to have a new baby around Valentine 's Day , and Jackie hoped it would be a boy. " My grandmother died," Mommy said softly . "Your grandmother? The one in the old country?" Mommy talked almost without opening her mouth. "Ktoru inu Babku mam? Mama dostala dnes dopis." Standing on the third stair from the bottom, Mommy looked much bigger than Daddy . Upstairs , Janet began to rock the crib. "You going over there?" "Well, Ma's real upset," her mother said. "She keeps saying that she should have known, that she should have felt it or something. She says she knew when her father died, but she didn't know when her mother died , I don't know.'' When Mommy got to the bottom step, Daddy put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned against him. "You want a ride?" "No, I don't want to bundle them up for just a block . Just fix them supper, okay? I couldn't do anything after Ma called." Daddy's voice was gentle . "Listen, tell your mom I'm sorry . " They stood at the front door . Mommy's hand was on the knob. "What did she die of?" Daddy asked. "Myslim, ze mala rakovinu ." Jackie hated it when her parents talked Slovak. Most of the grownups started talking it when they didn't want kids to hear. First Mommy would talk in English, and then, right in the middle, she would talk in Slovak . They always talked to Baba in Slovak, of course, because Baba didn't speak English very well at all. Baba had come to America with Mommy and Uncle John a long time ago from Slovakia, which was part of Czechoslovakia and behind the Iron Curtain. Right around Russia, which had Sputnik. Jackie had wanted to learn Slovak, so that she could really talk to Baba, but Daddy had said that it would be better to learn English good first. "Do you want people to think you're a D .P. ?" �SLOVAKIA 109 D.P. 's were funny-looking people who didn't talk right. Sometimes the little girls cried in school. They had gold earrings in their ears, even in the first grade. Jackie's friend Sandy said that they used needles to poke the holes. Daddy ' s mother had come to Cleveland from Slovakia, too, but she was dead now . Daddy knew Slovak , and French from the war, and Polish and Ukrainian and Russian because of all the people in his old neighborhood . He even spoke Jewish a little. But it made him mad that some people didn't speak English. He would make fun of Mister Hudak and Mister Zahradnik ; sometimes he would even make fun of Baba. " Been in this country how long," he would say to Mommy, "twentyfive years, and still can't speak the language." Daddy opened the refrigerator . He pulled out some wonderful big hot dogs, strung together like the beads on a necklace. Daddy never bought hot dogs in plastic packages. " How about hot dogs and pork and beans? Whaddya think?" " Oh, but Daddy it's Friday," Jackie said. "You know we can't eat meat on Friday . It's a mortal sin." Her father sighed . "Well, I guess we'll just have to have some Sister Imelde eggs.'' Daddy didn ' t eat meat on Fridays ever since the time in the second grade when he had been eating ham and Jackie had cried that Sister Imelde said that anybody who ate meat on Friday was going to hell and she didn't want Daddy to go to hell. But he always called it Sister Imelde eggs or Sister Imelde fish . It made Jackie feel funny, because she didn't know whether it was a sin to make fun of Sister Imelde and she couldn't ask anybody about it. When Jackie and Jeffie set the table, they put extra, smaller forks on the left side of the salad , and Jackie poured the milk for their tea into a small pitcher . Daddy had shown them the new way after he started being a handyman on Saturdays at Doctor Elliott's house, which was across from Lake Erie. Daddy and Mommy sometimes laughed at Doctor Elliott , who helped Mommy have babies but paid Daddy to put together hi s little boy's bicycle. Doctor Elliott's little boy's name was Carter. The eggs tasted different when they were scrambled by themselves with butter. She liked them better with little bits of bacon . " Daddy, why didn't Mommy's Baba come to America, too?" " Mommy's Baba?" �110 SLOVAKIA '' You know, the one who died.'' " C ' mon Jeffie, let's finish those eggs. Only two more bites." Jackie pushed her empty plate away. "I mean, why didn ' t she just come here to live with everybody else?" Her father sighed. "I don't know, honey . Maybe she was just too old. Maybe she didn't want to move ." "Do you think they have Requiem Masses in Slovakia like we have?" They sang Requiem Masses when the sixth grade was in choir. Jackie liked it. It gave her shivers. Re-e-qui-em Ae-e-te-e-e-er-na-am. Jeffie swallowed his eggs with a grimace . "Are they gonna put her in a coffin and bury her ?" "Now, let's now worry about that," Daddy said as he got up and nearly tripped on the way to the refrigerator. "How about some peaches for dessert?' ' Jackie felt that something had to be said . "I would never go real far away from you and Mommy , and I would never go to another country to live . I think America is the best country in the world ." Daddy smiled. "Here we are, nice cold peaches. My favorite." Jeffie speared an entire peach half with his fork and nibbled on it as if it were an ice cream bar. "What was her name?" he asked. "Her first name? I don't really know. It was probably Margaret. That's Baba's name and your mother's name. Margaret. That's probably it." * * * Since the pear tree fell down in the tornado last summer, Jackie could see the stars through her bedroom window much easier . She could tell Big Dipper and Orion 's Belt. "But you don't understand?" Her mother 's voice carried down the hall."She was my grandmother and I didn't know her. She lived a whole life and I lived a whole life and we didn't know each other. I can't even remember what she looked like. Ma never had a picture. All I remember was that she had a white babushka and a black apron. That's all. Johnny says he remembers her eyes. Brown eyes, like mine." "Listen, Marge, lots of people grow up not knowin g their grandmothe rs. She could have died when you were three, it would be the same.'' " But she didn 't die . Don 't you see? She was th ere all the time." �111 SLOVAKIA * * * In the morning , Mommy said they couldn't turn on cartoons. " You and J effi e a nd I are going to eight o'clock Mass, and we are going to pray for Baba 's mother , my Baba, who died. She lived in Slovakia, in Europe." " Right near Russia , where they've got Sputnik," Jackie toldJeffie . J effi e buttoned his jacket , but when he finished he had a button hole left over on top and a button left over on the bottom. Mommy bent down to redo it. " Do they have kids in Slo-vak-i-a?" " W ell , sure they do . Sure they have kids. Some of them are your cousins , just like Monica and Ricky." Jackie pulled on her left boot . " Do the little girls have earrings?" Mommy's lower lip seemed to move a little . " I don't know ," she said, and put on her gloves. Only old Mister Hudak had shoveled his walk this early. Mommy held on to Jeffie's hand and steadied herself on Jackie 's shoulder.Jackie wondered if it was snowing on top of her cousins in Slovakia, and if it looked the same, piled precariously on the bare trees. �� SLOVAKIA 107 Broken Line Carol Towarnicky The day she found out her great-grandmother had died was the day she found out her great-grandmother had lived. It was when her father came from Chevy, and he always came home at exactly quarterto-four. She and her little brother Jeffie were watching '' American Bandstand . " Ali the girls in the sixth grade watched it , and Frankie Avalon was supposed to be on. Her mother was upstairs somewhere . When she and Jeffie had come home from school , they had found two slices of rye bread and a stick of butter on the kitchen table. The butter was hard. Jackie could hear her father stomping snow off his shoes. Daddy never wore rubbers, like fathers in her readers in school, but there were so many differences between her father and those in the books that she had long ago stopped wondering about them. The fathers in the readers wore suits and ties, and when they came home they put their briefcases on the table. Sometimes, on television, they had a drink. A martini . But Daddy wore gray pants and a gray suit, and he had this metal lunchbox that looked like a small black barn. Her mother spent a lot of time cooking chicken and ham for it. Daddy hated sandwiches. Sometimes Jackie would ask for peanut butter and jelly for lunch , but they always had soup and meat. When her father came home from work, the first thing he always did was wash his hands with cleanser. He would scrape under his nails with a nail file and wash again. But his hands never seemed really clean . Sometimes, like the day before her First Holy Communion, he washed and washed, and they looked better . But for everyday, he just did his best and let it go. But this day , Daddy did not stop to wash his hands. When he came into the living room, a strange expression was on his face, like the time Jackie had run into the street and you could hear the brakes screech all over the neighborhood, and Daddy had spanked her for the only time . "Where's your mother?" Jackie pointed upstairs. �SLOVAKIA "Hey, Marge," he called loudly, "you sick or something?" There was a muffled reply and a wail. Baby Janet was up. Her mother came down the steps quickly, without the baby. She had her coat on, which was strange because she usually kept it with the others in the downstairs closet. Her coat wouldn't button all the way. They were going to have a new baby around Valentine 's Day , and Jackie hoped it would be a boy. " My grandmother died," Mommy said softly . "Your grandmother? The one in the old country?" Mommy talked almost without opening her mouth. "Ktoru inu Babku mam? Mama dostala dnes dopis." Standing on the third stair from the bottom, Mommy looked much bigger than Daddy . Upstairs , Janet began to rock the crib. "You going over there?" "Well, Ma's real upset," her mother said. "She keeps saying that she should have known, that she should have felt it or something. She says she knew when her father died, but she didn't know when her mother died , I don't know.'' When Mommy got to the bottom step, Daddy put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned against him. "You want a ride?" "No, I don't want to bundle them up for just a block . Just fix them supper, okay? I couldn't do anything after Ma called." Daddy's voice was gentle . "Listen, tell your mom I'm sorry . " They stood at the front door . Mommy's hand was on the knob. "What did she die of?" Daddy asked. "Myslim, ze mala rakovinu ." Jackie hated it when her parents talked Slovak. Most of the grownups started talking it when they didn't want kids to hear. First Mommy would talk in English, and then, right in the middle, she would talk in Slovak . They always talked to Baba in Slovak, of course, because Baba didn't speak English very well at all. Baba had come to America with Mommy and Uncle John a long time ago from Slovakia, which was part of Czechoslovakia and behind the Iron Curtain. Right around Russia, which had Sputnik. Jackie had wanted to learn Slovak, so that she could really talk to Baba, but Daddy had said that it would be better to learn English good first. "Do you want people to think you're a D .P. ?" �SLOVAKIA 109 D.P. 's were funny-looking people who didn't talk right. Sometimes the little girls cried in school. They had gold earrings in their ears, even in the first grade. Jackie's friend Sandy said that they used needles to poke the holes. Daddy ' s mother had come to Cleveland from Slovakia, too, but she was dead now . Daddy knew Slovak , and French from the war, and Polish and Ukrainian and Russian because of all the people in his old neighborhood . He even spoke Jewish a little. But it made him mad that some people didn't speak English. He would make fun of Mister Hudak and Mister Zahradnik ; sometimes he would even make fun of Baba. " Been in this country how long," he would say to Mommy, "twentyfive years, and still can't speak the language." Daddy opened the refrigerator . He pulled out some wonderful big hot dogs, strung together like the beads on a necklace. Daddy never bought hot dogs in plastic packages. " How about hot dogs and pork and beans? Whaddya think?" " Oh, but Daddy it's Friday," Jackie said. "You know we can't eat meat on Friday . It's a mortal sin." Her father sighed . "Well, I guess we'll just have to have some Sister Imelde eggs.'' Daddy didn ' t eat meat on Fridays ever since the time in the second grade when he had been eating ham and Jackie had cried that Sister Imelde said that anybody who ate meat on Friday was going to hell and she didn't want Daddy to go to hell. But he always called it Sister Imelde eggs or Sister Imelde fish . It made Jackie feel funny, because she didn't know whether it was a sin to make fun of Sister Imelde and she couldn't ask anybody about it. When Jackie and Jeffie set the table, they put extra, smaller forks on the left side of the salad , and Jackie poured the milk for their tea into a small pitcher . Daddy had shown them the new way after he started being a handyman on Saturdays at Doctor Elliott's house, which was across from Lake Erie. Daddy and Mommy sometimes laughed at Doctor Elliott , who helped Mommy have babies but paid Daddy to put together hi s little boy's bicycle. Doctor Elliott's little boy's name was Carter. The eggs tasted different when they were scrambled by themselves with butter. She liked them better with little bits of bacon . " Daddy, why didn't Mommy's Baba come to America, too?" " Mommy's Baba?" �110 SLOVAKIA '' You know, the one who died.'' " C ' mon Jeffie, let's finish those eggs. Only two more bites." Jackie pushed her empty plate away. "I mean, why didn ' t she just come here to live with everybody else?" Her father sighed. "I don't know, honey . Maybe she was just too old. Maybe she didn't want to move ." "Do you think they have Requiem Masses in Slovakia like we have?" They sang Requiem Masses when the sixth grade was in choir. Jackie liked it. It gave her shivers. Re-e-qui-em Ae-e-te-e-e-er-na-am. Jeffie swallowed his eggs with a grimace . "Are they gonna put her in a coffin and bury her ?" "Now, let's now worry about that," Daddy said as he got up and nearly tripped on the way to the refrigerator. "How about some peaches for dessert?' ' Jackie felt that something had to be said . "I would never go real far away from you and Mommy , and I would never go to another country to live . I think America is the best country in the world ." Daddy smiled. "Here we are, nice cold peaches. My favorite." Jeffie speared an entire peach half with his fork and nibbled on it as if it were an ice cream bar. "What was her name?" he asked. "Her first name? I don't really know. It was probably Margaret. That's Baba's name and your mother's name. Margaret. That's probably it." * * * Since the pear tree fell down in the tornado last summer, Jackie could see the stars through her bedroom window much easier . She could tell Big Dipper and Orion 's Belt. "But you don't understand?" Her mother 's voice carried down the hall."She was my grandmother and I didn't know her. She lived a whole life and I lived a whole life and we didn't know each other. I can't even remember what she looked like. Ma never had a picture. All I remember was that she had a white babushka and a black apron. That's all. Johnny says he remembers her eyes. Brown eyes, like mine." "Listen, Marge, lots of people grow up not knowin g their grandmothe rs. She could have died when you were three, it would be the same.'' " But she didn 't die . Don 't you see? She was th ere all the time." �111 SLOVAKIA * * * In the morning , Mommy said they couldn't turn on cartoons. " You and J effi e a nd I are going to eight o'clock Mass, and we are going to pray for Baba 's mother , my Baba, who died. She lived in Slovakia, in Europe." " Right near Russia , where they've got Sputnik," Jackie toldJeffie . J effi e buttoned his jacket , but when he finished he had a button hole left over on top and a button left over on the bottom. Mommy bent down to redo it. " Do they have kids in Slo-vak-i-a?" " W ell , sure they do . Sure they have kids. Some of them are your cousins , just like Monica and Ricky." Jackie pulled on her left boot . " Do the little girls have earrings?" Mommy's lower lip seemed to move a little . " I don't know ," she said, and put on her gloves. Only old Mister Hudak had shoveled his walk this early. Mommy held on to Jeffie's hand and steadied herself on Jackie 's shoulder.Jackie wondered if it was snowing on top of her cousins in Slovakia, and if it looked the same, piled precariously on the bare trees. �� 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 1984, Vol. 31 Description An account of the resource Vol. 31 (No. 57), 1984. 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 1984 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 107 Broken Line Carol Towarnicky The day she found out her great-grandmother had died was the day she found out her great-grandmother had lived. It was when her father came from Chevy, and he always came home at exactly quarterto-four. She and her little brother Jeffie were watching '' American Bandstand . " Ali the girls in the sixth grade watched it , and Frankie Avalon was supposed to be on. Her mother was upstairs somewhere . When she and Jeffie had come home from school , they had found two slices of rye bread and a stick of butter on the kitchen table. The butter was hard. Jackie could hear her father stomping snow off his shoes. Daddy never wore rubbers, like fathers in her readers in school, but there were so many differences between her father and those in the books that she had long ago stopped wondering about them. The fathers in the readers wore suits and ties, and when they came home they put their briefcases on the table. Sometimes, on television, they had a drink. A martini . But Daddy wore gray pants and a gray suit, and he had this metal lunchbox that looked like a small black barn. Her mother spent a lot of time cooking chicken and ham for it. Daddy hated sandwiches. Sometimes Jackie would ask for peanut butter and jelly for lunch , but they always had soup and meat. When her father came home from work, the first thing he always did was wash his hands with cleanser. He would scrape under his nails with a nail file and wash again. But his hands never seemed really clean . Sometimes, like the day before her First Holy Communion, he washed and washed, and they looked better . But for everyday, he just did his best and let it go. But this day , Daddy did not stop to wash his hands. When he came into the living room, a strange expression was on his face, like the time Jackie had run into the street and you could hear the brakes screech all over the neighborhood, and Daddy had spanked her for the only time . "Where's your mother?" Jackie pointed upstairs. SLOVAKIA "Hey, Marge," he called loudly, "you sick or something?" There was a muffled reply and a wail. Baby Janet was up. Her mother came down the steps quickly, without the baby. She had her coat on, which was strange because she usually kept it with the others in the downstairs closet. Her coat wouldn't button all the way. They were going to have a new baby around Valentine 's Day , and Jackie hoped it would be a boy. " My grandmother died," Mommy said softly . "Your grandmother? The one in the old country?" Mommy talked almost without opening her mouth. "Ktoru inu Babku mam? Mama dostala dnes dopis." Standing on the third stair from the bottom, Mommy looked much bigger than Daddy . Upstairs , Janet began to rock the crib. "You going over there?" "Well, Ma's real upset," her mother said. "She keeps saying that she should have known, that she should have felt it or something. She says she knew when her father died, but she didn't know when her mother died , I don't know.'' When Mommy got to the bottom step, Daddy put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned against him. "You want a ride?" "No, I don't want to bundle them up for just a block . Just fix them supper, okay? I couldn't do anything after Ma called." Daddy's voice was gentle . "Listen, tell your mom I'm sorry . " They stood at the front door . Mommy's hand was on the knob. "What did she die of?" Daddy asked. "Myslim, ze mala rakovinu ." Jackie hated it when her parents talked Slovak. Most of the grownups started talking it when they didn't want kids to hear. First Mommy would talk in English, and then, right in the middle, she would talk in Slovak . They always talked to Baba in Slovak, of course, because Baba didn't speak English very well at all. Baba had come to America with Mommy and Uncle John a long time ago from Slovakia, which was part of Czechoslovakia and behind the Iron Curtain. Right around Russia, which had Sputnik. Jackie had wanted to learn Slovak, so that she could really talk to Baba, but Daddy had said that it would be better to learn English good first. "Do you want people to think you're a D .P. ?" SLOVAKIA 109 D.P. 's were funny-looking people who didn't talk right. Sometimes the little girls cried in school. They had gold earrings in their ears, even in the first grade. Jackie's friend Sandy said that they used needles to poke the holes. Daddy ' s mother had come to Cleveland from Slovakia, too, but she was dead now . Daddy knew Slovak , and French from the war, and Polish and Ukrainian and Russian because of all the people in his old neighborhood . He even spoke Jewish a little. But it made him mad that some people didn't speak English. He would make fun of Mister Hudak and Mister Zahradnik ; sometimes he would even make fun of Baba. " Been in this country how long," he would say to Mommy, "twentyfive years, and still can't speak the language." Daddy opened the refrigerator . He pulled out some wonderful big hot dogs, strung together like the beads on a necklace. Daddy never bought hot dogs in plastic packages. " How about hot dogs and pork and beans? Whaddya think?" " Oh, but Daddy it's Friday," Jackie said. "You know we can't eat meat on Friday . It's a mortal sin." Her father sighed . "Well, I guess we'll just have to have some Sister Imelde eggs.'' Daddy didn ' t eat meat on Fridays ever since the time in the second grade when he had been eating ham and Jackie had cried that Sister Imelde said that anybody who ate meat on Friday was going to hell and she didn't want Daddy to go to hell. But he always called it Sister Imelde eggs or Sister Imelde fish . It made Jackie feel funny, because she didn't know whether it was a sin to make fun of Sister Imelde and she couldn't ask anybody about it. When Jackie and Jeffie set the table, they put extra, smaller forks on the left side of the salad , and Jackie poured the milk for their tea into a small pitcher . Daddy had shown them the new way after he started being a handyman on Saturdays at Doctor Elliott's house, which was across from Lake Erie. Daddy and Mommy sometimes laughed at Doctor Elliott , who helped Mommy have babies but paid Daddy to put together hi s little boy's bicycle. Doctor Elliott's little boy's name was Carter. The eggs tasted different when they were scrambled by themselves with butter. She liked them better with little bits of bacon . " Daddy, why didn't Mommy's Baba come to America, too?" " Mommy's Baba?" 110 SLOVAKIA '' You know, the one who died.'' " C ' mon Jeffie, let's finish those eggs. Only two more bites." Jackie pushed her empty plate away. "I mean, why didn ' t she just come here to live with everybody else?" Her father sighed. "I don't know, honey . Maybe she was just too old. Maybe she didn't want to move ." "Do you think they have Requiem Masses in Slovakia like we have?" They sang Requiem Masses when the sixth grade was in choir. Jackie liked it. It gave her shivers. Re-e-qui-em Ae-e-te-e-e-er-na-am. Jeffie swallowed his eggs with a grimace . "Are they gonna put her in a coffin and bury her ?" "Now, let's now worry about that," Daddy said as he got up and nearly tripped on the way to the refrigerator. "How about some peaches for dessert?' ' Jackie felt that something had to be said . "I would never go real far away from you and Mommy , and I would never go to another country to live . I think America is the best country in the world ." Daddy smiled. "Here we are, nice cold peaches. My favorite." Jeffie speared an entire peach half with his fork and nibbled on it as if it were an ice cream bar. "What was her name?" he asked. "Her first name? I don't really know. It was probably Margaret. That's Baba's name and your mother's name. Margaret. That's probably it." * * * Since the pear tree fell down in the tornado last summer, Jackie could see the stars through her bedroom window much easier . She could tell Big Dipper and Orion 's Belt. "But you don't understand?" Her mother 's voice carried down the hall."She was my grandmother and I didn't know her. She lived a whole life and I lived a whole life and we didn't know each other. I can't even remember what she looked like. Ma never had a picture. All I remember was that she had a white babushka and a black apron. That's all. Johnny says he remembers her eyes. Brown eyes, like mine." "Listen, Marge, lots of people grow up not knowin g their grandmothe rs. She could have died when you were three, it would be the same.'' " But she didn 't die . Don 't you see? She was th ere all the time." 111 SLOVAKIA * * * In the morning , Mommy said they couldn't turn on cartoons. " You and J effi e a nd I are going to eight o'clock Mass, and we are going to pray for Baba 's mother , my Baba, who died. She lived in Slovakia, in Europe." " Right near Russia , where they've got Sputnik," Jackie toldJeffie . J effi e buttoned his jacket , but when he finished he had a button hole left over on top and a button left over on the bottom. Mommy bent down to redo it. " Do they have kids in Slo-vak-i-a?" " W ell , sure they do . Sure they have kids. Some of them are your cousins , just like Monica and Ricky." Jackie pulled on her left boot . " Do the little girls have earrings?" Mommy's lower lip seemed to move a little . " I don't know ," she said, and put on her gloves. Only old Mister Hudak had shoveled his walk this early. Mommy held on to Jeffie's hand and steadied herself on Jackie 's shoulder.Jackie wondered if it was snowing on top of her cousins in Slovakia, and if it looked the same, piled precariously on the bare trees.  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 Broken Line Description An account of the resource Carol Towarnicky Slovakia, Vol. 31 (No. 57), 1984 pp. 107-111 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Towarnicky, Carol Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/adfa3c760fa984f80ae9d956da0d118c.pdf 80c2f053e604d8071a064bb2658a3c70 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 85 The Slovak National Awakening By Edward A. Tuleya Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 democratic principles and nationalism had been suppressed by the joint efforts of the great powers. However, by 1848 the dream of freedom could no longer be contained, and throughout the continent of Europe, except for Russia, the revolution spread. Revolts in Palermo, Paris, Vienna, and Prague were like huge cannon aimed to destroy the fortress of reaction. 1 The time that Prince Metternich feared had come, and on March 14th he was forced to flee Vienna. Hope for the oppressed ran high. 2 Within the framework of the Austrian Empire dissatisfied nations now saw the opportunity to gain rights which had long been denied them. Magyars Would Deny Others Freedom Napoleon's downfall had created a dilemma for Vienna and she reacted by adopting a policy which relegated the Slavs to an inferior status within the Empire, especially those living in Hungary. The Russian more than any other army was responsible for the defeat of Napoleon. Gratitude quickly gave way to suspicion as to what the Russian Tsar might do now that he had the strongest fighting force in Europe. Vienna feared that Russia would use her power to back up the demands of the Slav nations in Empire, for the improvement of their political position or more alarming for breaking away from Hapsburg control. Instead of turning to a rational policy for her Slav subjects, she opted for a diametrical course by seeking the co-operation of the Magyars who were in complete sympathy with Vienna, at least on that overriding issue. Vienna gave the Magyars more than tacit support to do whatever was necessary in Hungary to preserve the Empire's internal security. What the Magyars had in mind was something more, greater independence from Vienna. For centuries the Magyars ruled a population three fourths of which was made up of nonMagyar peoples, such as Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, �86 SLOVAKIA Ruthenians, and Rumanians. But the Magyar leaders had no sympathy for others when the latter called for equal rights. 3 Thus, while the Magyars were pressing Vienna for more rights, the non-Magyar nations were being refused those very same rights and others by the Magyars. 4 The lot of the subject races in Hungary was difficult, particularly for the Slovaks, a Slavic people, numbering close to three million and living in northern Hungary. Unlike the Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians, the Slovaks did not enjoy favor in Vienna, representation in Parliament, nor the right to cultivate their own language. 5 It was not, however, until the end of the eighteenth century that the Magyars began to accelerate the Magyarization of the Slovaks and other ·non-Magyar nations. The greatest contributing factor to their plan was Joseph II's policy to centralize and Germanize the Empire. In 1784 Joseph II ordered that in place of the dead language, Latin, German would be the official language in Hungary. From that time on there was a strong reawakening of the people.6 "Just as the encroachments of German had awakened the susceptibilities of the Magyars", writes A. Patterson, "so did the encroachments of Hungarian (Magyar) awaken those of the Croats and Slovaks."7 Effect of Joseph's Policy on Magyarization The policy of Joseph II, instead of unifying the Empire through Germanization, only aroused the subject nations to take further steps to defend their national identity.8 The awakened spirit affected the Magyar nationalists to adhere to the belief that the security of Hungary as a Magyar nation could only be assured if all its inhabitants were Magyars. 9 In opposition to this, Michael Hodza, ardent fighter for Slovak people, exclaimed, "We don't want Magyar as our language. If you fought against Germanization of Joseph II, we also fight against your Magyarization."10 Therefore, the Slovaks who had enjoyed some linguistic tolerance were now to feel the pains of a denaturalization program. Lack of concern on the part of the Magyars and their feeling of superiority and arrogance can be best expressed in a; Magyar proverb: "Toth ember nem ember." (The Slovak is not a man).11 �SLOVAKIA 87 The first Magyarization laws were passed in 1791-92 by the County councils.12 For several years the laws. were poorly enforced and not too much concern was paid to the activities of the non-Magyar groups or their resistance to assimilation. This apathy, however, was not the rule in all quarters. In some cities in Hungary it was calculated that in 1798 the Magyar and the Slovak population was equal, and because of the manner in which the Germans had been absorbed by the Slovaks, the Magyars could not expect a better fate .13 Reaction to this fear took different forms on the part of the Magyars. In many cases Magyar priests unable to speak Slovak were sent to Slovak churches. In the village of :r.udovilovo-Komarno police were posted outside the doors of the church to keep the people from leaving. Those who protasted were placed on the deres and beaten. Me;:i,nwhile Slovak priests were not allowed to perform services and Magyars were appointed. 14 This could have had a disastrous affect on the Slovaks, for the Catholic priests and Protestant ministers were looked upon as leaders by the people. With few exceptions, the clergy were the only national-minded Slovaks possessing a higher education. They used their learning to better the lives of the people through writing and organizing schools. The Slovak aristocracy, on the other hand, were pro-Magyar in their sympathies and looked with indifference on their own countrymen. Influ ence of Anton B ernolak In 1787, Anton Bernolak, a Catholic priest, published his Slovak grammar. His work laid the foundations for a Slovak literary language and contributed to a growing national consciousness. 15 Heretofore, Slovak writers had used Czech as a medium of written expression, but now they had, based on the West Sl@vak dialect, the beginning of their own literary language. Slovak writers now turned to the distant p ast in Slovak history, and using the new idiom, wrote about her past glory and achievements in an effort to inspire the people. Not long afterwards, in 1793, Bernolak and his followers founded the Slovak Education Society for the purpose of publishing and distributing Slovak books. A �88 SLOVAKIA generous patron and member of the Trnava Literary circle was Alexander Rudnay, Archbishop Cardinal of Ostrihom, who openly proclaimed, "Slovak I am and if I were a Pope I would still be a Slovak."16 For the Slovak people, Bernolak and his followers had taken the first stride toward the preservation of their language, heritage, and nation. 17 "Had it not been for those who in the 1790's were awake, as true Slovaks, by the year 1867 we would have been smothered by Magyarization," were the words used by Skultety to stress the importance of the school of Bernolak.18 Before the Slovaks could present a more united front against the Magyars, however, it was necessary to close the ranks among their own people. One of the greate$t obstacles which confronted the Slovak leaders was the selection of a literary language which would be accepted by both Catholic and Protestant groups. Centered in Trnava, the Catholics continued on their new course by using the Western Slovak vernacular as their vehicle for development of a literary language. The Bernolak group was steering away from the Czech which until this time had been used by the educated class as the literary language in Slovakia. On the other hand, the Protestants remained adherents of the Czech. They in turn began to gather around the Lutheran Lycee in Bratislava. In 1801, they founded the "Society for Slovak Literature," and two years later they established a chair for the study of the Slovak language and literature at the Lycee. 19 Eudovit Stur And The Defense of Slovak Rights For the Slovaks much good emanated from the Lycee in the years that followed. In the circles of the young students, Eudovit sttir from 1836 became prominent. Born in the small town of Uhrovec, the son of a school teacher, :Cudovit was destined to devote his life to his people. He succeeded in getting the chair of Slovak as substitute of the superannuated Professor George Palkovic.20 In order to prepare himself for the cause of his nation, sttir, in 1838, departed for Germany to take up studies at the University of Halle. During his sojourn at Halle he continued to keep contact with his homeland by �SLOVAKIA 89 exchanging letters witl1 his literary associates in Slovakia and Bohemia. Before returning home $tur visited the Lusatians, an island of the Western Slavic people located in the "German Sea." He hoped to find the purest type of Slavic character and racial purity. He came upon a village which except for the name of the community had lost all its Slavic identity. $tur wa.s moved by this experience and in a poem called "The Pagan Priest" expressed with sadness the eventual loss of these people to the Slavic world. On his way home he lingered in Prague at the home of a dear friend, Jaroslav Pospisil. Unfortunately, $tur fell down the steps and was forced to remain. 21 During his convalescence he fell in love with his host's daughter, Maria. After great deliberation, $tur decided against placing his own personal feelings before those of his people. It may, be said by some that a marriage at this time by $tur would have meant his loss to the Slovak cause. There is no doubt that during his marital adjustment he may have neglected his life'is work, but one must not forget his burning desire to fulfill his mission for the welfare of his people. It must also be remembered that $tur's prospective father-in-law was a man steeped in the Slavic cause which in itself would certainly have not been a deterring factor towards $tur's continued efforts in the Slovak cause. Indeed, the Slovak people came much closer to losing their great son in 1833 and from an entirely different quarter. After completing his studies in that year at the Lycee in Bratislava, $tur was employed at the office on the estate of Count Zay. Such a position would have been cherished by most young men, yet $tur resigned. His mission and work lay elsewhere. When his mother protested and pleaded that he remain, $tur in a voice full of love and emotion said, "Mommy dear, as you see today, I will still be a student. I must be a student." $tur returned to Bratislava where he gave himself to his people. 22 Few will deny that Jan Kollar's "Slavy Dcera" (The Daughter of Slava) and Paul Joseph $afarik's "Slavonic Antiquities" had influenced $tur's decision. 23 The Lycee attracted not only Slovaks but also Serbian �90 SLOVAKIA and Croatian youth. 24 Replicas of the society at the Lycee were found in other schools in Slovakia. Stimulating contacts among the Catholic and Lutheran Slovak students was established through correspondence. They were preparing each other for future duties in life. Acceleration of Magyarization It was not until the 1830's that-the non-Magyar nations began to rise and defend themselves against the accelerated Magyarization program. 25 By 1820, in some counties, Magyar was advocated as the language in non-Magyar schools. 26 A terrible blow was dealt to Slovak people by the Hungarian Diet in 1825-27. Seemingly, the only purpose of the Diet body at the time was to replace Latin with Magyar as the official language. Consequently this meant that all citizens of Hungary would be forced to use the Magyar language in schools, civil service, army and public life as well. To further the cause of Magyarization, Count Stefan Szechenyi, prominent Magyar nobleman, offered to donate his yearly income towards the building of a Magyar academy. A member of the parliament explained that the chief reason for such aims was for the defense against Russian pressure. 27 The constant fear of Russia led the Magyars to look upon a strong Poland as a likely ally. Professor Daniel Rapant explains that Felsobukki Nagy Pal in his Parliamentary speech in 1833 called for the need of a resurrected Poland and a widening of Magyarization to the remotest frontiers of Hungary. He emphasized a common frontier with Poland. 28 Needless to say, much of this fear can be attributed to the cleverness of the Magyars in their defense against the Slavic nations. Both German and Magyar publishers used "Pan-Slavism" extensively as their propaganda weapon. With their careful program of assimilating other nations, the Magyars themselves made blunders which were to turn the Slovak people further away from them. M. Rey wrote: "The Magyar nobles had often made generous sacrifices in the defense of their own interests but they had always shown the most deplorable selfishness as regards the condition of the peasants." 29 All this in turn gave the �SLOVAKIA 91 Austrian crown an opportunity to play the part of the oppressed peasants' friend. 30 The Slovak peasant from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 19th century bore the main burden of taxation in Hungary, paying fifty per cent of what he produced to his lord and to the crown.31 There is no question that the conditiorts of the peasantry in Slovakia were pitiful. 32 Therefore, it is understandable that occasionally open peasant rebellions took place against their lords. One of the latest to occur was in 1831 which took place in the counties of saris, Zemplin, Spis, Abauj, and Gerner with the outbreak of cholera. Some of the lords were put to death by the people who accused them of having poisoned the wells. 33 According t:o Bakes, the disease had spread across the frontier from Poland where Russian soldiers had been encamped.34 rt is estimated that 56,000 died, and one writer claims that Russian agents incited the people to revolt against their lords. 35 The brutality with which the revolt was put down left hatred in the hearts of those who survived. In this state of affairs the Emperor in 1833 invited the Diet to meet at Bratislava to discuss agrarian reforms which he claimed were drawn up by himself. 36 Among the people there was great hope that such interest on the part of the Emperor would mean the gradual alleviation of their terrible conditions. Actually, the congress did not concern itself with such matters and instead they were put aside to be dealt with at later sessions. Something more important now commanded their attention, the coronation of Francis's son, Ferdinand, as kin of Hungary. As Magyars they were won over to the new king when he contributed his coronation gift to the Magyar Scientific Academy. Ferdinand, who claimed to be Magyar at heart, became a strong supporter for the Magyarization program. In 1830, the Diet passed a series of laws which extended the reaches of the Magyar language. By 1836, Magyar was elevated to equal stature with Latin as a language to be used in courts and documents. As a result of the Diet of 1839, Magyar now became the official language of Hungary . Now Magyarization would need only time. What �92 SLOVAKIA would St. Stephen, Hungary's greatest king, have said of this? The Magyars had revered their king and maybe they would have been wiser had they paid heed to his words of wisdom. In a letter written by St. Stephen to his son, St. Emerich, we find him saying: "For as guests some from various parts of the provinces, they bring different languages and customs, knowledge, and arms, all of which adorn the royal court; and make it more magnificent. All this shakes the self-confidence of foreigners. A country with one language and one morality is weak and fragile. Therefore I exhort you, my son, to accept them with benevolence and hold them in esteem in order that they may prefer staying with you in the kingdom."37 Thus, the Magyars were taking their ship on a different course than that charted by their great captam, St. Stephen. At this time, Uudovit stur returned to the Lycee in Bratislava from Germany where he had been studying for the last two years. Much had taken place in his absence; however, he was the man destined to lead his people during their great trial in 1848-49. An effective weapon t,o be used against stur and his followers was the Pesti Hirlap, the first political newspaper in Hungary and edited by Louis Kossuth in 1841. The "forties" were to see the Magyars, "champions" of the newly-won freedom of the press acting quickly to refuse its benefits to their weaker fellow nations. Although some assurances were given that racial tolerance would be honored to all, it was not long before the true character of the journal became evident. Kossuth was very free in his attacks on the Slovaks and answers to his attacks were never allowed space in his "democratic" paper. 38 The Pesti Hirlap became the voice of Magyarization. The Magyars in their search for every technique and new approach did not overlook the possibilities of using the religious issue as a vehicle toward their goal of assimilation. This only served to strengthen Slovak resistance. On September 10, 1840, Count Zay was appointed chief inspector of the Protestant Congregations and schools.39 In his acceptance speech he called for the promotion of Magyarization as the only salvation for the Protestant confession in Slovakia. Zay's goal was to unify the Lutheran �SLOVAKIA 93 and Calvinist Churches. Of all the Lutherans in Hungary, five eights were Slovaks, the rest were Germans. On the other hand, the Calvinists were Magyars and were greater in number. This in itself added to Slovak suspicions that such a union was not in the interest of the faith as proclaimed, but actually a chauvinistic design on the part of the Magyars to absorb the Slovak people.40 Zay openly announced in a public circular, September 26, 1840, his determination to Magyarize the Slovaks. Moreover, he stated that the Slovak language would prevent the Slovaks from being good stolid Protestants, and the Magyarization of the Slavs was the holiest duty of every genuine patriot:u Hungary, according to Zay, could only be strong if she were welded into one nation, for she could then defend herself from the danger in the north, Russia. 42 Slovak leaders were not tardy in answering Zay. Sttir's rebuttal was so intelligently plain that Zay became firmly convinced Sttir was behind all the protestations that were being made. He was determined to have Stlir removed from the chair of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. This appeared to be quite difficult to do inasmuch as i:ittir was very popUllar. Nevertheless, supporters of Zay's plan proclaimed that the Lycee's at Bratislava and Levoca were the hotbeds of all Slovak societies at Lutheran schools and colleges in Slovakia. For the time being, however, Magyar plans were not successful. Jan Seberini answered Zay on April 2, 1841, by stating that he, Zay, professed to Magyarize in the name of Protestantism; yet that is not only contrary to the Protestant beliefs, but also to all Christian teachings. "Who has the right to say what language a man must speak?" he continued, " I am a Slovak not because of glory and honor but according to Christian teachings, for God wanted that I be born Slovak. Therefore, I am not ashamed of my origin nor my tongue just as any German, Frenchman, Magyar need not to be ashamed." 43 It must be remembered that not all of the Protestant clergy sensed danger in the union; nevertheless, Zay's program eventually became evident even to those idealists. At Nitra, where some believed that union of the two �94 SLOVAKIA Protestant groups was in good faith, Jozef Miloslav Hurban warned them to be more realistic and not to be taken in. The part that Hurban was to play in the revolt of 1848-49 was second to none but his great friend and comrade in arms, Jjudovit Stlir. Jozef Miloslav Hurban Born on the 19th of March, 1817, in Beckov, Jozef Hurban was educated by his father, Pavol, a Lutheran Minister of that place. His father was timid and wished not to implicate himself in national problems. Therefore, under these circumstances, the youthful Hurban while at home was not exposed to Slovak national consciousness.44 After spending his lower grades at Trencin, he went in 1830 to study at the Lycee at Bratislava. He was there for six years before he met Shir. Prior to this time Hurban had not taken part in Slovak aspirations at the Lycee. One evening, while taking a walk in the streets of Bratislava, he met stlir who asked him whether he was studying and practicing in the Slovak language. This stur explained, was the duty of all Slovaks. Hurban at the moment was embarrassed and could not answer. stur then said, "You are a Slovak, is that correct? And is not your friend George Zaborsky?" Hurban replied that he was a Slovak and that his friend was George Zabo11sky. 45 stur complimented Hurban for his selection of such a good, able friend and recommended that he continue to cultivate Zaborsky's friendship. Before the two had departed, Hurban was invited to visit stur. That meeting was to have far-reaching effects on Hurban; for, when he arrived home, his mind was full of thought. The lamp in his room burned past midnight, while Hurban wrote hils first verse in Slovak. This he presented to stur the next morning and from that time on the Slovak Institute in Bratislava, as well as the Slovak nation, did not have a more zealous member nor a more deserving son than Hurban. A trip to Devin was planned for April 24, 1836, by the members of the Slovak Society at the Lycee in order to initiate and plan more definite activities. The ruins �SLOVAKIA 95 of Devin, reminders of a rich history, stood majestic on her pedestal of massive rock guarding the confluence of the Morava and Danube rivers. This place recalled the Great Moravian Empire in the 9th century and her ceaseless struggles against German and Magyar. For the new Slovak generation this was a setting best suited for the revival of Slovak national feeling. 46 On this day filled with bright spring sunshine, lectures were given, prose recited, and songs were sung. Everyone participated in the theme of awakening Slovak consciousness. 47 In a further expression of loyalty to their beloved cause, they adopted Slavic names which they pledged to carry forever. sttir was the first to announce that he was to take the name of Velislav and others followed suit, taking different Slavic names. Hurban took the name Miloslav, a name which was to live in Slovak history. 48 Below the fortress of Devin rested a small town by the same name, and there in a tavern the young Slovaks gathered after an eventful day. Conversation, according to Hurban, had to be carried on in Latin so that waiters might not learn and betray their information.49 Just as stur and others had taken trips to broaden their views and get better acquainted with affairs which might influence their actions, Hurban also traveled. 50 His opportunity was afforded during a vacation 1839 when he visited Vienna, Bohemia and Moravia. 51 In 1841, a book relating his experiences was published: Trip of a Slovak to his Slav Brothers in Moravia and Bohemia. 52 When he completed his studies in 1840, Hurban became town chaplain at Brezova. For Hurban, the post at Brezova was a fortunate one, for here his work was to be understood and appreciated. Even before his arrival, the people of Brezova had had experiences in the struggle against the landed gentry. The peasants were aware of their rights and were prepared to defend them. They, too, had been effected by stur and showed a keen interest in his work. 53 Although Hurban knew that the upper classes would hold it against him, he, nevertheless, set about to reach the less fortunate classes. 54 Within himself there was a shining spiritual fire that others felt, and with his expressive face, warm kind eyes, and strong thundering �96 SLOVAKIA voice, he imparted to others the knowledge he had. Through talks and writings, he began to create among the uneducated people an interest in how they could better themselves. Out of this grew a Sunday school and Moderation and Temperance Society, both of which were to help in strengthening his people. The Sunday school was designed for those living in Brezova and it met on Sundays and holidays and on other days when time permitted. Those who attended were taught the arts and sciences. The Moderation and Temperance Society was just as important. Drunkenness came to Slovakia not through a habit developed from pleasure, but as a medium of escape from the extreme hardships of life. Not anywhere in Hungary was misery so great as in Slovakia, nor was drunkenness more widespread. Besides education, there was a dire need for bettering the lot of these people who lived under such deplorable conditions.55 The enlightened Slovak leaders knew that in order to lift up their nation they must first of all remove this scourge of alcoholism. 56 Throughout Slovakia, Moderation Societies were set up which were similar to those in America, but were chiefly modeled after those in Ireland where conditions were unfortunately similar to those found in Slovakia. However, the obstacle to legislation which would have curbed, if not eliminated, the sale of liquor came from the great landowners and Jews. 57 They owned the distilleries as well as the village taverns. The latter were frequented by those who could not pay and high rates of interest were charged them. 58 Agricultural schools had been established, but they were more for the middle class: townsmen, tradesmen, and prosperous farmers who were able to save their earnings.59 But for the less fortunate people of the lower classes, the Moderation and Temperance Societies had greater meaning and importance.6 1, Its founders believed that Slovak patriotism must be aroused, for a poor and drunken nation could achieve nothing but death. In the field of literary activitieis Hurban felt there was a strong need for a journal to help to direct Slovak literary life. In fact, when in May, 1840, Hurban grieved that there was no journal which could serve the interest �SLOVAKIA 97 of defending national rights, he made this comparison: "A journal is to the life of a nation what hands are to a clock to indicate the time; therefore, as conditions exist we do not even have a clock."61 Putting forth all his efforts, he managed, by 1842, to produce a yearly almanac, Nitra, written in Czech, consisting of some three hundred pages.62 Included in the first edition were songs, poems, and prose from members of the young Slovak generation. Nitra's title page was consecrated to "The daughters and sons of Slovakia, Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia." Hurban dedicated the introductory poem of this first issue of Nitra to Jan Caplovic, landowner and great lover of books and literature. All this was done purposefully so that he might join the Slovak cause more actively .63 There was some speculation among the Magyars as to Hurban's purpose of editing the Nitra. Some claimed that the almanac was given the name Nitra so that Slovakia might arise around the glory that surrounded that name. Prior to this time any open discussion about historic Nitra was forbidden. However, friends of Hurban came to his rescue by tactfully assuring the Magyars there was nothing to fear from Hurban who was but a young man and as such should be excused for his actions. 64 A weaker man would have sensed the danger but Hurban stayed on to put out three more almanacs until 1848 when he was forced to flee for his life. In the year 1843, Hurban was called as pastor to Hlboke and there he edited his second issue of Nitra, but this time in the new Slovak literary language, and censors played havoc with this issue.65 The Magyars also hindered in every way the realization of a Slovak newspaper. stur, with the help of Kollar, had petitioned in 1842 for permission to publish a newspaper, but approval was denied. There was no telling how long this condition would last. In the meantime, something had to be done to draw the Slovak people together into a unified body. It was for this purpose in 1843 that the Slovak leaders stur and Hodza met in Hurban's residence in Hlboke.66 Here they decided that if they were not free to edit a newspaper, a society formed along national lines might help achieve the same results. �98 SLOVAKIA Slovak Literary Language The triumvirate agreed that Czech should no longer be used by the Lutherans in their churches and writings. Therefore, the adoption of the Central Slovak dialect by this body brought the Lutherans and Catholics closer to the goal of having one dialect as a base for their literary language. There was a great need to reach the people, but in a language that was dear to them and one which they understood. Not all people could read the Czech, only the educated; it seemed so foreign to the common people. The society planned for in Hlboke paved the way for the achievement of a common langu&ge.67 Near the beautiful High Tatra mountains on the 27th of August, 1844, in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, the Tatrin Society was organized. In the words of Rapant, "It was the culminating point of cultural organization in Slovakia at that time; and it was the most important organ for the stur generation."68 A factor of far reaching consequences for Slovakia was that it was the first national Slovak organization and it encompassed all of the sides and segments of the nation, Catholic and Lutheran.69 Along with unity of language, it concerned itself with the cultural needs of the Slovaks.70 The Tatrin gave financial support to young Catholic and Protestant men who were studying in higher schools of education. Peter Bohun, the famous Slovak artist who painted portraits and scenes of the revolution of 1848-1849, was given such assistance by the Tatrin, so that he was able to publish a book of national costumes. 71 The third meeting of the Tatrin was held at cachtice in the Catholic parish house chiefly to resolve the language issue.72 On this memorial occasion the Catholics and Lutherans on the 10th of August, 1847, agreed to adopt the Central Slovak as the common literary language. The effect of this meeting meant the rupture with the Czechs. As was expected, it drew exclamations of disapproval from Palkovic, Kollar, and others who felt the only salvation for the Slovaks was in their tie with the Czechs. On the part of the Czechs there was great anger, and claims were made that such a move only strengthened the German influence about them. �SLOVAKIA 99 The Czech nationals could not understand the Slovak problem,73 for the vernacular is the natural medium and the truest heartbeat of the people. It, the vernacular, only could help enlighten and lift the Slovak people from their death sleep. Not all Czechs, however, were against the founding of a new literary language. This group argued that a Slovak literature would enrich the whole of Slavic literature. On the other hand, the agreement reached in Cachtice was celebrated throughout Slovakia by Protestants and Catholics alike. stl1r's former students who now served as Protestant clergymen were filled with joy. It seemed that at once Slovak was elevated to a literary language bringing with it a new life which surged into the land. Slavic historians claim that had not such a step been taken it is doubtful whether the Slovaks could have withstood the pressure of Magyarization. 74 It seemed that every,.vhere nobles, townscitizens, and people of the villages began to proclaim that they were Slovaks. The poor classes were not able to understand most of what was written. Time was needed so they might completely understand. Along with Sunday schools which had been established new ones sprang up, and, in addition, writing and reading rooms were opened. People began to realize that through learning and enlightenment they could be helped out of their misery. In Brezova, peasants who had long been held under the nobles' yoke began their attempt to free themselves by purchasing the land. Now that it was their land they worked it as never before. 75 Books and articles were not written to adorn libraries but to serve the people. Advice on practical matters in the written medium was beginning to evidence itself in the lives of the Slovak people. The societies which already existed in the cultural, social, and economic field were given a tremendous impetus by the new language. In the meantime, all protests against Zay had not been aired. The inroads of Magyarization aroused superintendent Dr. Paul Jozeffy 76 to protest at the Lutheran general convention on September 10, 1841. He warned that if they continued forcing Magyarization into Slovak churches and schools, he himself would present these �100 SLOVAKIA ~ievances to the court.77 Needless to say, Magyar ambitions were not deterred, for when in 1840 the Jittenka (Morning Star), a student journal, was first issued at Levoca the Magyar press vehemently attacked it as a tool of PanSlavism. By 1841 the young students were forced to cease its publication.78 Paul Jozeffy Heads Delegation to Vienna, June, 1842 Every move by the Slovaks the Magyars suspected as intrigues against their kingdom and made use of the strongest propaganda weapon by crying "Pan-Slavism." They claimed Pan-Slavism was nc.t only dangerous to the Magyars but also politically perilous to the Empire; therefore, it was necessary that the Magyars and Germans fight this menace. 79 All candidates for Slovak pastorates were barred unless they could speak Magyar fluently. It was under these conditions that 200 ministers under the supervision of Jozeffy signed a petition demanding rights for the Slovaks. Jozeffy and his delegation went to Vienna in early June 1842 where they presented their grievances before Ferdinand V. The petition began by stating that the Slovaks are an individual nation which can progress only when it fosters its own tongue. Furthermore, for many centuries the Slovaks had made sacrifices along with other nations . of Hungary for the preservation of the Empire. They had been able to use their own language, but now the Slovak priests were being humiliated by having to adopt another tongue. _Because of this, the Slovak language and its literature was suffering, while in business transactions Slovak was no longer used. They, therefore, petitioned: 1) that the King should declare officially as false all testimony against the Slovaks that had been so proven, 2) that proper authority be granted ·so that two censors for Slovak literature be assigned to interpret and defend Slovak works, 3) that the seat of language and literature at the Lycee at Bratislava be confirmed and fully certified, 4') that at the University of Pest there be established a seat of Slavic language and literature, 5) that for matriculation records and church protocol Latin be put in use again, 6) that churches and schools be defended against �SLOVAKIA 101 fanatic, self styled patriots who seek to Magyarize everything.80 This petition was signed by Paul Jozeffy, John Seberini, John Chalupka, Michael Hodza, Samuel Ferjencik, George Palkovic and 200 ministers, teachers and men of all stations in life.81 Although the Slovak delegation did not get very far w:.th its request, it served as a morale booster for the Slovaks. From the outset, promises were made and it looked as though something might be accomplished. The delegation had an audience with Metternich who assured them their request would be studied. After leaving Metternich they saw Count Kolowrat, a Czech nobleman and member of the Emperor's entourage. Although he greeted them with great warmth and is reported to have said, "Slav must help Slav," the delegation felt that they were being sidetracked. Kolowrat sensed this lack of confidence and assured them that he would lend them his support. When they left Vienna, the delegation felt something would be achieved. Now it seemed necessary only to wait. Upon their return home the delegation was shocked by the Magyar's overt reaction. The Slovak delegation had gone to Vienna with nothing but peaceful intentions in mind. But now the chauvinistic Magyars were infuriated and began to reel off in their papers and journals diatribes against the deputation headed by Jozeffy. Amidst this growing fervor a climax was reached when Kossuth delivered his flailing message at the General Convention on June 15th in Pest. In his attack, Kossuth, capable orator that he was, spared no words and vehemently described the deputation as a shame for the Protestant church and the betrayal of the best interest of the kingdom of Hungary. Kossuth demanded the punishment and resignation of Jozeffy from his superintendency. By the end of October, 1842, the petition was sent from Vienna to Buda to Palatine Joseph for his study and recommendations. When Kollar got wind of this he wrote a letter in November advising Jozeffy to come to Buda and intercede with the Palatine. Jozeffy arrived in Buda at the end of November and brought with him data and other materials with which he could strengthen his �102 SLOVAKIA position before the Pa1atine.82 But all proved futile, for prior to his arrival Joseph had been prepared by the Magyars for such an audience. Already on the 16th of April, 1843, Kollar had warned Jozeffy that the Palatine was Magyar in his symphaties. Moreover, according to Kollar, the Palatine Joseph had been oriented and advised by Vienna to disregard the Slovak demands. Vienna had no desire to strengthen the Slavs whether they be Slovak, Czech, or Serb, for in their union and strength she saw jeopardy to her position. At the same time she knew she could depend upon the support of the Slavs in case the Magyars caused trouble. And yet because of rumblings in Germany and Italy she could not afford to offend the Magyars. This policy of "cat and mouse" by Vienna was reaffirmed when in his letter to Jozeffy dated April 25th, 184J, the Palatine urged him to be patient, thus leaving Jozeffy to hope that all was not in vain. Hodza summed up the situation: "We cannot expect help from the Magyars but we must look to the Empire which is far away; and God is too high to help." 83 Other attempts were made to present Slovak grievances before the Emperor but they likewise proved fruitless . The Slovaks now more than ever realized that they must fight alone. s tur Leaves Bratislava As a result of Kossuth's charges at the General Convention an inquiry was held to det ermine for the Magyars the real reason for Jozeffy's trip to Vienna. Through their cunning, Zay and Kossuth at last felt they had a way of removing s tur from his position as professor of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. With it they hoped that if they could not remove the chair of studies completely, they could at least render it harmless through an appointee of their choice. The Slovaks called his investigation an inquisition, but in spite of all the false charges and doctored methods the inquiry ended in an acquittal of the charges made. Zay, however, insisted upon action which in the future would prevent stur from making lectures. Unheard-of pressure brought the removal of stur in December 1843. �SLOVAKIA 103 A petition initiated by his beloved students was circulated for signatures. From all over Slovakia protests came from clergy and laity for the restoration of stur to his post.84 This did not, however, bring the result desired. In a feeling of indignation the young students left Bratislava. While most of them stopped at Levoca, others continued on to Presov, Kezmarok, stiavnica and Jelenova. 85 On their way, with heavy hearts but no resignation, they composed a song "Nad Tatrou sa blyska" (Over Tatra's Peaks Lightning Flashes) .86 The Magyars, blinded by their recent victory, did not realize that they had ironically rendered a great service to the Slovak cause. Previously the young Slovak students were centered in Bratislava where observation could be made of their every move, but they now were being scattered throughout Slovakia. Like so many seeds the ideals of stur and other Slovak leadership, knowledge, national pride, betterment and unity of purpose began to sprout and grow. The Slovak National News For st\ir his removal meant that his next fight would not be in the schools as before but among the masses of the Slovak people. To help reach the people a newspaper was needed. It was not until 1845, however, that the first issue of the Slovenske N<irodne Noviny (Slovak National News) was published.87 The paper, written in Slovak, was to become the most important vehicle in presenting stur's platform, and in fighting for Slovak rights. 88 Though criticized by some for lacking more aggressive action, stur stuck to his conservative approach, for he knew that if the Magyars were irritated the paper would not have long to live. stur believed that in order that the Slovak people might better preserve their nation they must be first educated in politics as well as home affairs. Some of his articles seemingly were written for the benefit of the Magyars to whom stur wished to prove that the Slovaks desired only peace and what was rightfully theirs. Through his paper, stur hoped to modernize his people, therefore he discussed their schools, institutions, libraries, and �104 SLOVAKIA societies. His words gave new hope to those who long suffered under the burden of serfdom. As a result of the appearance of the Slovak National News, there blossomed in all corners of Slovakia in 1845 a great number of Literary, Social, Agricultural, Economic, Woman's, and Moderation and Temperance societies. They were modeled after those which had been found in previous years, but now they seemed to grow everywhere. To reach national unity and purpose every facet was tried. As with her fighting sons, the role women were to play became apparent. Articles appeared in st1.1r's newspaper stressing the point that being good mother was no longer sufficient, for all women now must take on additional responsibilities and become interested in the affairs of their nation. 89 Other writers called for the establishment of a girls' institute where industry and devotion to the Slovak cause would be taught.90 Readers of the Slovak newspapers were reproached for not helping themselves and were given sound advice that jealousy of others will not get them ahead. stur wrote that, "In order for the Slovaks to be more fortunate, they must be concerned about themselves and must get a 'common soul.'" He stated further, "Authough the mark of a nation is her language, the Slovak tongue is completely neglected in schools; it does not have social and constitutional rights for its cultivation. This is due to the fact that the Slovaks have not lived like a nation but as an individual. He has hidden his tongue only for use in the home and therefore it has no chance of blossoming forth into reality." 91 Hodza in his Dobruo slovo (Good Word) proclaimed that the Slovaks must recognize their own nation and then others will do likewise. The program of sttir as outlined in the Slovak National News was but the continuation of demands placed before Vienna and Pest by the Slovaks for the past twenty years. Aside from the need of economic reforms the major issue was that of language. stur's paper was read in towns and villages. Hurban wrote, "The voice of that national organ under stur was really strong, one which had to be considered." 92 The Slovak National News had awakened the Slovak people and helped prepare them for the moment for which everyone waited. �SLOVAKIA 105 FOOTNOTES 1) Charles E. Maurice, The Rev olutionary Movements of 1848-1849, p . vi. 2 ) Daniel Rapant, Slov enske Pov stanie, ( Slovak Uprising) Vol. I, Bk. I, p. 18. 3) Milan Hodfa, "Political Evolution of Slovakia," Slov akia Then and Now, ed. R. W . Seton-Watson, p . 71. 4 ) Alphonse M. Lamarune, "Past, Present and Future," North Ameri can Revi ew, LXXII, (Jan. 1851) , p . 206. 5) Rapant, op. cit. , pp. 75, 88, 89; " Austria and Germany," Quarterly Review, LXXXIV, (Dec. 1849), p. 198. 6 ) Julius Botto, Slovcici , (Slovaks) , I, 23 ; Arnost Dennis, Slov cici: Otcizka Rakouskci, (Slovaks : The Austrian Question), p. 134; C. J . C. Street, Slov akia Past and Present, p. 9; Rapant, op. cit., p. 84. 7) Arthur Patterson, The Magyars, II, 70. 8) Jozef Cieker, Slovenskci Otcizka, (Slovak Question) , pp. 19, 20; E. L. Miyatovich, "Panslavism: Its Rise and Decline", Fortnightly Revi ew, XIV (1873) , p. 96. 9 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p . 10; Rapant, op. cit., p . 4. 10) Htjdza, op. cit., p. 16. 11 ) Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 520; Geoffrey Drage, Austria-Hungary, p. 200 ; Harold W. Ternperley, "Racial Strife in Hungary," Westminster Review, C. XIX (Jan. 1908) , p. 4. 12) Daniel Rapant, Ileqalna Mad'arizcicia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization) , p. 3. 13 ) Cieker, op. cit ., p. 39. 14) Hodza, op. ci t ., p. 10. 15) Ernest Flachbarth, Companion to Hungarian Studies, p. 372. 16 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p. 41. 17) Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske D ej iny, (Slovak History) , p. 248. 18) Skultety, op. cit., p. 62. 19) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 12. 20) Jozef Skultety, Sketches from Slo·va.lc History, trans. 0 . D. Koreff, p. 184; Bodnar, Zoe. cit.; Albert Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny po Dobu sturovu , (History of Literary Slovak Before the Time of Stur) p. 163; Miss Parooe, an English lady who traveled throughout Hungary in the late 1830's w110te, "It is said that in the whole k!ingdom there is not so high and liberal an academic spirit in any scholastic establishment as in that of the Lycee of Bratislava" (City of the Magyar and Hungary) , JI, 281. 21 ) Frantisek Frydecky, Dopisy .fudev ita Stura Jaroslavu Pospisilovi, (Letters of Cudovit Stur to Jaroslav Pospisil) , pp. 31, 73. �SLOVAKIA 106 22) Jozef Hurban, I!udovit Stur, I, 38,39. 23) See R. W. Seton-Watson, A H istory of the Czechs m# Slovaks, pp. 173-176. 24) There were, in aj:ldition, German and Magyar societies at the Lycee at Bratislava. 25) Daniel Rapant, llegalna Mad'arizacia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization), p. v. 26) Ibid., p. 23; Pardoe, op. cit., III, 78-80. 27) Rapant, op. cit., p. 24. 28) Daniel Rapant, Slovenske Povstanie, (Slovak Uprising), Vol. I., Bk. I ., p. 66. 29) M. Rey in his study of this period described the privileges of the nobility: " The rights of the nobles were as vast as a privileged race of conquerors could possibly enjoy ... Neither the noble himself nor his servants paid any tax, real or personal, to the king or the counties; neither his horse nor his men could be required to work on the roald or the dykes. The peasant alone was the person who paid the tax termed 'domestical' for the expense of the Diet and the county administration. The peasant paid the salary of the school master, the notary, the priest, the patrol. The peasant constructed and maintained either with his ,o wn money or his labor, the roads, bridges, churches, schools, public bui~dings, dykes, canals; and it was the peasant and the townsman who drained the marshes, turned the course of rivers, etc. The peasant and the townspeople paid the war tax and furnished recruits." (Autriche, Hongrie, et Turquie on 1839-48, p. 126, cited by Corvinus, Hungary: Its Constitutions and the Catastrophe, p. 17) ; Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 493. 30 ) Peter E. Turnbull, Austria: Social a111:l Political Conditions, II, 21, 22. 31 ) Stefan Jansak, "The Land Question in Slovakia," The Slav onic Review, (March, 1930), p. 620. 32) As a result of the Diet of 1764 a law was passed restricting the power of inflicting corporal punishment to the bestowing of twentyfive lashes. (Lord Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy, II, 9.3 ). 33 ) Leger, op. cit., pp. 493, 494. 34) Frantisek Bokes, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska, (History of the Slovaks and Slovakia ); Vol. IV, Slovenska Vlastiveda, p. 146. 35 ) Arthur Yolland, Hungary, p. 253. 36) Leger, op. cit., p. 494. 37) Ernest Flachbarth, History of Hungcry's Nati onalities, pp. 5, 6. 38) Arminius Vambery, Hungary, p. 417. 39) Hurban, op. cit., II, 118. 40 ) Arnost Dennis, Slovaci: Otazka Rakouska, p. 155. �SLOVAKIA 107 41) ~udovit Stur, Stary i Novy Vek Slovaku, (Old and New Slovak Age), p. 39. 42) Stur writes the Magyars feel that they can only be safe from Russia by Magyarizing the Slovaks. "Was there a time," he asked, "when the Slovaks have not ·prov~d faithful? We have fought for our country, Hungary, and thousands have shed their blood." (Ibid. , p . 42) . 43) Julius Botto, Slovaci, pp. 53, 54. 44) Hurban, op. cit., III, 228. 45) Dr. Luidvik Ktihn, Buditelia v zupe bratislavskej, p. 66 . 46) Nitra had been considered. 47) Hurban, op. cit., I, 94-106. 48)\ Ibid., 102. 49) Ibid., 103. 50) Ibid., 155. 51) Hurban visited the Rajhrad Cloister in Moravia and made the following entry in the visitors' book on July 10, 1839: "Miloslav Jozef Hurban, a traveling Slovak, visited .this famous cloister with the motto, 'Long Live Czecho-Slovak' " (Author in 1948 humbly ~dded his name to the same visitors' book at the Rajhrad Cloister). 52) Cesta Slovaka ku b1·atrum slavenskym na Morave av techach. 53) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 17. 54) Ibid., p . 16. 55) See Stefan Jansak, Les Conditions Sociales dans l'Anciene Hongrie et la Situation de la Slovaquie. 56 ) Rapant, op. cit., p. 159. 57 ) Ibid., p. 160; Max Schlesinger, The War in Hungary, 1848-1849, II, 218, 2l9. 58) G. R. Gleig, Germany_. Bohemia, arlji Hungary, III, 59-62. 59) Rapant, op. cit., p. 158. 60) Rapant relates that many of 't hese people would spend their last earnings for liquor, and that in some areas between one thiDd to one half of the population on certain days were intoxicated; even children in the nursing stages were given alcohol L-Oc. cit. 61) Karol Golan, Rok so Sturovcami, p. 11. 62) At that time there were practically no printing facilities available in Slovakia. 63) Vendelin Jankovic, Jan taplovic: Zivot, Osobnost', Dielo, p. 24. 64) Bodnar, op. cit., p. 20. 65) J . Skultety, 0 Slovakoch (About the Slovaks), p. 254. 66) Hurban, op. cit., II, 302; Hurban wrote : "Tatrin's function was to the nation what Stur's was to the Slovak youth." Loe. cit. �108 SLOVAKIA 67) Prazak, op. cit., p. 304. 68) Rapant, op. cit., p. 156. 69) Mikulas Dohnany, Historia Povstanja Slovenskjeho z Roku 1848, (History of the Slovak Uprising in 1848), p. 21. 70) Hodza, op. cit., p. 54. 71) Hurban, op. cit., p. 298; Dohnany, op. cit., p. 21 . 72) Botto, op. cit., p. 62. 73) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 22. 74) Albert Prazak, "Czechs and Slovaks in Revolution of 1848," The Slavonic Review, V (March, 1927), p. 573. 75) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 20. 76) In ~::ldition to his fine qualities his contemporaries described Dr. Jozeffy as being timid and lacking ,t he firmness and obstinancy needed for his time. One can well imagine that when such a man is roused to make a protest of this order it generally must be for reason. (Botto, op. cit., p. 55) . 77) Hurban, op. cit., p. 115. 78) Ibid. , p. 116. 79) Jozef Cieker, Slovenska Otazka, p. 72. 80) Botto, op. cit., pp. 57, 58; Hurban, op. cit., pp. 166-168. 81) Ibid. , p. 164. 82) Ibid., p. 171. cit., p. 32. 84) Skultety, op. cit., p. 200. 83) Hodza, op. 85) Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny, op. cit., pp. 285, 286. 86) Jan Matuska ( 1821-1877) was the writer of that song. 87) It may be interesting to note that Zay was commission~ by his government to study Stur's request for a Slovak paper. To the surprise of Stur and his followers the request was granted. The rejoicing which took place was not to last for any great length of time for when the Magyars saw fit, they deprived the Slovaks of their news organ. 88) Bokes, op. cit., p. 158. 89) Rapant, op. cit., p. 155. 90) Cieker, op. cit., p. 210. 91) Rapant, op. cit., p. 148. 92) Hurban, op. cit., III, 80, 81. • THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interest.eel primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the Unit.eel States of America. � SLOVAKIA 85 The Slovak National Awakening By Edward A. Tuleya Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 democratic principles and nationalism had been suppressed by the joint efforts of the great powers. However, by 1848 the dream of freedom could no longer be contained, and throughout the continent of Europe, except for Russia, the revolution spread. Revolts in Palermo, Paris, Vienna, and Prague were like huge cannon aimed to destroy the fortress of reaction. 1 The time that Prince Metternich feared had come, and on March 14th he was forced to flee Vienna. Hope for the oppressed ran high. 2 Within the framework of the Austrian Empire dissatisfied nations now saw the opportunity to gain rights which had long been denied them. Magyars Would Deny Others Freedom Napoleon's downfall had created a dilemma for Vienna and she reacted by adopting a policy which relegated the Slavs to an inferior status within the Empire, especially those living in Hungary. The Russian more than any other army was responsible for the defeat of Napoleon. Gratitude quickly gave way to suspicion as to what the Russian Tsar might do now that he had the strongest fighting force in Europe. Vienna feared that Russia would use her power to back up the demands of the Slav nations in Empire, for the improvement of their political position or more alarming for breaking away from Hapsburg control. Instead of turning to a rational policy for her Slav subjects, she opted for a diametrical course by seeking the co-operation of the Magyars who were in complete sympathy with Vienna, at least on that overriding issue. Vienna gave the Magyars more than tacit support to do whatever was necessary in Hungary to preserve the Empire's internal security. What the Magyars had in mind was something more, greater independence from Vienna. For centuries the Magyars ruled a population three fourths of which was made up of nonMagyar peoples, such as Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, �86 SLOVAKIA Ruthenians, and Rumanians. But the Magyar leaders had no sympathy for others when the latter called for equal rights. 3 Thus, while the Magyars were pressing Vienna for more rights, the non-Magyar nations were being refused those very same rights and others by the Magyars. 4 The lot of the subject races in Hungary was difficult, particularly for the Slovaks, a Slavic people, numbering close to three million and living in northern Hungary. Unlike the Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians, the Slovaks did not enjoy favor in Vienna, representation in Parliament, nor the right to cultivate their own language. 5 It was not, however, until the end of the eighteenth century that the Magyars began to accelerate the Magyarization of the Slovaks and other ·non-Magyar nations. The greatest contributing factor to their plan was Joseph II's policy to centralize and Germanize the Empire. In 1784 Joseph II ordered that in place of the dead language, Latin, German would be the official language in Hungary. From that time on there was a strong reawakening of the people.6 "Just as the encroachments of German had awakened the susceptibilities of the Magyars", writes A. Patterson, "so did the encroachments of Hungarian (Magyar) awaken those of the Croats and Slovaks."7 Effect of Joseph's Policy on Magyarization The policy of Joseph II, instead of unifying the Empire through Germanization, only aroused the subject nations to take further steps to defend their national identity.8 The awakened spirit affected the Magyar nationalists to adhere to the belief that the security of Hungary as a Magyar nation could only be assured if all its inhabitants were Magyars. 9 In opposition to this, Michael Hodza, ardent fighter for Slovak people, exclaimed, "We don't want Magyar as our language. If you fought against Germanization of Joseph II, we also fight against your Magyarization."10 Therefore, the Slovaks who had enjoyed some linguistic tolerance were now to feel the pains of a denaturalization program. Lack of concern on the part of the Magyars and their feeling of superiority and arrogance can be best expressed in a; Magyar proverb: "Toth ember nem ember." (The Slovak is not a man).11 �SLOVAKIA 87 The first Magyarization laws were passed in 1791-92 by the County councils.12 For several years the laws. were poorly enforced and not too much concern was paid to the activities of the non-Magyar groups or their resistance to assimilation. This apathy, however, was not the rule in all quarters. In some cities in Hungary it was calculated that in 1798 the Magyar and the Slovak population was equal, and because of the manner in which the Germans had been absorbed by the Slovaks, the Magyars could not expect a better fate .13 Reaction to this fear took different forms on the part of the Magyars. In many cases Magyar priests unable to speak Slovak were sent to Slovak churches. In the village of :r.udovilovo-Komarno police were posted outside the doors of the church to keep the people from leaving. Those who protasted were placed on the deres and beaten. Me;:i,nwhile Slovak priests were not allowed to perform services and Magyars were appointed. 14 This could have had a disastrous affect on the Slovaks, for the Catholic priests and Protestant ministers were looked upon as leaders by the people. With few exceptions, the clergy were the only national-minded Slovaks possessing a higher education. They used their learning to better the lives of the people through writing and organizing schools. The Slovak aristocracy, on the other hand, were pro-Magyar in their sympathies and looked with indifference on their own countrymen. Influ ence of Anton B ernolak In 1787, Anton Bernolak, a Catholic priest, published his Slovak grammar. His work laid the foundations for a Slovak literary language and contributed to a growing national consciousness. 15 Heretofore, Slovak writers had used Czech as a medium of written expression, but now they had, based on the West Sl@vak dialect, the beginning of their own literary language. Slovak writers now turned to the distant p ast in Slovak history, and using the new idiom, wrote about her past glory and achievements in an effort to inspire the people. Not long afterwards, in 1793, Bernolak and his followers founded the Slovak Education Society for the purpose of publishing and distributing Slovak books. A �88 SLOVAKIA generous patron and member of the Trnava Literary circle was Alexander Rudnay, Archbishop Cardinal of Ostrihom, who openly proclaimed, "Slovak I am and if I were a Pope I would still be a Slovak."16 For the Slovak people, Bernolak and his followers had taken the first stride toward the preservation of their language, heritage, and nation. 17 "Had it not been for those who in the 1790's were awake, as true Slovaks, by the year 1867 we would have been smothered by Magyarization," were the words used by Skultety to stress the importance of the school of Bernolak.18 Before the Slovaks could present a more united front against the Magyars, however, it was necessary to close the ranks among their own people. One of the greate$t obstacles which confronted the Slovak leaders was the selection of a literary language which would be accepted by both Catholic and Protestant groups. Centered in Trnava, the Catholics continued on their new course by using the Western Slovak vernacular as their vehicle for development of a literary language. The Bernolak group was steering away from the Czech which until this time had been used by the educated class as the literary language in Slovakia. On the other hand, the Protestants remained adherents of the Czech. They in turn began to gather around the Lutheran Lycee in Bratislava. In 1801, they founded the "Society for Slovak Literature," and two years later they established a chair for the study of the Slovak language and literature at the Lycee. 19 Eudovit Stur And The Defense of Slovak Rights For the Slovaks much good emanated from the Lycee in the years that followed. In the circles of the young students, Eudovit sttir from 1836 became prominent. Born in the small town of Uhrovec, the son of a school teacher, :Cudovit was destined to devote his life to his people. He succeeded in getting the chair of Slovak as substitute of the superannuated Professor George Palkovic.20 In order to prepare himself for the cause of his nation, sttir, in 1838, departed for Germany to take up studies at the University of Halle. During his sojourn at Halle he continued to keep contact with his homeland by �SLOVAKIA 89 exchanging letters witl1 his literary associates in Slovakia and Bohemia. Before returning home $tur visited the Lusatians, an island of the Western Slavic people located in the "German Sea." He hoped to find the purest type of Slavic character and racial purity. He came upon a village which except for the name of the community had lost all its Slavic identity. $tur wa.s moved by this experience and in a poem called "The Pagan Priest" expressed with sadness the eventual loss of these people to the Slavic world. On his way home he lingered in Prague at the home of a dear friend, Jaroslav Pospisil. Unfortunately, $tur fell down the steps and was forced to remain. 21 During his convalescence he fell in love with his host's daughter, Maria. After great deliberation, $tur decided against placing his own personal feelings before those of his people. It may, be said by some that a marriage at this time by $tur would have meant his loss to the Slovak cause. There is no doubt that during his marital adjustment he may have neglected his life'is work, but one must not forget his burning desire to fulfill his mission for the welfare of his people. It must also be remembered that $tur's prospective father-in-law was a man steeped in the Slavic cause which in itself would certainly have not been a deterring factor towards $tur's continued efforts in the Slovak cause. Indeed, the Slovak people came much closer to losing their great son in 1833 and from an entirely different quarter. After completing his studies in that year at the Lycee in Bratislava, $tur was employed at the office on the estate of Count Zay. Such a position would have been cherished by most young men, yet $tur resigned. His mission and work lay elsewhere. When his mother protested and pleaded that he remain, $tur in a voice full of love and emotion said, "Mommy dear, as you see today, I will still be a student. I must be a student." $tur returned to Bratislava where he gave himself to his people. 22 Few will deny that Jan Kollar's "Slavy Dcera" (The Daughter of Slava) and Paul Joseph $afarik's "Slavonic Antiquities" had influenced $tur's decision. 23 The Lycee attracted not only Slovaks but also Serbian �90 SLOVAKIA and Croatian youth. 24 Replicas of the society at the Lycee were found in other schools in Slovakia. Stimulating contacts among the Catholic and Lutheran Slovak students was established through correspondence. They were preparing each other for future duties in life. Acceleration of Magyarization It was not until the 1830's that-the non-Magyar nations began to rise and defend themselves against the accelerated Magyarization program. 25 By 1820, in some counties, Magyar was advocated as the language in non-Magyar schools. 26 A terrible blow was dealt to Slovak people by the Hungarian Diet in 1825-27. Seemingly, the only purpose of the Diet body at the time was to replace Latin with Magyar as the official language. Consequently this meant that all citizens of Hungary would be forced to use the Magyar language in schools, civil service, army and public life as well. To further the cause of Magyarization, Count Stefan Szechenyi, prominent Magyar nobleman, offered to donate his yearly income towards the building of a Magyar academy. A member of the parliament explained that the chief reason for such aims was for the defense against Russian pressure. 27 The constant fear of Russia led the Magyars to look upon a strong Poland as a likely ally. Professor Daniel Rapant explains that Felsobukki Nagy Pal in his Parliamentary speech in 1833 called for the need of a resurrected Poland and a widening of Magyarization to the remotest frontiers of Hungary. He emphasized a common frontier with Poland. 28 Needless to say, much of this fear can be attributed to the cleverness of the Magyars in their defense against the Slavic nations. Both German and Magyar publishers used "Pan-Slavism" extensively as their propaganda weapon. With their careful program of assimilating other nations, the Magyars themselves made blunders which were to turn the Slovak people further away from them. M. Rey wrote: "The Magyar nobles had often made generous sacrifices in the defense of their own interests but they had always shown the most deplorable selfishness as regards the condition of the peasants." 29 All this in turn gave the �SLOVAKIA 91 Austrian crown an opportunity to play the part of the oppressed peasants' friend. 30 The Slovak peasant from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 19th century bore the main burden of taxation in Hungary, paying fifty per cent of what he produced to his lord and to the crown.31 There is no question that the conditiorts of the peasantry in Slovakia were pitiful. 32 Therefore, it is understandable that occasionally open peasant rebellions took place against their lords. One of the latest to occur was in 1831 which took place in the counties of saris, Zemplin, Spis, Abauj, and Gerner with the outbreak of cholera. Some of the lords were put to death by the people who accused them of having poisoned the wells. 33 According t:o Bakes, the disease had spread across the frontier from Poland where Russian soldiers had been encamped.34 rt is estimated that 56,000 died, and one writer claims that Russian agents incited the people to revolt against their lords. 35 The brutality with which the revolt was put down left hatred in the hearts of those who survived. In this state of affairs the Emperor in 1833 invited the Diet to meet at Bratislava to discuss agrarian reforms which he claimed were drawn up by himself. 36 Among the people there was great hope that such interest on the part of the Emperor would mean the gradual alleviation of their terrible conditions. Actually, the congress did not concern itself with such matters and instead they were put aside to be dealt with at later sessions. Something more important now commanded their attention, the coronation of Francis's son, Ferdinand, as kin of Hungary. As Magyars they were won over to the new king when he contributed his coronation gift to the Magyar Scientific Academy. Ferdinand, who claimed to be Magyar at heart, became a strong supporter for the Magyarization program. In 1830, the Diet passed a series of laws which extended the reaches of the Magyar language. By 1836, Magyar was elevated to equal stature with Latin as a language to be used in courts and documents. As a result of the Diet of 1839, Magyar now became the official language of Hungary . Now Magyarization would need only time. What �92 SLOVAKIA would St. Stephen, Hungary's greatest king, have said of this? The Magyars had revered their king and maybe they would have been wiser had they paid heed to his words of wisdom. In a letter written by St. Stephen to his son, St. Emerich, we find him saying: "For as guests some from various parts of the provinces, they bring different languages and customs, knowledge, and arms, all of which adorn the royal court; and make it more magnificent. All this shakes the self-confidence of foreigners. A country with one language and one morality is weak and fragile. Therefore I exhort you, my son, to accept them with benevolence and hold them in esteem in order that they may prefer staying with you in the kingdom."37 Thus, the Magyars were taking their ship on a different course than that charted by their great captam, St. Stephen. At this time, Uudovit stur returned to the Lycee in Bratislava from Germany where he had been studying for the last two years. Much had taken place in his absence; however, he was the man destined to lead his people during their great trial in 1848-49. An effective weapon t,o be used against stur and his followers was the Pesti Hirlap, the first political newspaper in Hungary and edited by Louis Kossuth in 1841. The "forties" were to see the Magyars, "champions" of the newly-won freedom of the press acting quickly to refuse its benefits to their weaker fellow nations. Although some assurances were given that racial tolerance would be honored to all, it was not long before the true character of the journal became evident. Kossuth was very free in his attacks on the Slovaks and answers to his attacks were never allowed space in his "democratic" paper. 38 The Pesti Hirlap became the voice of Magyarization. The Magyars in their search for every technique and new approach did not overlook the possibilities of using the religious issue as a vehicle toward their goal of assimilation. This only served to strengthen Slovak resistance. On September 10, 1840, Count Zay was appointed chief inspector of the Protestant Congregations and schools.39 In his acceptance speech he called for the promotion of Magyarization as the only salvation for the Protestant confession in Slovakia. Zay's goal was to unify the Lutheran �SLOVAKIA 93 and Calvinist Churches. Of all the Lutherans in Hungary, five eights were Slovaks, the rest were Germans. On the other hand, the Calvinists were Magyars and were greater in number. This in itself added to Slovak suspicions that such a union was not in the interest of the faith as proclaimed, but actually a chauvinistic design on the part of the Magyars to absorb the Slovak people.40 Zay openly announced in a public circular, September 26, 1840, his determination to Magyarize the Slovaks. Moreover, he stated that the Slovak language would prevent the Slovaks from being good stolid Protestants, and the Magyarization of the Slavs was the holiest duty of every genuine patriot:u Hungary, according to Zay, could only be strong if she were welded into one nation, for she could then defend herself from the danger in the north, Russia. 42 Slovak leaders were not tardy in answering Zay. Sttir's rebuttal was so intelligently plain that Zay became firmly convinced Sttir was behind all the protestations that were being made. He was determined to have Stlir removed from the chair of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. This appeared to be quite difficult to do inasmuch as i:ittir was very popUllar. Nevertheless, supporters of Zay's plan proclaimed that the Lycee's at Bratislava and Levoca were the hotbeds of all Slovak societies at Lutheran schools and colleges in Slovakia. For the time being, however, Magyar plans were not successful. Jan Seberini answered Zay on April 2, 1841, by stating that he, Zay, professed to Magyarize in the name of Protestantism; yet that is not only contrary to the Protestant beliefs, but also to all Christian teachings. "Who has the right to say what language a man must speak?" he continued, " I am a Slovak not because of glory and honor but according to Christian teachings, for God wanted that I be born Slovak. Therefore, I am not ashamed of my origin nor my tongue just as any German, Frenchman, Magyar need not to be ashamed." 43 It must be remembered that not all of the Protestant clergy sensed danger in the union; nevertheless, Zay's program eventually became evident even to those idealists. At Nitra, where some believed that union of the two �94 SLOVAKIA Protestant groups was in good faith, Jozef Miloslav Hurban warned them to be more realistic and not to be taken in. The part that Hurban was to play in the revolt of 1848-49 was second to none but his great friend and comrade in arms, Jjudovit Stlir. Jozef Miloslav Hurban Born on the 19th of March, 1817, in Beckov, Jozef Hurban was educated by his father, Pavol, a Lutheran Minister of that place. His father was timid and wished not to implicate himself in national problems. Therefore, under these circumstances, the youthful Hurban while at home was not exposed to Slovak national consciousness.44 After spending his lower grades at Trencin, he went in 1830 to study at the Lycee at Bratislava. He was there for six years before he met Shir. Prior to this time Hurban had not taken part in Slovak aspirations at the Lycee. One evening, while taking a walk in the streets of Bratislava, he met stlir who asked him whether he was studying and practicing in the Slovak language. This stur explained, was the duty of all Slovaks. Hurban at the moment was embarrassed and could not answer. stur then said, "You are a Slovak, is that correct? And is not your friend George Zaborsky?" Hurban replied that he was a Slovak and that his friend was George Zabo11sky. 45 stur complimented Hurban for his selection of such a good, able friend and recommended that he continue to cultivate Zaborsky's friendship. Before the two had departed, Hurban was invited to visit stur. That meeting was to have far-reaching effects on Hurban; for, when he arrived home, his mind was full of thought. The lamp in his room burned past midnight, while Hurban wrote hils first verse in Slovak. This he presented to stur the next morning and from that time on the Slovak Institute in Bratislava, as well as the Slovak nation, did not have a more zealous member nor a more deserving son than Hurban. A trip to Devin was planned for April 24, 1836, by the members of the Slovak Society at the Lycee in order to initiate and plan more definite activities. The ruins �SLOVAKIA 95 of Devin, reminders of a rich history, stood majestic on her pedestal of massive rock guarding the confluence of the Morava and Danube rivers. This place recalled the Great Moravian Empire in the 9th century and her ceaseless struggles against German and Magyar. For the new Slovak generation this was a setting best suited for the revival of Slovak national feeling. 46 On this day filled with bright spring sunshine, lectures were given, prose recited, and songs were sung. Everyone participated in the theme of awakening Slovak consciousness. 47 In a further expression of loyalty to their beloved cause, they adopted Slavic names which they pledged to carry forever. sttir was the first to announce that he was to take the name of Velislav and others followed suit, taking different Slavic names. Hurban took the name Miloslav, a name which was to live in Slovak history. 48 Below the fortress of Devin rested a small town by the same name, and there in a tavern the young Slovaks gathered after an eventful day. Conversation, according to Hurban, had to be carried on in Latin so that waiters might not learn and betray their information.49 Just as stur and others had taken trips to broaden their views and get better acquainted with affairs which might influence their actions, Hurban also traveled. 50 His opportunity was afforded during a vacation 1839 when he visited Vienna, Bohemia and Moravia. 51 In 1841, a book relating his experiences was published: Trip of a Slovak to his Slav Brothers in Moravia and Bohemia. 52 When he completed his studies in 1840, Hurban became town chaplain at Brezova. For Hurban, the post at Brezova was a fortunate one, for here his work was to be understood and appreciated. Even before his arrival, the people of Brezova had had experiences in the struggle against the landed gentry. The peasants were aware of their rights and were prepared to defend them. They, too, had been effected by stur and showed a keen interest in his work. 53 Although Hurban knew that the upper classes would hold it against him, he, nevertheless, set about to reach the less fortunate classes. 54 Within himself there was a shining spiritual fire that others felt, and with his expressive face, warm kind eyes, and strong thundering �96 SLOVAKIA voice, he imparted to others the knowledge he had. Through talks and writings, he began to create among the uneducated people an interest in how they could better themselves. Out of this grew a Sunday school and Moderation and Temperance Society, both of which were to help in strengthening his people. The Sunday school was designed for those living in Brezova and it met on Sundays and holidays and on other days when time permitted. Those who attended were taught the arts and sciences. The Moderation and Temperance Society was just as important. Drunkenness came to Slovakia not through a habit developed from pleasure, but as a medium of escape from the extreme hardships of life. Not anywhere in Hungary was misery so great as in Slovakia, nor was drunkenness more widespread. Besides education, there was a dire need for bettering the lot of these people who lived under such deplorable conditions.55 The enlightened Slovak leaders knew that in order to lift up their nation they must first of all remove this scourge of alcoholism. 56 Throughout Slovakia, Moderation Societies were set up which were similar to those in America, but were chiefly modeled after those in Ireland where conditions were unfortunately similar to those found in Slovakia. However, the obstacle to legislation which would have curbed, if not eliminated, the sale of liquor came from the great landowners and Jews. 57 They owned the distilleries as well as the village taverns. The latter were frequented by those who could not pay and high rates of interest were charged them. 58 Agricultural schools had been established, but they were more for the middle class: townsmen, tradesmen, and prosperous farmers who were able to save their earnings.59 But for the less fortunate people of the lower classes, the Moderation and Temperance Societies had greater meaning and importance.6 1, Its founders believed that Slovak patriotism must be aroused, for a poor and drunken nation could achieve nothing but death. In the field of literary activitieis Hurban felt there was a strong need for a journal to help to direct Slovak literary life. In fact, when in May, 1840, Hurban grieved that there was no journal which could serve the interest �SLOVAKIA 97 of defending national rights, he made this comparison: "A journal is to the life of a nation what hands are to a clock to indicate the time; therefore, as conditions exist we do not even have a clock."61 Putting forth all his efforts, he managed, by 1842, to produce a yearly almanac, Nitra, written in Czech, consisting of some three hundred pages.62 Included in the first edition were songs, poems, and prose from members of the young Slovak generation. Nitra's title page was consecrated to "The daughters and sons of Slovakia, Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia." Hurban dedicated the introductory poem of this first issue of Nitra to Jan Caplovic, landowner and great lover of books and literature. All this was done purposefully so that he might join the Slovak cause more actively .63 There was some speculation among the Magyars as to Hurban's purpose of editing the Nitra. Some claimed that the almanac was given the name Nitra so that Slovakia might arise around the glory that surrounded that name. Prior to this time any open discussion about historic Nitra was forbidden. However, friends of Hurban came to his rescue by tactfully assuring the Magyars there was nothing to fear from Hurban who was but a young man and as such should be excused for his actions. 64 A weaker man would have sensed the danger but Hurban stayed on to put out three more almanacs until 1848 when he was forced to flee for his life. In the year 1843, Hurban was called as pastor to Hlboke and there he edited his second issue of Nitra, but this time in the new Slovak literary language, and censors played havoc with this issue.65 The Magyars also hindered in every way the realization of a Slovak newspaper. stur, with the help of Kollar, had petitioned in 1842 for permission to publish a newspaper, but approval was denied. There was no telling how long this condition would last. In the meantime, something had to be done to draw the Slovak people together into a unified body. It was for this purpose in 1843 that the Slovak leaders stur and Hodza met in Hurban's residence in Hlboke.66 Here they decided that if they were not free to edit a newspaper, a society formed along national lines might help achieve the same results. �98 SLOVAKIA Slovak Literary Language The triumvirate agreed that Czech should no longer be used by the Lutherans in their churches and writings. Therefore, the adoption of the Central Slovak dialect by this body brought the Lutherans and Catholics closer to the goal of having one dialect as a base for their literary language. There was a great need to reach the people, but in a language that was dear to them and one which they understood. Not all people could read the Czech, only the educated; it seemed so foreign to the common people. The society planned for in Hlboke paved the way for the achievement of a common langu&ge.67 Near the beautiful High Tatra mountains on the 27th of August, 1844, in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, the Tatrin Society was organized. In the words of Rapant, "It was the culminating point of cultural organization in Slovakia at that time; and it was the most important organ for the stur generation."68 A factor of far reaching consequences for Slovakia was that it was the first national Slovak organization and it encompassed all of the sides and segments of the nation, Catholic and Lutheran.69 Along with unity of language, it concerned itself with the cultural needs of the Slovaks.70 The Tatrin gave financial support to young Catholic and Protestant men who were studying in higher schools of education. Peter Bohun, the famous Slovak artist who painted portraits and scenes of the revolution of 1848-1849, was given such assistance by the Tatrin, so that he was able to publish a book of national costumes. 71 The third meeting of the Tatrin was held at cachtice in the Catholic parish house chiefly to resolve the language issue.72 On this memorial occasion the Catholics and Lutherans on the 10th of August, 1847, agreed to adopt the Central Slovak as the common literary language. The effect of this meeting meant the rupture with the Czechs. As was expected, it drew exclamations of disapproval from Palkovic, Kollar, and others who felt the only salvation for the Slovaks was in their tie with the Czechs. On the part of the Czechs there was great anger, and claims were made that such a move only strengthened the German influence about them. �SLOVAKIA 99 The Czech nationals could not understand the Slovak problem,73 for the vernacular is the natural medium and the truest heartbeat of the people. It, the vernacular, only could help enlighten and lift the Slovak people from their death sleep. Not all Czechs, however, were against the founding of a new literary language. This group argued that a Slovak literature would enrich the whole of Slavic literature. On the other hand, the agreement reached in Cachtice was celebrated throughout Slovakia by Protestants and Catholics alike. stl1r's former students who now served as Protestant clergymen were filled with joy. It seemed that at once Slovak was elevated to a literary language bringing with it a new life which surged into the land. Slavic historians claim that had not such a step been taken it is doubtful whether the Slovaks could have withstood the pressure of Magyarization. 74 It seemed that every,.vhere nobles, townscitizens, and people of the villages began to proclaim that they were Slovaks. The poor classes were not able to understand most of what was written. Time was needed so they might completely understand. Along with Sunday schools which had been established new ones sprang up, and, in addition, writing and reading rooms were opened. People began to realize that through learning and enlightenment they could be helped out of their misery. In Brezova, peasants who had long been held under the nobles' yoke began their attempt to free themselves by purchasing the land. Now that it was their land they worked it as never before. 75 Books and articles were not written to adorn libraries but to serve the people. Advice on practical matters in the written medium was beginning to evidence itself in the lives of the Slovak people. The societies which already existed in the cultural, social, and economic field were given a tremendous impetus by the new language. In the meantime, all protests against Zay had not been aired. The inroads of Magyarization aroused superintendent Dr. Paul Jozeffy 76 to protest at the Lutheran general convention on September 10, 1841. He warned that if they continued forcing Magyarization into Slovak churches and schools, he himself would present these �100 SLOVAKIA ~ievances to the court.77 Needless to say, Magyar ambitions were not deterred, for when in 1840 the Jittenka (Morning Star), a student journal, was first issued at Levoca the Magyar press vehemently attacked it as a tool of PanSlavism. By 1841 the young students were forced to cease its publication.78 Paul Jozeffy Heads Delegation to Vienna, June, 1842 Every move by the Slovaks the Magyars suspected as intrigues against their kingdom and made use of the strongest propaganda weapon by crying "Pan-Slavism." They claimed Pan-Slavism was nc.t only dangerous to the Magyars but also politically perilous to the Empire; therefore, it was necessary that the Magyars and Germans fight this menace. 79 All candidates for Slovak pastorates were barred unless they could speak Magyar fluently. It was under these conditions that 200 ministers under the supervision of Jozeffy signed a petition demanding rights for the Slovaks. Jozeffy and his delegation went to Vienna in early June 1842 where they presented their grievances before Ferdinand V. The petition began by stating that the Slovaks are an individual nation which can progress only when it fosters its own tongue. Furthermore, for many centuries the Slovaks had made sacrifices along with other nations . of Hungary for the preservation of the Empire. They had been able to use their own language, but now the Slovak priests were being humiliated by having to adopt another tongue. _Because of this, the Slovak language and its literature was suffering, while in business transactions Slovak was no longer used. They, therefore, petitioned: 1) that the King should declare officially as false all testimony against the Slovaks that had been so proven, 2) that proper authority be granted ·so that two censors for Slovak literature be assigned to interpret and defend Slovak works, 3) that the seat of language and literature at the Lycee at Bratislava be confirmed and fully certified, 4') that at the University of Pest there be established a seat of Slavic language and literature, 5) that for matriculation records and church protocol Latin be put in use again, 6) that churches and schools be defended against �SLOVAKIA 101 fanatic, self styled patriots who seek to Magyarize everything.80 This petition was signed by Paul Jozeffy, John Seberini, John Chalupka, Michael Hodza, Samuel Ferjencik, George Palkovic and 200 ministers, teachers and men of all stations in life.81 Although the Slovak delegation did not get very far w:.th its request, it served as a morale booster for the Slovaks. From the outset, promises were made and it looked as though something might be accomplished. The delegation had an audience with Metternich who assured them their request would be studied. After leaving Metternich they saw Count Kolowrat, a Czech nobleman and member of the Emperor's entourage. Although he greeted them with great warmth and is reported to have said, "Slav must help Slav," the delegation felt that they were being sidetracked. Kolowrat sensed this lack of confidence and assured them that he would lend them his support. When they left Vienna, the delegation felt something would be achieved. Now it seemed necessary only to wait. Upon their return home the delegation was shocked by the Magyar's overt reaction. The Slovak delegation had gone to Vienna with nothing but peaceful intentions in mind. But now the chauvinistic Magyars were infuriated and began to reel off in their papers and journals diatribes against the deputation headed by Jozeffy. Amidst this growing fervor a climax was reached when Kossuth delivered his flailing message at the General Convention on June 15th in Pest. In his attack, Kossuth, capable orator that he was, spared no words and vehemently described the deputation as a shame for the Protestant church and the betrayal of the best interest of the kingdom of Hungary. Kossuth demanded the punishment and resignation of Jozeffy from his superintendency. By the end of October, 1842, the petition was sent from Vienna to Buda to Palatine Joseph for his study and recommendations. When Kollar got wind of this he wrote a letter in November advising Jozeffy to come to Buda and intercede with the Palatine. Jozeffy arrived in Buda at the end of November and brought with him data and other materials with which he could strengthen his �102 SLOVAKIA position before the Pa1atine.82 But all proved futile, for prior to his arrival Joseph had been prepared by the Magyars for such an audience. Already on the 16th of April, 1843, Kollar had warned Jozeffy that the Palatine was Magyar in his symphaties. Moreover, according to Kollar, the Palatine Joseph had been oriented and advised by Vienna to disregard the Slovak demands. Vienna had no desire to strengthen the Slavs whether they be Slovak, Czech, or Serb, for in their union and strength she saw jeopardy to her position. At the same time she knew she could depend upon the support of the Slavs in case the Magyars caused trouble. And yet because of rumblings in Germany and Italy she could not afford to offend the Magyars. This policy of "cat and mouse" by Vienna was reaffirmed when in his letter to Jozeffy dated April 25th, 184J, the Palatine urged him to be patient, thus leaving Jozeffy to hope that all was not in vain. Hodza summed up the situation: "We cannot expect help from the Magyars but we must look to the Empire which is far away; and God is too high to help." 83 Other attempts were made to present Slovak grievances before the Emperor but they likewise proved fruitless . The Slovaks now more than ever realized that they must fight alone. s tur Leaves Bratislava As a result of Kossuth's charges at the General Convention an inquiry was held to det ermine for the Magyars the real reason for Jozeffy's trip to Vienna. Through their cunning, Zay and Kossuth at last felt they had a way of removing s tur from his position as professor of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. With it they hoped that if they could not remove the chair of studies completely, they could at least render it harmless through an appointee of their choice. The Slovaks called his investigation an inquisition, but in spite of all the false charges and doctored methods the inquiry ended in an acquittal of the charges made. Zay, however, insisted upon action which in the future would prevent stur from making lectures. Unheard-of pressure brought the removal of stur in December 1843. �SLOVAKIA 103 A petition initiated by his beloved students was circulated for signatures. From all over Slovakia protests came from clergy and laity for the restoration of stur to his post.84 This did not, however, bring the result desired. In a feeling of indignation the young students left Bratislava. While most of them stopped at Levoca, others continued on to Presov, Kezmarok, stiavnica and Jelenova. 85 On their way, with heavy hearts but no resignation, they composed a song "Nad Tatrou sa blyska" (Over Tatra's Peaks Lightning Flashes) .86 The Magyars, blinded by their recent victory, did not realize that they had ironically rendered a great service to the Slovak cause. Previously the young Slovak students were centered in Bratislava where observation could be made of their every move, but they now were being scattered throughout Slovakia. Like so many seeds the ideals of stur and other Slovak leadership, knowledge, national pride, betterment and unity of purpose began to sprout and grow. The Slovak National News For st\ir his removal meant that his next fight would not be in the schools as before but among the masses of the Slovak people. To help reach the people a newspaper was needed. It was not until 1845, however, that the first issue of the Slovenske N<irodne Noviny (Slovak National News) was published.87 The paper, written in Slovak, was to become the most important vehicle in presenting stur's platform, and in fighting for Slovak rights. 88 Though criticized by some for lacking more aggressive action, stur stuck to his conservative approach, for he knew that if the Magyars were irritated the paper would not have long to live. stur believed that in order that the Slovak people might better preserve their nation they must be first educated in politics as well as home affairs. Some of his articles seemingly were written for the benefit of the Magyars to whom stur wished to prove that the Slovaks desired only peace and what was rightfully theirs. Through his paper, stur hoped to modernize his people, therefore he discussed their schools, institutions, libraries, and �104 SLOVAKIA societies. His words gave new hope to those who long suffered under the burden of serfdom. As a result of the appearance of the Slovak National News, there blossomed in all corners of Slovakia in 1845 a great number of Literary, Social, Agricultural, Economic, Woman's, and Moderation and Temperance societies. They were modeled after those which had been found in previous years, but now they seemed to grow everywhere. To reach national unity and purpose every facet was tried. As with her fighting sons, the role women were to play became apparent. Articles appeared in st1.1r's newspaper stressing the point that being good mother was no longer sufficient, for all women now must take on additional responsibilities and become interested in the affairs of their nation. 89 Other writers called for the establishment of a girls' institute where industry and devotion to the Slovak cause would be taught.90 Readers of the Slovak newspapers were reproached for not helping themselves and were given sound advice that jealousy of others will not get them ahead. stur wrote that, "In order for the Slovaks to be more fortunate, they must be concerned about themselves and must get a 'common soul.'" He stated further, "Authough the mark of a nation is her language, the Slovak tongue is completely neglected in schools; it does not have social and constitutional rights for its cultivation. This is due to the fact that the Slovaks have not lived like a nation but as an individual. He has hidden his tongue only for use in the home and therefore it has no chance of blossoming forth into reality." 91 Hodza in his Dobruo slovo (Good Word) proclaimed that the Slovaks must recognize their own nation and then others will do likewise. The program of sttir as outlined in the Slovak National News was but the continuation of demands placed before Vienna and Pest by the Slovaks for the past twenty years. Aside from the need of economic reforms the major issue was that of language. stur's paper was read in towns and villages. Hurban wrote, "The voice of that national organ under stur was really strong, one which had to be considered." 92 The Slovak National News had awakened the Slovak people and helped prepare them for the moment for which everyone waited. �SLOVAKIA 105 FOOTNOTES 1) Charles E. Maurice, The Rev olutionary Movements of 1848-1849, p . vi. 2 ) Daniel Rapant, Slov enske Pov stanie, ( Slovak Uprising) Vol. I, Bk. I, p. 18. 3) Milan Hodfa, "Political Evolution of Slovakia," Slov akia Then and Now, ed. R. W . Seton-Watson, p . 71. 4 ) Alphonse M. Lamarune, "Past, Present and Future," North Ameri can Revi ew, LXXII, (Jan. 1851) , p . 206. 5) Rapant, op. cit. , pp. 75, 88, 89; " Austria and Germany," Quarterly Review, LXXXIV, (Dec. 1849), p. 198. 6 ) Julius Botto, Slovcici , (Slovaks) , I, 23 ; Arnost Dennis, Slov cici: Otcizka Rakouskci, (Slovaks : The Austrian Question), p. 134; C. J . C. Street, Slov akia Past and Present, p. 9; Rapant, op. cit., p. 84. 7) Arthur Patterson, The Magyars, II, 70. 8) Jozef Cieker, Slovenskci Otcizka, (Slovak Question) , pp. 19, 20; E. L. Miyatovich, "Panslavism: Its Rise and Decline", Fortnightly Revi ew, XIV (1873) , p. 96. 9 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p . 10; Rapant, op. cit., p . 4. 10) Htjdza, op. cit., p. 16. 11 ) Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 520; Geoffrey Drage, Austria-Hungary, p. 200 ; Harold W. Ternperley, "Racial Strife in Hungary," Westminster Review, C. XIX (Jan. 1908) , p. 4. 12) Daniel Rapant, Ileqalna Mad'arizcicia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization) , p. 3. 13 ) Cieker, op. cit ., p. 39. 14) Hodza, op. ci t ., p. 10. 15) Ernest Flachbarth, Companion to Hungarian Studies, p. 372. 16 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p. 41. 17) Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske D ej iny, (Slovak History) , p. 248. 18) Skultety, op. cit., p. 62. 19) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 12. 20) Jozef Skultety, Sketches from Slo·va.lc History, trans. 0 . D. Koreff, p. 184; Bodnar, Zoe. cit.; Albert Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny po Dobu sturovu , (History of Literary Slovak Before the Time of Stur) p. 163; Miss Parooe, an English lady who traveled throughout Hungary in the late 1830's w110te, "It is said that in the whole k!ingdom there is not so high and liberal an academic spirit in any scholastic establishment as in that of the Lycee of Bratislava" (City of the Magyar and Hungary) , JI, 281. 21 ) Frantisek Frydecky, Dopisy .fudev ita Stura Jaroslavu Pospisilovi, (Letters of Cudovit Stur to Jaroslav Pospisil) , pp. 31, 73. �SLOVAKIA 106 22) Jozef Hurban, I!udovit Stur, I, 38,39. 23) See R. W. Seton-Watson, A H istory of the Czechs m# Slovaks, pp. 173-176. 24) There were, in aj:ldition, German and Magyar societies at the Lycee at Bratislava. 25) Daniel Rapant, llegalna Mad'arizacia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization), p. v. 26) Ibid., p. 23; Pardoe, op. cit., III, 78-80. 27) Rapant, op. cit., p. 24. 28) Daniel Rapant, Slovenske Povstanie, (Slovak Uprising), Vol. I., Bk. I ., p. 66. 29) M. Rey in his study of this period described the privileges of the nobility: " The rights of the nobles were as vast as a privileged race of conquerors could possibly enjoy ... Neither the noble himself nor his servants paid any tax, real or personal, to the king or the counties; neither his horse nor his men could be required to work on the roald or the dykes. The peasant alone was the person who paid the tax termed 'domestical' for the expense of the Diet and the county administration. The peasant paid the salary of the school master, the notary, the priest, the patrol. The peasant constructed and maintained either with his ,o wn money or his labor, the roads, bridges, churches, schools, public bui~dings, dykes, canals; and it was the peasant and the townsman who drained the marshes, turned the course of rivers, etc. The peasant and the townspeople paid the war tax and furnished recruits." (Autriche, Hongrie, et Turquie on 1839-48, p. 126, cited by Corvinus, Hungary: Its Constitutions and the Catastrophe, p. 17) ; Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 493. 30 ) Peter E. Turnbull, Austria: Social a111:l Political Conditions, II, 21, 22. 31 ) Stefan Jansak, "The Land Question in Slovakia," The Slav onic Review, (March, 1930), p. 620. 32) As a result of the Diet of 1764 a law was passed restricting the power of inflicting corporal punishment to the bestowing of twentyfive lashes. (Lord Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy, II, 9.3 ). 33 ) Leger, op. cit., pp. 493, 494. 34) Frantisek Bokes, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska, (History of the Slovaks and Slovakia ); Vol. IV, Slovenska Vlastiveda, p. 146. 35 ) Arthur Yolland, Hungary, p. 253. 36) Leger, op. cit., p. 494. 37) Ernest Flachbarth, History of Hungcry's Nati onalities, pp. 5, 6. 38) Arminius Vambery, Hungary, p. 417. 39) Hurban, op. cit., II, 118. 40 ) Arnost Dennis, Slovaci: Otazka Rakouska, p. 155. �SLOVAKIA 107 41) ~udovit Stur, Stary i Novy Vek Slovaku, (Old and New Slovak Age), p. 39. 42) Stur writes the Magyars feel that they can only be safe from Russia by Magyarizing the Slovaks. "Was there a time," he asked, "when the Slovaks have not ·prov~d faithful? We have fought for our country, Hungary, and thousands have shed their blood." (Ibid. , p . 42) . 43) Julius Botto, Slovaci, pp. 53, 54. 44) Hurban, op. cit., III, 228. 45) Dr. Luidvik Ktihn, Buditelia v zupe bratislavskej, p. 66 . 46) Nitra had been considered. 47) Hurban, op. cit., I, 94-106. 48)\ Ibid., 102. 49) Ibid., 103. 50) Ibid., 155. 51) Hurban visited the Rajhrad Cloister in Moravia and made the following entry in the visitors' book on July 10, 1839: "Miloslav Jozef Hurban, a traveling Slovak, visited .this famous cloister with the motto, 'Long Live Czecho-Slovak' " (Author in 1948 humbly ~dded his name to the same visitors' book at the Rajhrad Cloister). 52) Cesta Slovaka ku b1·atrum slavenskym na Morave av techach. 53) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 17. 54) Ibid., p . 16. 55) See Stefan Jansak, Les Conditions Sociales dans l'Anciene Hongrie et la Situation de la Slovaquie. 56 ) Rapant, op. cit., p. 159. 57 ) Ibid., p. 160; Max Schlesinger, The War in Hungary, 1848-1849, II, 218, 2l9. 58) G. R. Gleig, Germany_. Bohemia, arlji Hungary, III, 59-62. 59) Rapant, op. cit., p. 158. 60) Rapant relates that many of 't hese people would spend their last earnings for liquor, and that in some areas between one thiDd to one half of the population on certain days were intoxicated; even children in the nursing stages were given alcohol L-Oc. cit. 61) Karol Golan, Rok so Sturovcami, p. 11. 62) At that time there were practically no printing facilities available in Slovakia. 63) Vendelin Jankovic, Jan taplovic: Zivot, Osobnost', Dielo, p. 24. 64) Bodnar, op. cit., p. 20. 65) J . Skultety, 0 Slovakoch (About the Slovaks), p. 254. 66) Hurban, op. cit., II, 302; Hurban wrote : "Tatrin's function was to the nation what Stur's was to the Slovak youth." Loe. cit. �108 SLOVAKIA 67) Prazak, op. cit., p. 304. 68) Rapant, op. cit., p. 156. 69) Mikulas Dohnany, Historia Povstanja Slovenskjeho z Roku 1848, (History of the Slovak Uprising in 1848), p. 21. 70) Hodza, op. cit., p. 54. 71) Hurban, op. cit., p. 298; Dohnany, op. cit., p. 21 . 72) Botto, op. cit., p. 62. 73) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 22. 74) Albert Prazak, "Czechs and Slovaks in Revolution of 1848," The Slavonic Review, V (March, 1927), p. 573. 75) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 20. 76) In ~::ldition to his fine qualities his contemporaries described Dr. Jozeffy as being timid and lacking ,t he firmness and obstinancy needed for his time. One can well imagine that when such a man is roused to make a protest of this order it generally must be for reason. (Botto, op. cit., p. 55) . 77) Hurban, op. cit., p. 115. 78) Ibid. , p. 116. 79) Jozef Cieker, Slovenska Otazka, p. 72. 80) Botto, op. cit., pp. 57, 58; Hurban, op. cit., pp. 166-168. 81) Ibid. , p. 164. 82) Ibid., p. 171. cit., p. 32. 84) Skultety, op. cit., p. 200. 83) Hodza, op. 85) Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny, op. cit., pp. 285, 286. 86) Jan Matuska ( 1821-1877) was the writer of that song. 87) It may be interesting to note that Zay was commission~ by his government to study Stur's request for a Slovak paper. To the surprise of Stur and his followers the request was granted. The rejoicing which took place was not to last for any great length of time for when the Magyars saw fit, they deprived the Slovaks of their news organ. 88) Bokes, op. cit., p. 158. 89) Rapant, op. cit., p. 155. 90) Cieker, op. cit., p. 210. 91) Rapant, op. cit., p. 148. 92) Hurban, op. cit., III, 80, 81. • THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interest.eel primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the Unit.eel States of America. � 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 1971, Vol. 21 Description An account of the resource Vol. 21 (No. 44), 1971. 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 1971 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 85 The Slovak National Awakening By Edward A. Tuleya Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 democratic principles and nationalism had been suppressed by the joint efforts of the great powers. However, by 1848 the dream of freedom could no longer be contained, and throughout the continent of Europe, except for Russia, the revolution spread. Revolts in Palermo, Paris, Vienna, and Prague were like huge cannon aimed to destroy the fortress of reaction. 1 The time that Prince Metternich feared had come, and on March 14th he was forced to flee Vienna. Hope for the oppressed ran high. 2 Within the framework of the Austrian Empire dissatisfied nations now saw the opportunity to gain rights which had long been denied them. Magyars Would Deny Others Freedom Napoleon's downfall had created a dilemma for Vienna and she reacted by adopting a policy which relegated the Slavs to an inferior status within the Empire, especially those living in Hungary. The Russian more than any other army was responsible for the defeat of Napoleon. Gratitude quickly gave way to suspicion as to what the Russian Tsar might do now that he had the strongest fighting force in Europe. Vienna feared that Russia would use her power to back up the demands of the Slav nations in Empire, for the improvement of their political position or more alarming for breaking away from Hapsburg control. Instead of turning to a rational policy for her Slav subjects, she opted for a diametrical course by seeking the co-operation of the Magyars who were in complete sympathy with Vienna, at least on that overriding issue. Vienna gave the Magyars more than tacit support to do whatever was necessary in Hungary to preserve the Empire's internal security. What the Magyars had in mind was something more, greater independence from Vienna. For centuries the Magyars ruled a population three fourths of which was made up of nonMagyar peoples, such as Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, 86 SLOVAKIA Ruthenians, and Rumanians. But the Magyar leaders had no sympathy for others when the latter called for equal rights. 3 Thus, while the Magyars were pressing Vienna for more rights, the non-Magyar nations were being refused those very same rights and others by the Magyars. 4 The lot of the subject races in Hungary was difficult, particularly for the Slovaks, a Slavic people, numbering close to three million and living in northern Hungary. Unlike the Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians, the Slovaks did not enjoy favor in Vienna, representation in Parliament, nor the right to cultivate their own language. 5 It was not, however, until the end of the eighteenth century that the Magyars began to accelerate the Magyarization of the Slovaks and other ·non-Magyar nations. The greatest contributing factor to their plan was Joseph II's policy to centralize and Germanize the Empire. In 1784 Joseph II ordered that in place of the dead language, Latin, German would be the official language in Hungary. From that time on there was a strong reawakening of the people.6 "Just as the encroachments of German had awakened the susceptibilities of the Magyars", writes A. Patterson, "so did the encroachments of Hungarian (Magyar) awaken those of the Croats and Slovaks."7 Effect of Joseph's Policy on Magyarization The policy of Joseph II, instead of unifying the Empire through Germanization, only aroused the subject nations to take further steps to defend their national identity.8 The awakened spirit affected the Magyar nationalists to adhere to the belief that the security of Hungary as a Magyar nation could only be assured if all its inhabitants were Magyars. 9 In opposition to this, Michael Hodza, ardent fighter for Slovak people, exclaimed, "We don't want Magyar as our language. If you fought against Germanization of Joseph II, we also fight against your Magyarization."10 Therefore, the Slovaks who had enjoyed some linguistic tolerance were now to feel the pains of a denaturalization program. Lack of concern on the part of the Magyars and their feeling of superiority and arrogance can be best expressed in a; Magyar proverb: "Toth ember nem ember." (The Slovak is not a man).11 SLOVAKIA 87 The first Magyarization laws were passed in 1791-92 by the County councils.12 For several years the laws. were poorly enforced and not too much concern was paid to the activities of the non-Magyar groups or their resistance to assimilation. This apathy, however, was not the rule in all quarters. In some cities in Hungary it was calculated that in 1798 the Magyar and the Slovak population was equal, and because of the manner in which the Germans had been absorbed by the Slovaks, the Magyars could not expect a better fate .13 Reaction to this fear took different forms on the part of the Magyars. In many cases Magyar priests unable to speak Slovak were sent to Slovak churches. In the village of :r.udovilovo-Komarno police were posted outside the doors of the church to keep the people from leaving. Those who protasted were placed on the deres and beaten. Me;:i,nwhile Slovak priests were not allowed to perform services and Magyars were appointed. 14 This could have had a disastrous affect on the Slovaks, for the Catholic priests and Protestant ministers were looked upon as leaders by the people. With few exceptions, the clergy were the only national-minded Slovaks possessing a higher education. They used their learning to better the lives of the people through writing and organizing schools. The Slovak aristocracy, on the other hand, were pro-Magyar in their sympathies and looked with indifference on their own countrymen. Influ ence of Anton B ernolak In 1787, Anton Bernolak, a Catholic priest, published his Slovak grammar. His work laid the foundations for a Slovak literary language and contributed to a growing national consciousness. 15 Heretofore, Slovak writers had used Czech as a medium of written expression, but now they had, based on the West Sl@vak dialect, the beginning of their own literary language. Slovak writers now turned to the distant p ast in Slovak history, and using the new idiom, wrote about her past glory and achievements in an effort to inspire the people. Not long afterwards, in 1793, Bernolak and his followers founded the Slovak Education Society for the purpose of publishing and distributing Slovak books. A 88 SLOVAKIA generous patron and member of the Trnava Literary circle was Alexander Rudnay, Archbishop Cardinal of Ostrihom, who openly proclaimed, "Slovak I am and if I were a Pope I would still be a Slovak."16 For the Slovak people, Bernolak and his followers had taken the first stride toward the preservation of their language, heritage, and nation. 17 "Had it not been for those who in the 1790's were awake, as true Slovaks, by the year 1867 we would have been smothered by Magyarization," were the words used by Skultety to stress the importance of the school of Bernolak.18 Before the Slovaks could present a more united front against the Magyars, however, it was necessary to close the ranks among their own people. One of the greate$t obstacles which confronted the Slovak leaders was the selection of a literary language which would be accepted by both Catholic and Protestant groups. Centered in Trnava, the Catholics continued on their new course by using the Western Slovak vernacular as their vehicle for development of a literary language. The Bernolak group was steering away from the Czech which until this time had been used by the educated class as the literary language in Slovakia. On the other hand, the Protestants remained adherents of the Czech. They in turn began to gather around the Lutheran Lycee in Bratislava. In 1801, they founded the "Society for Slovak Literature," and two years later they established a chair for the study of the Slovak language and literature at the Lycee. 19 Eudovit Stur And The Defense of Slovak Rights For the Slovaks much good emanated from the Lycee in the years that followed. In the circles of the young students, Eudovit sttir from 1836 became prominent. Born in the small town of Uhrovec, the son of a school teacher, :Cudovit was destined to devote his life to his people. He succeeded in getting the chair of Slovak as substitute of the superannuated Professor George Palkovic.20 In order to prepare himself for the cause of his nation, sttir, in 1838, departed for Germany to take up studies at the University of Halle. During his sojourn at Halle he continued to keep contact with his homeland by SLOVAKIA 89 exchanging letters witl1 his literary associates in Slovakia and Bohemia. Before returning home $tur visited the Lusatians, an island of the Western Slavic people located in the "German Sea." He hoped to find the purest type of Slavic character and racial purity. He came upon a village which except for the name of the community had lost all its Slavic identity. $tur wa.s moved by this experience and in a poem called "The Pagan Priest" expressed with sadness the eventual loss of these people to the Slavic world. On his way home he lingered in Prague at the home of a dear friend, Jaroslav Pospisil. Unfortunately, $tur fell down the steps and was forced to remain. 21 During his convalescence he fell in love with his host's daughter, Maria. After great deliberation, $tur decided against placing his own personal feelings before those of his people. It may, be said by some that a marriage at this time by $tur would have meant his loss to the Slovak cause. There is no doubt that during his marital adjustment he may have neglected his life'is work, but one must not forget his burning desire to fulfill his mission for the welfare of his people. It must also be remembered that $tur's prospective father-in-law was a man steeped in the Slavic cause which in itself would certainly have not been a deterring factor towards $tur's continued efforts in the Slovak cause. Indeed, the Slovak people came much closer to losing their great son in 1833 and from an entirely different quarter. After completing his studies in that year at the Lycee in Bratislava, $tur was employed at the office on the estate of Count Zay. Such a position would have been cherished by most young men, yet $tur resigned. His mission and work lay elsewhere. When his mother protested and pleaded that he remain, $tur in a voice full of love and emotion said, "Mommy dear, as you see today, I will still be a student. I must be a student." $tur returned to Bratislava where he gave himself to his people. 22 Few will deny that Jan Kollar's "Slavy Dcera" (The Daughter of Slava) and Paul Joseph $afarik's "Slavonic Antiquities" had influenced $tur's decision. 23 The Lycee attracted not only Slovaks but also Serbian 90 SLOVAKIA and Croatian youth. 24 Replicas of the society at the Lycee were found in other schools in Slovakia. Stimulating contacts among the Catholic and Lutheran Slovak students was established through correspondence. They were preparing each other for future duties in life. Acceleration of Magyarization It was not until the 1830's that-the non-Magyar nations began to rise and defend themselves against the accelerated Magyarization program. 25 By 1820, in some counties, Magyar was advocated as the language in non-Magyar schools. 26 A terrible blow was dealt to Slovak people by the Hungarian Diet in 1825-27. Seemingly, the only purpose of the Diet body at the time was to replace Latin with Magyar as the official language. Consequently this meant that all citizens of Hungary would be forced to use the Magyar language in schools, civil service, army and public life as well. To further the cause of Magyarization, Count Stefan Szechenyi, prominent Magyar nobleman, offered to donate his yearly income towards the building of a Magyar academy. A member of the parliament explained that the chief reason for such aims was for the defense against Russian pressure. 27 The constant fear of Russia led the Magyars to look upon a strong Poland as a likely ally. Professor Daniel Rapant explains that Felsobukki Nagy Pal in his Parliamentary speech in 1833 called for the need of a resurrected Poland and a widening of Magyarization to the remotest frontiers of Hungary. He emphasized a common frontier with Poland. 28 Needless to say, much of this fear can be attributed to the cleverness of the Magyars in their defense against the Slavic nations. Both German and Magyar publishers used "Pan-Slavism" extensively as their propaganda weapon. With their careful program of assimilating other nations, the Magyars themselves made blunders which were to turn the Slovak people further away from them. M. Rey wrote: "The Magyar nobles had often made generous sacrifices in the defense of their own interests but they had always shown the most deplorable selfishness as regards the condition of the peasants." 29 All this in turn gave the SLOVAKIA 91 Austrian crown an opportunity to play the part of the oppressed peasants' friend. 30 The Slovak peasant from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 19th century bore the main burden of taxation in Hungary, paying fifty per cent of what he produced to his lord and to the crown.31 There is no question that the conditiorts of the peasantry in Slovakia were pitiful. 32 Therefore, it is understandable that occasionally open peasant rebellions took place against their lords. One of the latest to occur was in 1831 which took place in the counties of saris, Zemplin, Spis, Abauj, and Gerner with the outbreak of cholera. Some of the lords were put to death by the people who accused them of having poisoned the wells. 33 According t:o Bakes, the disease had spread across the frontier from Poland where Russian soldiers had been encamped.34 rt is estimated that 56,000 died, and one writer claims that Russian agents incited the people to revolt against their lords. 35 The brutality with which the revolt was put down left hatred in the hearts of those who survived. In this state of affairs the Emperor in 1833 invited the Diet to meet at Bratislava to discuss agrarian reforms which he claimed were drawn up by himself. 36 Among the people there was great hope that such interest on the part of the Emperor would mean the gradual alleviation of their terrible conditions. Actually, the congress did not concern itself with such matters and instead they were put aside to be dealt with at later sessions. Something more important now commanded their attention, the coronation of Francis's son, Ferdinand, as kin of Hungary. As Magyars they were won over to the new king when he contributed his coronation gift to the Magyar Scientific Academy. Ferdinand, who claimed to be Magyar at heart, became a strong supporter for the Magyarization program. In 1830, the Diet passed a series of laws which extended the reaches of the Magyar language. By 1836, Magyar was elevated to equal stature with Latin as a language to be used in courts and documents. As a result of the Diet of 1839, Magyar now became the official language of Hungary . Now Magyarization would need only time. What 92 SLOVAKIA would St. Stephen, Hungary's greatest king, have said of this? The Magyars had revered their king and maybe they would have been wiser had they paid heed to his words of wisdom. In a letter written by St. Stephen to his son, St. Emerich, we find him saying: "For as guests some from various parts of the provinces, they bring different languages and customs, knowledge, and arms, all of which adorn the royal court; and make it more magnificent. All this shakes the self-confidence of foreigners. A country with one language and one morality is weak and fragile. Therefore I exhort you, my son, to accept them with benevolence and hold them in esteem in order that they may prefer staying with you in the kingdom."37 Thus, the Magyars were taking their ship on a different course than that charted by their great captam, St. Stephen. At this time, Uudovit stur returned to the Lycee in Bratislava from Germany where he had been studying for the last two years. Much had taken place in his absence; however, he was the man destined to lead his people during their great trial in 1848-49. An effective weapon t,o be used against stur and his followers was the Pesti Hirlap, the first political newspaper in Hungary and edited by Louis Kossuth in 1841. The "forties" were to see the Magyars, "champions" of the newly-won freedom of the press acting quickly to refuse its benefits to their weaker fellow nations. Although some assurances were given that racial tolerance would be honored to all, it was not long before the true character of the journal became evident. Kossuth was very free in his attacks on the Slovaks and answers to his attacks were never allowed space in his "democratic" paper. 38 The Pesti Hirlap became the voice of Magyarization. The Magyars in their search for every technique and new approach did not overlook the possibilities of using the religious issue as a vehicle toward their goal of assimilation. This only served to strengthen Slovak resistance. On September 10, 1840, Count Zay was appointed chief inspector of the Protestant Congregations and schools.39 In his acceptance speech he called for the promotion of Magyarization as the only salvation for the Protestant confession in Slovakia. Zay's goal was to unify the Lutheran SLOVAKIA 93 and Calvinist Churches. Of all the Lutherans in Hungary, five eights were Slovaks, the rest were Germans. On the other hand, the Calvinists were Magyars and were greater in number. This in itself added to Slovak suspicions that such a union was not in the interest of the faith as proclaimed, but actually a chauvinistic design on the part of the Magyars to absorb the Slovak people.40 Zay openly announced in a public circular, September 26, 1840, his determination to Magyarize the Slovaks. Moreover, he stated that the Slovak language would prevent the Slovaks from being good stolid Protestants, and the Magyarization of the Slavs was the holiest duty of every genuine patriot:u Hungary, according to Zay, could only be strong if she were welded into one nation, for she could then defend herself from the danger in the north, Russia. 42 Slovak leaders were not tardy in answering Zay. Sttir's rebuttal was so intelligently plain that Zay became firmly convinced Sttir was behind all the protestations that were being made. He was determined to have Stlir removed from the chair of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. This appeared to be quite difficult to do inasmuch as i:ittir was very popUllar. Nevertheless, supporters of Zay's plan proclaimed that the Lycee's at Bratislava and Levoca were the hotbeds of all Slovak societies at Lutheran schools and colleges in Slovakia. For the time being, however, Magyar plans were not successful. Jan Seberini answered Zay on April 2, 1841, by stating that he, Zay, professed to Magyarize in the name of Protestantism; yet that is not only contrary to the Protestant beliefs, but also to all Christian teachings. "Who has the right to say what language a man must speak?" he continued, " I am a Slovak not because of glory and honor but according to Christian teachings, for God wanted that I be born Slovak. Therefore, I am not ashamed of my origin nor my tongue just as any German, Frenchman, Magyar need not to be ashamed." 43 It must be remembered that not all of the Protestant clergy sensed danger in the union; nevertheless, Zay's program eventually became evident even to those idealists. At Nitra, where some believed that union of the two 94 SLOVAKIA Protestant groups was in good faith, Jozef Miloslav Hurban warned them to be more realistic and not to be taken in. The part that Hurban was to play in the revolt of 1848-49 was second to none but his great friend and comrade in arms, Jjudovit Stlir. Jozef Miloslav Hurban Born on the 19th of March, 1817, in Beckov, Jozef Hurban was educated by his father, Pavol, a Lutheran Minister of that place. His father was timid and wished not to implicate himself in national problems. Therefore, under these circumstances, the youthful Hurban while at home was not exposed to Slovak national consciousness.44 After spending his lower grades at Trencin, he went in 1830 to study at the Lycee at Bratislava. He was there for six years before he met Shir. Prior to this time Hurban had not taken part in Slovak aspirations at the Lycee. One evening, while taking a walk in the streets of Bratislava, he met stlir who asked him whether he was studying and practicing in the Slovak language. This stur explained, was the duty of all Slovaks. Hurban at the moment was embarrassed and could not answer. stur then said, "You are a Slovak, is that correct? And is not your friend George Zaborsky?" Hurban replied that he was a Slovak and that his friend was George Zabo11sky. 45 stur complimented Hurban for his selection of such a good, able friend and recommended that he continue to cultivate Zaborsky's friendship. Before the two had departed, Hurban was invited to visit stur. That meeting was to have far-reaching effects on Hurban; for, when he arrived home, his mind was full of thought. The lamp in his room burned past midnight, while Hurban wrote hils first verse in Slovak. This he presented to stur the next morning and from that time on the Slovak Institute in Bratislava, as well as the Slovak nation, did not have a more zealous member nor a more deserving son than Hurban. A trip to Devin was planned for April 24, 1836, by the members of the Slovak Society at the Lycee in order to initiate and plan more definite activities. The ruins SLOVAKIA 95 of Devin, reminders of a rich history, stood majestic on her pedestal of massive rock guarding the confluence of the Morava and Danube rivers. This place recalled the Great Moravian Empire in the 9th century and her ceaseless struggles against German and Magyar. For the new Slovak generation this was a setting best suited for the revival of Slovak national feeling. 46 On this day filled with bright spring sunshine, lectures were given, prose recited, and songs were sung. Everyone participated in the theme of awakening Slovak consciousness. 47 In a further expression of loyalty to their beloved cause, they adopted Slavic names which they pledged to carry forever. sttir was the first to announce that he was to take the name of Velislav and others followed suit, taking different Slavic names. Hurban took the name Miloslav, a name which was to live in Slovak history. 48 Below the fortress of Devin rested a small town by the same name, and there in a tavern the young Slovaks gathered after an eventful day. Conversation, according to Hurban, had to be carried on in Latin so that waiters might not learn and betray their information.49 Just as stur and others had taken trips to broaden their views and get better acquainted with affairs which might influence their actions, Hurban also traveled. 50 His opportunity was afforded during a vacation 1839 when he visited Vienna, Bohemia and Moravia. 51 In 1841, a book relating his experiences was published: Trip of a Slovak to his Slav Brothers in Moravia and Bohemia. 52 When he completed his studies in 1840, Hurban became town chaplain at Brezova. For Hurban, the post at Brezova was a fortunate one, for here his work was to be understood and appreciated. Even before his arrival, the people of Brezova had had experiences in the struggle against the landed gentry. The peasants were aware of their rights and were prepared to defend them. They, too, had been effected by stur and showed a keen interest in his work. 53 Although Hurban knew that the upper classes would hold it against him, he, nevertheless, set about to reach the less fortunate classes. 54 Within himself there was a shining spiritual fire that others felt, and with his expressive face, warm kind eyes, and strong thundering 96 SLOVAKIA voice, he imparted to others the knowledge he had. Through talks and writings, he began to create among the uneducated people an interest in how they could better themselves. Out of this grew a Sunday school and Moderation and Temperance Society, both of which were to help in strengthening his people. The Sunday school was designed for those living in Brezova and it met on Sundays and holidays and on other days when time permitted. Those who attended were taught the arts and sciences. The Moderation and Temperance Society was just as important. Drunkenness came to Slovakia not through a habit developed from pleasure, but as a medium of escape from the extreme hardships of life. Not anywhere in Hungary was misery so great as in Slovakia, nor was drunkenness more widespread. Besides education, there was a dire need for bettering the lot of these people who lived under such deplorable conditions.55 The enlightened Slovak leaders knew that in order to lift up their nation they must first of all remove this scourge of alcoholism. 56 Throughout Slovakia, Moderation Societies were set up which were similar to those in America, but were chiefly modeled after those in Ireland where conditions were unfortunately similar to those found in Slovakia. However, the obstacle to legislation which would have curbed, if not eliminated, the sale of liquor came from the great landowners and Jews. 57 They owned the distilleries as well as the village taverns. The latter were frequented by those who could not pay and high rates of interest were charged them. 58 Agricultural schools had been established, but they were more for the middle class: townsmen, tradesmen, and prosperous farmers who were able to save their earnings.59 But for the less fortunate people of the lower classes, the Moderation and Temperance Societies had greater meaning and importance.6 1, Its founders believed that Slovak patriotism must be aroused, for a poor and drunken nation could achieve nothing but death. In the field of literary activitieis Hurban felt there was a strong need for a journal to help to direct Slovak literary life. In fact, when in May, 1840, Hurban grieved that there was no journal which could serve the interest SLOVAKIA 97 of defending national rights, he made this comparison: "A journal is to the life of a nation what hands are to a clock to indicate the time; therefore, as conditions exist we do not even have a clock."61 Putting forth all his efforts, he managed, by 1842, to produce a yearly almanac, Nitra, written in Czech, consisting of some three hundred pages.62 Included in the first edition were songs, poems, and prose from members of the young Slovak generation. Nitra's title page was consecrated to "The daughters and sons of Slovakia, Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia." Hurban dedicated the introductory poem of this first issue of Nitra to Jan Caplovic, landowner and great lover of books and literature. All this was done purposefully so that he might join the Slovak cause more actively .63 There was some speculation among the Magyars as to Hurban's purpose of editing the Nitra. Some claimed that the almanac was given the name Nitra so that Slovakia might arise around the glory that surrounded that name. Prior to this time any open discussion about historic Nitra was forbidden. However, friends of Hurban came to his rescue by tactfully assuring the Magyars there was nothing to fear from Hurban who was but a young man and as such should be excused for his actions. 64 A weaker man would have sensed the danger but Hurban stayed on to put out three more almanacs until 1848 when he was forced to flee for his life. In the year 1843, Hurban was called as pastor to Hlboke and there he edited his second issue of Nitra, but this time in the new Slovak literary language, and censors played havoc with this issue.65 The Magyars also hindered in every way the realization of a Slovak newspaper. stur, with the help of Kollar, had petitioned in 1842 for permission to publish a newspaper, but approval was denied. There was no telling how long this condition would last. In the meantime, something had to be done to draw the Slovak people together into a unified body. It was for this purpose in 1843 that the Slovak leaders stur and Hodza met in Hurban's residence in Hlboke.66 Here they decided that if they were not free to edit a newspaper, a society formed along national lines might help achieve the same results. 98 SLOVAKIA Slovak Literary Language The triumvirate agreed that Czech should no longer be used by the Lutherans in their churches and writings. Therefore, the adoption of the Central Slovak dialect by this body brought the Lutherans and Catholics closer to the goal of having one dialect as a base for their literary language. There was a great need to reach the people, but in a language that was dear to them and one which they understood. Not all people could read the Czech, only the educated; it seemed so foreign to the common people. The society planned for in Hlboke paved the way for the achievement of a common langu&ge.67 Near the beautiful High Tatra mountains on the 27th of August, 1844, in Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas, the Tatrin Society was organized. In the words of Rapant, "It was the culminating point of cultural organization in Slovakia at that time; and it was the most important organ for the stur generation."68 A factor of far reaching consequences for Slovakia was that it was the first national Slovak organization and it encompassed all of the sides and segments of the nation, Catholic and Lutheran.69 Along with unity of language, it concerned itself with the cultural needs of the Slovaks.70 The Tatrin gave financial support to young Catholic and Protestant men who were studying in higher schools of education. Peter Bohun, the famous Slovak artist who painted portraits and scenes of the revolution of 1848-1849, was given such assistance by the Tatrin, so that he was able to publish a book of national costumes. 71 The third meeting of the Tatrin was held at cachtice in the Catholic parish house chiefly to resolve the language issue.72 On this memorial occasion the Catholics and Lutherans on the 10th of August, 1847, agreed to adopt the Central Slovak as the common literary language. The effect of this meeting meant the rupture with the Czechs. As was expected, it drew exclamations of disapproval from Palkovic, Kollar, and others who felt the only salvation for the Slovaks was in their tie with the Czechs. On the part of the Czechs there was great anger, and claims were made that such a move only strengthened the German influence about them. SLOVAKIA 99 The Czech nationals could not understand the Slovak problem,73 for the vernacular is the natural medium and the truest heartbeat of the people. It, the vernacular, only could help enlighten and lift the Slovak people from their death sleep. Not all Czechs, however, were against the founding of a new literary language. This group argued that a Slovak literature would enrich the whole of Slavic literature. On the other hand, the agreement reached in Cachtice was celebrated throughout Slovakia by Protestants and Catholics alike. stl1r's former students who now served as Protestant clergymen were filled with joy. It seemed that at once Slovak was elevated to a literary language bringing with it a new life which surged into the land. Slavic historians claim that had not such a step been taken it is doubtful whether the Slovaks could have withstood the pressure of Magyarization. 74 It seemed that every,.vhere nobles, townscitizens, and people of the villages began to proclaim that they were Slovaks. The poor classes were not able to understand most of what was written. Time was needed so they might completely understand. Along with Sunday schools which had been established new ones sprang up, and, in addition, writing and reading rooms were opened. People began to realize that through learning and enlightenment they could be helped out of their misery. In Brezova, peasants who had long been held under the nobles' yoke began their attempt to free themselves by purchasing the land. Now that it was their land they worked it as never before. 75 Books and articles were not written to adorn libraries but to serve the people. Advice on practical matters in the written medium was beginning to evidence itself in the lives of the Slovak people. The societies which already existed in the cultural, social, and economic field were given a tremendous impetus by the new language. In the meantime, all protests against Zay had not been aired. The inroads of Magyarization aroused superintendent Dr. Paul Jozeffy 76 to protest at the Lutheran general convention on September 10, 1841. He warned that if they continued forcing Magyarization into Slovak churches and schools, he himself would present these 100 SLOVAKIA ~ievances to the court.77 Needless to say, Magyar ambitions were not deterred, for when in 1840 the Jittenka (Morning Star), a student journal, was first issued at Levoca the Magyar press vehemently attacked it as a tool of PanSlavism. By 1841 the young students were forced to cease its publication.78 Paul Jozeffy Heads Delegation to Vienna, June, 1842 Every move by the Slovaks the Magyars suspected as intrigues against their kingdom and made use of the strongest propaganda weapon by crying "Pan-Slavism." They claimed Pan-Slavism was nc.t only dangerous to the Magyars but also politically perilous to the Empire; therefore, it was necessary that the Magyars and Germans fight this menace. 79 All candidates for Slovak pastorates were barred unless they could speak Magyar fluently. It was under these conditions that 200 ministers under the supervision of Jozeffy signed a petition demanding rights for the Slovaks. Jozeffy and his delegation went to Vienna in early June 1842 where they presented their grievances before Ferdinand V. The petition began by stating that the Slovaks are an individual nation which can progress only when it fosters its own tongue. Furthermore, for many centuries the Slovaks had made sacrifices along with other nations . of Hungary for the preservation of the Empire. They had been able to use their own language, but now the Slovak priests were being humiliated by having to adopt another tongue. _Because of this, the Slovak language and its literature was suffering, while in business transactions Slovak was no longer used. They, therefore, petitioned: 1) that the King should declare officially as false all testimony against the Slovaks that had been so proven, 2) that proper authority be granted ·so that two censors for Slovak literature be assigned to interpret and defend Slovak works, 3) that the seat of language and literature at the Lycee at Bratislava be confirmed and fully certified, 4') that at the University of Pest there be established a seat of Slavic language and literature, 5) that for matriculation records and church protocol Latin be put in use again, 6) that churches and schools be defended against SLOVAKIA 101 fanatic, self styled patriots who seek to Magyarize everything.80 This petition was signed by Paul Jozeffy, John Seberini, John Chalupka, Michael Hodza, Samuel Ferjencik, George Palkovic and 200 ministers, teachers and men of all stations in life.81 Although the Slovak delegation did not get very far w:.th its request, it served as a morale booster for the Slovaks. From the outset, promises were made and it looked as though something might be accomplished. The delegation had an audience with Metternich who assured them their request would be studied. After leaving Metternich they saw Count Kolowrat, a Czech nobleman and member of the Emperor's entourage. Although he greeted them with great warmth and is reported to have said, "Slav must help Slav," the delegation felt that they were being sidetracked. Kolowrat sensed this lack of confidence and assured them that he would lend them his support. When they left Vienna, the delegation felt something would be achieved. Now it seemed necessary only to wait. Upon their return home the delegation was shocked by the Magyar's overt reaction. The Slovak delegation had gone to Vienna with nothing but peaceful intentions in mind. But now the chauvinistic Magyars were infuriated and began to reel off in their papers and journals diatribes against the deputation headed by Jozeffy. Amidst this growing fervor a climax was reached when Kossuth delivered his flailing message at the General Convention on June 15th in Pest. In his attack, Kossuth, capable orator that he was, spared no words and vehemently described the deputation as a shame for the Protestant church and the betrayal of the best interest of the kingdom of Hungary. Kossuth demanded the punishment and resignation of Jozeffy from his superintendency. By the end of October, 1842, the petition was sent from Vienna to Buda to Palatine Joseph for his study and recommendations. When Kollar got wind of this he wrote a letter in November advising Jozeffy to come to Buda and intercede with the Palatine. Jozeffy arrived in Buda at the end of November and brought with him data and other materials with which he could strengthen his 102 SLOVAKIA position before the Pa1atine.82 But all proved futile, for prior to his arrival Joseph had been prepared by the Magyars for such an audience. Already on the 16th of April, 1843, Kollar had warned Jozeffy that the Palatine was Magyar in his symphaties. Moreover, according to Kollar, the Palatine Joseph had been oriented and advised by Vienna to disregard the Slovak demands. Vienna had no desire to strengthen the Slavs whether they be Slovak, Czech, or Serb, for in their union and strength she saw jeopardy to her position. At the same time she knew she could depend upon the support of the Slavs in case the Magyars caused trouble. And yet because of rumblings in Germany and Italy she could not afford to offend the Magyars. This policy of "cat and mouse" by Vienna was reaffirmed when in his letter to Jozeffy dated April 25th, 184J, the Palatine urged him to be patient, thus leaving Jozeffy to hope that all was not in vain. Hodza summed up the situation: "We cannot expect help from the Magyars but we must look to the Empire which is far away; and God is too high to help." 83 Other attempts were made to present Slovak grievances before the Emperor but they likewise proved fruitless . The Slovaks now more than ever realized that they must fight alone. s tur Leaves Bratislava As a result of Kossuth's charges at the General Convention an inquiry was held to det ermine for the Magyars the real reason for Jozeffy's trip to Vienna. Through their cunning, Zay and Kossuth at last felt they had a way of removing s tur from his position as professor of Slovak Studies at the Lycee. With it they hoped that if they could not remove the chair of studies completely, they could at least render it harmless through an appointee of their choice. The Slovaks called his investigation an inquisition, but in spite of all the false charges and doctored methods the inquiry ended in an acquittal of the charges made. Zay, however, insisted upon action which in the future would prevent stur from making lectures. Unheard-of pressure brought the removal of stur in December 1843. SLOVAKIA 103 A petition initiated by his beloved students was circulated for signatures. From all over Slovakia protests came from clergy and laity for the restoration of stur to his post.84 This did not, however, bring the result desired. In a feeling of indignation the young students left Bratislava. While most of them stopped at Levoca, others continued on to Presov, Kezmarok, stiavnica and Jelenova. 85 On their way, with heavy hearts but no resignation, they composed a song "Nad Tatrou sa blyska" (Over Tatra's Peaks Lightning Flashes) .86 The Magyars, blinded by their recent victory, did not realize that they had ironically rendered a great service to the Slovak cause. Previously the young Slovak students were centered in Bratislava where observation could be made of their every move, but they now were being scattered throughout Slovakia. Like so many seeds the ideals of stur and other Slovak leadership, knowledge, national pride, betterment and unity of purpose began to sprout and grow. The Slovak National News For st\ir his removal meant that his next fight would not be in the schools as before but among the masses of the Slovak people. To help reach the people a newspaper was needed. It was not until 1845, however, that the first issue of the Slovenske N<irodne Noviny (Slovak National News) was published.87 The paper, written in Slovak, was to become the most important vehicle in presenting stur's platform, and in fighting for Slovak rights. 88 Though criticized by some for lacking more aggressive action, stur stuck to his conservative approach, for he knew that if the Magyars were irritated the paper would not have long to live. stur believed that in order that the Slovak people might better preserve their nation they must be first educated in politics as well as home affairs. Some of his articles seemingly were written for the benefit of the Magyars to whom stur wished to prove that the Slovaks desired only peace and what was rightfully theirs. Through his paper, stur hoped to modernize his people, therefore he discussed their schools, institutions, libraries, and 104 SLOVAKIA societies. His words gave new hope to those who long suffered under the burden of serfdom. As a result of the appearance of the Slovak National News, there blossomed in all corners of Slovakia in 1845 a great number of Literary, Social, Agricultural, Economic, Woman's, and Moderation and Temperance societies. They were modeled after those which had been found in previous years, but now they seemed to grow everywhere. To reach national unity and purpose every facet was tried. As with her fighting sons, the role women were to play became apparent. Articles appeared in st1.1r's newspaper stressing the point that being good mother was no longer sufficient, for all women now must take on additional responsibilities and become interested in the affairs of their nation. 89 Other writers called for the establishment of a girls' institute where industry and devotion to the Slovak cause would be taught.90 Readers of the Slovak newspapers were reproached for not helping themselves and were given sound advice that jealousy of others will not get them ahead. stur wrote that, "In order for the Slovaks to be more fortunate, they must be concerned about themselves and must get a 'common soul.'" He stated further, "Authough the mark of a nation is her language, the Slovak tongue is completely neglected in schools; it does not have social and constitutional rights for its cultivation. This is due to the fact that the Slovaks have not lived like a nation but as an individual. He has hidden his tongue only for use in the home and therefore it has no chance of blossoming forth into reality." 91 Hodza in his Dobruo slovo (Good Word) proclaimed that the Slovaks must recognize their own nation and then others will do likewise. The program of sttir as outlined in the Slovak National News was but the continuation of demands placed before Vienna and Pest by the Slovaks for the past twenty years. Aside from the need of economic reforms the major issue was that of language. stur's paper was read in towns and villages. Hurban wrote, "The voice of that national organ under stur was really strong, one which had to be considered." 92 The Slovak National News had awakened the Slovak people and helped prepare them for the moment for which everyone waited. SLOVAKIA 105 FOOTNOTES 1) Charles E. Maurice, The Rev olutionary Movements of 1848-1849, p . vi. 2 ) Daniel Rapant, Slov enske Pov stanie, ( Slovak Uprising) Vol. I, Bk. I, p. 18. 3) Milan Hodfa, "Political Evolution of Slovakia," Slov akia Then and Now, ed. R. W . Seton-Watson, p . 71. 4 ) Alphonse M. Lamarune, "Past, Present and Future," North Ameri can Revi ew, LXXII, (Jan. 1851) , p . 206. 5) Rapant, op. cit. , pp. 75, 88, 89; " Austria and Germany," Quarterly Review, LXXXIV, (Dec. 1849), p. 198. 6 ) Julius Botto, Slovcici , (Slovaks) , I, 23 ; Arnost Dennis, Slov cici: Otcizka Rakouskci, (Slovaks : The Austrian Question), p. 134; C. J . C. Street, Slov akia Past and Present, p. 9; Rapant, op. cit., p. 84. 7) Arthur Patterson, The Magyars, II, 70. 8) Jozef Cieker, Slovenskci Otcizka, (Slovak Question) , pp. 19, 20; E. L. Miyatovich, "Panslavism: Its Rise and Decline", Fortnightly Revi ew, XIV (1873) , p. 96. 9 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p . 10; Rapant, op. cit., p . 4. 10) Htjdza, op. cit., p. 16. 11 ) Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 520; Geoffrey Drage, Austria-Hungary, p. 200 ; Harold W. Ternperley, "Racial Strife in Hungary," Westminster Review, C. XIX (Jan. 1908) , p. 4. 12) Daniel Rapant, Ileqalna Mad'arizcicia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization) , p. 3. 13 ) Cieker, op. cit ., p. 39. 14) Hodza, op. ci t ., p. 10. 15) Ernest Flachbarth, Companion to Hungarian Studies, p. 372. 16 ) Michael Hodza, Der Slowake, (The Slovak), p. 41. 17) Frantisek Hrusovsky, Slovenske D ej iny, (Slovak History) , p. 248. 18) Skultety, op. cit., p. 62. 19) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 12. 20) Jozef Skultety, Sketches from Slo·va.lc History, trans. 0 . D. Koreff, p. 184; Bodnar, Zoe. cit.; Albert Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny po Dobu sturovu , (History of Literary Slovak Before the Time of Stur) p. 163; Miss Parooe, an English lady who traveled throughout Hungary in the late 1830's w110te, "It is said that in the whole k!ingdom there is not so high and liberal an academic spirit in any scholastic establishment as in that of the Lycee of Bratislava" (City of the Magyar and Hungary) , JI, 281. 21 ) Frantisek Frydecky, Dopisy .fudev ita Stura Jaroslavu Pospisilovi, (Letters of Cudovit Stur to Jaroslav Pospisil) , pp. 31, 73. SLOVAKIA 106 22) Jozef Hurban, I!udovit Stur, I, 38,39. 23) See R. W. Seton-Watson, A H istory of the Czechs m# Slovaks, pp. 173-176. 24) There were, in aj:ldition, German and Magyar societies at the Lycee at Bratislava. 25) Daniel Rapant, llegalna Mad'arizacia: 1790-1840, (Illegal Magyarization), p. v. 26) Ibid., p. 23; Pardoe, op. cit., III, 78-80. 27) Rapant, op. cit., p. 24. 28) Daniel Rapant, Slovenske Povstanie, (Slovak Uprising), Vol. I., Bk. I ., p. 66. 29) M. Rey in his study of this period described the privileges of the nobility: " The rights of the nobles were as vast as a privileged race of conquerors could possibly enjoy ... Neither the noble himself nor his servants paid any tax, real or personal, to the king or the counties; neither his horse nor his men could be required to work on the roald or the dykes. The peasant alone was the person who paid the tax termed 'domestical' for the expense of the Diet and the county administration. The peasant paid the salary of the school master, the notary, the priest, the patrol. The peasant constructed and maintained either with his ,o wn money or his labor, the roads, bridges, churches, schools, public bui~dings, dykes, canals; and it was the peasant and the townsman who drained the marshes, turned the course of rivers, etc. The peasant and the townspeople paid the war tax and furnished recruits." (Autriche, Hongrie, et Turquie on 1839-48, p. 126, cited by Corvinus, Hungary: Its Constitutions and the Catastrophe, p. 17) ; Louis Leger, A History of Austro-Hungary, p. 493. 30 ) Peter E. Turnbull, Austria: Social a111:l Political Conditions, II, 21, 22. 31 ) Stefan Jansak, "The Land Question in Slovakia," The Slav onic Review, (March, 1930), p. 620. 32) As a result of the Diet of 1764 a law was passed restricting the power of inflicting corporal punishment to the bestowing of twentyfive lashes. (Lord Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy, II, 9.3 ). 33 ) Leger, op. cit., pp. 493, 494. 34) Frantisek Bokes, Dejiny Slovakov a Slovenska, (History of the Slovaks and Slovakia ); Vol. IV, Slovenska Vlastiveda, p. 146. 35 ) Arthur Yolland, Hungary, p. 253. 36) Leger, op. cit., p. 494. 37) Ernest Flachbarth, History of Hungcry's Nati onalities, pp. 5, 6. 38) Arminius Vambery, Hungary, p. 417. 39) Hurban, op. cit., II, 118. 40 ) Arnost Dennis, Slovaci: Otazka Rakouska, p. 155. SLOVAKIA 107 41) ~udovit Stur, Stary i Novy Vek Slovaku, (Old and New Slovak Age), p. 39. 42) Stur writes the Magyars feel that they can only be safe from Russia by Magyarizing the Slovaks. "Was there a time," he asked, "when the Slovaks have not ·prov~d faithful? We have fought for our country, Hungary, and thousands have shed their blood." (Ibid. , p . 42) . 43) Julius Botto, Slovaci, pp. 53, 54. 44) Hurban, op. cit., III, 228. 45) Dr. Luidvik Ktihn, Buditelia v zupe bratislavskej, p. 66 . 46) Nitra had been considered. 47) Hurban, op. cit., I, 94-106. 48)\ Ibid., 102. 49) Ibid., 103. 50) Ibid., 155. 51) Hurban visited the Rajhrad Cloister in Moravia and made the following entry in the visitors' book on July 10, 1839: "Miloslav Jozef Hurban, a traveling Slovak, visited .this famous cloister with the motto, 'Long Live Czecho-Slovak' " (Author in 1948 humbly ~dded his name to the same visitors' book at the Rajhrad Cloister). 52) Cesta Slovaka ku b1·atrum slavenskym na Morave av techach. 53) Julius Bodnar, Dr. Jozef Miloslav Hurban, p. 17. 54) Ibid., p . 16. 55) See Stefan Jansak, Les Conditions Sociales dans l'Anciene Hongrie et la Situation de la Slovaquie. 56 ) Rapant, op. cit., p. 159. 57 ) Ibid., p. 160; Max Schlesinger, The War in Hungary, 1848-1849, II, 218, 2l9. 58) G. R. Gleig, Germany_. Bohemia, arlji Hungary, III, 59-62. 59) Rapant, op. cit., p. 158. 60) Rapant relates that many of 't hese people would spend their last earnings for liquor, and that in some areas between one thiDd to one half of the population on certain days were intoxicated; even children in the nursing stages were given alcohol L-Oc. cit. 61) Karol Golan, Rok so Sturovcami, p. 11. 62) At that time there were practically no printing facilities available in Slovakia. 63) Vendelin Jankovic, Jan taplovic: Zivot, Osobnost', Dielo, p. 24. 64) Bodnar, op. cit., p. 20. 65) J . Skultety, 0 Slovakoch (About the Slovaks), p. 254. 66) Hurban, op. cit., II, 302; Hurban wrote : "Tatrin's function was to the nation what Stur's was to the Slovak youth." Loe. cit. 108 SLOVAKIA 67) Prazak, op. cit., p. 304. 68) Rapant, op. cit., p. 156. 69) Mikulas Dohnany, Historia Povstanja Slovenskjeho z Roku 1848, (History of the Slovak Uprising in 1848), p. 21. 70) Hodza, op. cit., p. 54. 71) Hurban, op. cit., p. 298; Dohnany, op. cit., p. 21 . 72) Botto, op. cit., p. 62. 73) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 22. 74) Albert Prazak, "Czechs and Slovaks in Revolution of 1848," The Slavonic Review, V (March, 1927), p. 573. 75) Dohnany, op. cit., p. 20. 76) In ~::ldition to his fine qualities his contemporaries described Dr. Jozeffy as being timid and lacking ,t he firmness and obstinancy needed for his time. One can well imagine that when such a man is roused to make a protest of this order it generally must be for reason. (Botto, op. cit., p. 55) . 77) Hurban, op. cit., p. 115. 78) Ibid. , p. 116. 79) Jozef Cieker, Slovenska Otazka, p. 72. 80) Botto, op. cit., pp. 57, 58; Hurban, op. cit., pp. 166-168. 81) Ibid. , p. 164. 82) Ibid., p. 171. cit., p. 32. 84) Skultety, op. cit., p. 200. 83) Hodza, op. 85) Prazak, Dejiny Spisovne Slovenstiny, op. cit., pp. 285, 286. 86) Jan Matuska ( 1821-1877) was the writer of that song. 87) It may be interesting to note that Zay was commission~ by his government to study Stur's request for a Slovak paper. To the surprise of Stur and his followers the request was granted. The rejoicing which took place was not to last for any great length of time for when the Magyars saw fit, they deprived the Slovaks of their news organ. 88) Bokes, op. cit., p. 158. 89) Rapant, op. cit., p. 155. 90) Cieker, op. cit., p. 210. 91) Rapant, op. cit., p. 148. 92) Hurban, op. cit., III, 80, 81. • THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is interest.eel primarily in promoting the welfare and security of the Unit.eel States of America.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Slovak National Awakening Description An account of the resource Edward A. Tuleya Slovakia, Vol. 21 (No. 44), 1971 pp. 85-108 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tuleya, Edward Andrew, 1919-2008 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 LCNAF https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/937f986bc1dbfefde3d1b863b9010fed.pdf 81ffe9bd306ab625c3f9f7dfafb1b744 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 25 FATHER OF AMERICAN SLOVAKS By Si ster M . Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. The noisy night tra1n daittered out of Cleveland, Ohio. Its pa;sse:ngers -by tmns re'la.xed or braced tfuemselves in keepin1g with tihe jo1ti1Ilg ThytJhms of the orange-eyed monster as it spumed spat1ks and ,c inders and hurtled along the shiny rails toward Pennsylvania. Among the travelers, it ca·ITied a thougihllful priest wihose quiet eyes looked upon liife with a wisdom born of natural gifts and rich exiperience. 'l'he tr,ain ste adied itself to ain even speed. A conductor came down the aisle punohirng tiokets and as ihe took U!p Fatller's, the yehlow gleam from tfue ga:s jet ovet1head showed that it was daited early iJil September 1906 and was made ourt for Wilkes-Barre. '11he dim light also reveailed the identirf,ication tag on Father's traveling bag marked Rev. Stephen Furdek Our Lady of Lou'I'ldes Church Cleveland, Ohio For a few moments after the conductoT moved on, Father fingered the gold cross that huing from his watoh chain. Then he studied some letters and paipers from his porbfolio, and finally he reached into ihis pocket for his prayer beads. From early dhi:1dhood lh e had Oll'ltivated a m3/I'lked dev,otion to OuT Lady and he 1ha,d in her a sure refuge and he'lp in every need. He had grown up amid hardships and difificuUies of aH kinds ·b ut the wais not hurt or wa11ped lby them. In fact, crosses had only made him the stronger to endure more. Let us trace some of ihis growing-up days a:nd you wihl see fOT yourself. September 2, 1855 was the date of Stephen furdek's bir,tJh, and Tr,s tena in Orava County, 1Sloviakia, was the phaoe. In maiteTial resouTces Oreva ,is one of tlh.e poorest regions orf central Europe but it has given -tfue Slovak people a remairkaJble number orf intellectuails and leaders. Stephen Furdelk, too, 'becairne one of tihese grea,t men of his people, for God had fitted him for a parti!oohar work amd lh.e was reaidy when the time was right. His scholastic career was bri.ililianrt even from his ele- �26 SLOVAKIA merutaTy grades at the villaige sdhool where he was ta'l.tght by 1:Jhe Franciscans. For his ,hig1h school courses Stephen went to Bamska Bystrioa amd then to the gymnazium or senior high sdhool in Nitra. lt was m Nitra, too, tihat he begoo 'his semim.ary training for the priestlhood. Because of his outstandin1g success in phHosophy and -theology, howeveT, his bishop singled out Stephen FuTdek for special studies at tJhe univemity in Budapest. This 'hirg,h honor and distinction was especially gratifying to lris parents who were providi!ng for ihirs education at the cost of great sacrifice. Unfortunately, the young student took sick in Buda,pe,st and iha:d to return home. On recovering, he resumed hirs studies ·but he decided to Teturn to itlhe Nirtra seminary r-atiher tham ,to tlle university in Budapest. He <Xmcenrtrated on his lessoos 'but politiml troubles dirstu111bed the times very much and the spirit of unrest and hosthl:ity reached even into the seminary. ,Stephen Fu<rdek's tempernment preferred peace to contention. Y oll!Ilg as he was, he h,ad a sixth sense whiic:ih directed birm toward a tactful line of CO'lldruct, toward a decisiion wihioh would avoid tmUJble wiitlhout sia,crifici111g principle. Besi<les, he enjoyed the fatfuerly guidance of the Trstemiborn Dr. Martin Hattala, an eminent priest-philologist who was at tlhis time a professor of languages at ChaTles University in Pr-ague. Acti'lllg under these two iin:filuences, tJhe student Furdek withdrew from see1:1hirng Nitra. 'Dhis step demanded the sacrifice of ihis priestly ideal! but the ·s pirit of the times was such thaJt a SlovaJk patriot was denied the opportunity to complete his studies for professional work. 'Dhe overlords demanded that you eicf:lher tramsfex- your ai1legiamoe or surrender academic pur~suit. Ln leaving the semin,a.ry, Stephen did what he 1!hougiht was •r ight and he firmly trusted in God. FoT some time after he left Nitra, Furdek was a teacher in Stramirl.ce, MoraViia. This took him out of t!he region of trouble 1b ut his new work did not satisfy him. Realizing thaJt this was not really his vocation, he decided to return to 1his books. Perhaps he felt 1!hat iif he had to be denied the privfiledge of serving his people as a priest, he wOIU!ld .t ry to serve them as a fully ti,ained professionaJl, a specia:liized teaC'heT, pemaps one Hke Dr. Haittala whose distiinction it was to be both a priest and a teac!her. �SLOVAKIA 27 F,or tihree years F1t.mieJk diligently studied classical laJnguages and ,philology at OhaI'les Universiity. Dlll'ing this tirme he ibecame acquainted wiith Dr. Flrancis Bauer who was rector of the diocesan seminary in P,r ague amd was deslbined to •b ecome camdmaJl ar<fub1slhop of O1omoUJc in Moravia. Dr. Bauer saw ilrl the promising s.tudenit the greaiter promise of service for botJh God amd country. He advised Furdek .to Teturn to his seminary couTses and lh e suggested that it would be well for him to do so rig.ht there in Prague. F1uridek was haJppy to have this encouraigement. It retll!I'ned to him tJhe hope dearest ito his th eart and brought him oloser to its Tealiization. He followed Dr. Bauer's advice e8)gerly . .AJbout four years lateT, w!hen he was in hls last year of theology, FuTdek learned tlhat an urgent appe81l from America rea•o hed his superiors. lt 08)me from Bishop Riobard Gi:lrmour of Cleveland, Ohio, and eXJpressed ,h is concern foT the spirituaJ care of many Slavic immigrants lirvmg in his diocese wrthout a priest of their OWtil tongue to minister to their needs. Bishop GilmoUT ha;d written to severau European bishops amd to various religious orders beg,gi:ng for priests and for advanced students who wouid be ruble to finish their studies ilrl America 01nd serve these people in Christ's narrne. 'Dhis was a caJ!l for generous and missiona,rysouled worikers. Who would be foU1I1d willing to answer? Who would be qualified? Father Francis Sasinek, am eXJperiienced and soholtarly Slovak priest, recommended tJhe semi.nariam Furdek for this responsible work. Furrdek's superions at the seminary endorsed the recommenda:tion, for they knew that ,t his young man had 'tJhe spiTituaJ.ity and the tiauenrt:s to succeed in such an assig,nmenrt of pionem-ing for Ohrist among the immigramts in America. The prospects were ma:de known to him and though it cost muoh to part frcxm al!l that was so dear to him, Stephen Furdek generously mrade the sa,cr.iifice. It was tJhe g,uiding prindple of his lirfe to wol'k for God amd for country, and here is taJil'gilble proof tJhat he did not merely iderulize t,hat motto; he lived it wibh aU its implioations. He bade farewell to ,his famhly and friends in tJhe spring of 1882 and embanked for .America. By March 15 he w,as in Cleveland, strengtihened by itihe ,g ,ra,ce of God and seasoned by past hardships for whatever trials might lie in the years �28 SLOVAKIA aJhead. Jin tfuis new and wondel'fttl though still st'l'!all!ge world, he completed his studies in a few montlhs and was ordained by Bishop Gilmour in St. Wenceslaus Church on JUJly 1 of t!he same year. This was tJhe fulfillment of hi:s fondest dreams. For aibout ten months a;fter ordination, Father Furdek served as an assistant at St. Wenceslaus. At the same bme, however, he arranged for the Slova!ks of the area to attend Sunday mass offered by a non.,SloV1aJk Franciscan Father at St. Joseph's ohurch in Clevelailld where he himself would come every week to prea•ch, to inst'I'll'ct, and to hea:r confessions in Slovak. This 1kind of dual apostolate •becaJme FatJher Furdek's liifework. For all his priesi'ly yeiars dati:ng from April 1883 until his death on J ,a nuary 18, 1915, he was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes par~sh which the bishop authori!zed him to organize, and he devoted hims~Lf to the care and guidance of countless Sloy,a•IDs throughout America. For what do we remeimbeT him most? He was an exemplary pr,iest, educator, leader, organizer, journalist, novelist, poet, paitriot - and he merited every one of these distmctions folly. Yet over and a:bove aill this, he was in the true sense of 1Jhe word t!he F'atJher of Amerioan Slovaks. He ha:d 'haroly orientiated h~mself i:n this adopted coootry when he reaJLized that his God.igiven mission extended beyond the immediate needs of the parish work that was a:ssi:gned to him. He always discharged his pastora.'l duties conscientiously ,but parish wonk was not hiiis one falent to be hidden safely m a napkin and retu:rmed to the Master at His coming. Fat!her Furdek was entrusted v,ivh mamy talents and he zealously trafficked with the much that had been g,iven him. Besides ,buildi:ng a maignificent church and a modem school of sixteen classrooms, besides managing all the interests of Our Lady of Lourdes parish and its sohool witlh an enrollment of a thousand pupils, Father Furdek heliped to organize many Slovruk parishes ·both in Clevelaind and in other widely scattered Slovak •s ettlements. The need of the hour was to help these Sloviak immigrants to achieve a sense of belongiiing, to giive them a bond of unity, to satisfy their spiriturul cravmg a.ind their sociail needs amd to educaJte tJhem. It was important to teach them cooperation in wmikiing for common i:nterests and mutual helpfuhl.ess. Solicitous F1ather �SLOVAKIA 29 of all the Slova:ks in America that he was, Father Furdek took each of these problems to heaTt and worked for its soliution. To iprovide priests for newly organized and organi,z ing panishes, Father Furdek undertook more th3Jn one trip to Slova,kia because both hiis bishop a,nd he realized that personal conta,ct would be more effectiv,e than any ot her type of solicitation. And he did succeed in interesting a number of worthy priests a,nd derics from abroad to come to these pioneer parishes a,mong the immigrants. But even wi1:Jh individuail parishes organized here and there a,s circumstances warranited it, the entire ,problem of the Slovak immigrant in America was not solved. Father Furdek in hi:s missionary travels among the people witnessed their efforts to for,m local fraternal and benefiicial societies. He saw a:lso that his countrymen needed to 1be safeguarded from leaders and movements that threatened their spiritua[ outlook while pretending to offer them materiaJl advantages. Before ,}ong he realized, too, that most of those newcomers were going to establish permanent homes in America; they needed to plan for a secure future and a wlholesome heritage for their posteriity :iin the new world. Riis keen vision sa,w 'beyond the immediate present, 0JS does every true leader's. Beg,inning wi:th a nucleus of pioneers in Clevela,nd, Father Furdek in 1890 founded a men's organization called the First Catholic Slova,k Union or the Jednota. Two years later a similia:r ladies' organization wa;s began. The Jecmota grew to be the largest Slovak fratemal bene£it organization in the world. It is also a strong pillar of Slova:k Ca,t;Jholicity in America. 'J1hrough it, Father Furdeik propag,ated the vivifying ti deal "For God and N ruti001." On this Chri:stiain prin~ ciple is formulated the entire philosophy a;nd structure of the Jednota aind this is what ,g ives tJhe body its stabi'Li:ty and strength. To a people making history in a la:nd where they were without traditions, without established precedent, it was essentiall to build wisely and well. Father Furdeik with his gift of vision prepared that ·b luepriint for them e~ceptiona1ly wel!l. His firm hut tactflllil leadershiip directed the early funmigrants toward healthy progress. 'Dhe Jeiooota pmvided aU tlhe ·benefits of a mutual aid society, it brought the mem- �30 SLOVAKIA hers of a local branch together for periodic meetings and conferences, it ,s pomored national conventions and its bylaws emphasrzed fidelity to reliigious duty. This was putting first thing,s first. Flather Furdelk repeatedly msisted that it was imperative for Cathollics to jom Catlholic societies because non-sectarian infiJ.uences, innocuous as they may seem to be, have a tendency to cool fervor and lead to indifference in the spiritual liife. AIS a matter of fuct, there were some sad instaJn ces to prove that suoh Hberallism even resulted in ag,nostici,s,m aJild free thinikling. These were the rugged days of early pioneering for great numbe11s of :immigrants. In theiT period of adjustment they were e~osed to both adva,ntJa:ges and <lis•a dvanta,ges. Men who 'had 'been iong suppressed and oppressed found themselves sudden,l y free amd they couM have leaned over too far, disregaroing or discoun:tin:g some forms of autJhority completely, claiming an Ulllcontro:J.lled emancipation. Father FuTdek's presence and influence among them was the needed leaven. Patiently and finnJ.y he worlked to balance their outlook. CourageQIUJS•l y he set himself again,s t tJhe forces that advocated a ,c omplete libera!l<tsm or secuffiarism, tJhat disregard for spiritual discipline that would have resulted in crass materialism. Wit'h the gnts of a !born tea·o her he rooched his people and restrained tJhem from becoming the victims of such errors. He saved them from tJhe influence of false ,l eaders and besides ta<king a necessa11Hy agressive stand in these ma;tters, he also stimll'lated lay acti'Vity. In teaching the meaning of 1iib erty, Father Furde'k stressed the opportunities wthich his peo'.)le should use here for self-improvement amd cultural adva;ncement. One year after founding the Jednota o:t1ganization, he launched tlhe J,ffiDNOTA weekly (1891) whi-dh 1became the offici~l organ of tJhe society. In 1896 at his own e~ense he gave his people their first JE}DNOTA iK:ALffiNDAiR, an annrua•l or a!hnanac. llil t his way :h e brought into the homes of ha:t1d-worlcing common people press materials whioh became a medium of culture and a weHspring of spiritual refreshment. The duties of editing and publicrution were his and althougih it meant a tremendous demand on his time, energy and talent to compose rund expedite a newspaper every week 8.llld a ri~h almanac every year, he aJSSumed this blll'den and responsibility in addition to his pastoral wook be- �SLOVAKIA 31 cause he knew how mu,~h the Slovairos in Ameriica needed such wholesome reading matter. He also invited quaJlirfied oontriibutors to send mainuscriipts and it was usually our priests both here and from aibr-oad wiho did sulbmit some exceHent articles for the Jednota publication. Slov,aJk immigr,ants with theiir new privilege of reading t!heir own newspapers in America were being instructed amd infoI1llled lb y them. A Jedinotar w,ho took up his copy alter a day's strenuous wcmk on the furm or in a mine, mill or factory, found relaxation and enjoyment in reading its columns. His Catholic weekly broug1ht him news items, editoriials, tJhe Sunday epistle amd gospel wiibh a homhly, e~lanations of the oatMhism and of tJhe Hturgical year, interesting lessons on :the duties and privileges of American citizenship, and a survey of American history presented eit!her topicaHy or serially or throug.h biographical sketches. Father Furdek's admiration for America and his devotion to the ideal of democr,acy prompted him to write on this subject repeatedly and to urge Slovaks in America to become natlurcli1irzed. His patriotism to two countries was baJlanced with an uneXJceiled nicety and with demoeratic expertness which 'he e~ressed very a:ptly in the poem "Amerika, zem velilka" ("America, Great Land") which was awarded first honors in a competition sponsored by P. V. Rovnianek. In th4:s poem Furdek sings the glories of America - her progress, her emancipation of the slave, her democracy, her greaJt native sons, her mothering of the oppressed who come to her shores, the opportunities she o:fifera to all witJhout discrimination. Then he voices a touohilllg apostrophe to his homeland, characterized by the snow-ca:pped Tatry, as if he wished to e~ress the assurance that the ocean may separate but it does not divide a loyial people. Poetically and neatly he arigues that a son still. loves his mother tJhoug,h he gives his heart to his wife, and that it is by just such a pa,ra'Hel that loyial emigrants love the land they left as well as the country of their adoption. 'Dhe more he studied the problems of the day, the more he became convinced that practica11y all the Slovak :immigrants in America were here to stay. This reaili2Jation made him aiH the more eager to he]Jp them :to become intelligent .American citizens, men and women capaible of a great love �32 SLOVAKIA for this democratic new wonld yet mindful and proud of their ancestry. He often reminded them to note how muoh ilm.iproved their living cO'llditions were here over w'ihat ~hey had been under the MaJgy,a r regime at home. He urged them to compare America's repulblicaJn fomn orf government with Hungary's despotism. He repeatedly pointed out that there is no subject class in this country aJnd 1Jhat ruH wiho enjoyed America's freedom have many opportunities to advance and improve themselves. Furdek's articles represented America as a great school w;here t!he iimmig:r,ant could learn out orf the book of actuaJ living amd doing. He pointed out that here even an unschooled SlovaJk w011ker learns rhow to mine ores, he comes to understand the intricacies amd 1:Jhe operation of simple and orf complex machines, he reads aind he learns from his newspapers, he travels free1y and cain master basic geography, he struggles with tJhe fanguage problem and everutua:lly he can come to sipea:k English as well a:s a teacher. In short, whatever he needs to know, he can learn in 1:Jhe scthool of Amerioan 1ife. Furdek thad am unlbound patriotism which is reflected in all his journaJlistic output. As a matter of fact, he was no mere journa:list; he was a pub1ioist who propagiated his open admiration aind devotion to America togetJher with a steady remembrance and love for Slovalkia. He forecast the Americanization of the Slovaks - not becaJUse America is a melting pot but because it is irmposs~ble for human life and thoug,ht to withsbrund the tide of change and the demands of reasona1ble adjustment. But he did not favor a sudden and complete sundering from home ties. Wisely he urged his people to preserve a love for ancestraJl roots and an appreciation of their national culture aJnd to transmit this devotion to future generations. It is not without cause that we look upon him ais the Father of American Slovaks. There was no problem of American Stlovak life that escruped his serious study and analysis. He took a definite stand in every sigmificant isSl\le and wherever the need required it, he was bhe spiI'itual a:dviser, prime mover, •a nd inspiration to thousands of people. His was a many-sided creatiwiess and 1he had a genius for keeping pace with the progress orf time. '!'he Jednota, whiclh he founded, preserved the ideals of Fu11dek because he himself �SLOVAKIA 33 was so deeply imbued with the spiriit which he imparted to it. It was a spirit which even reac'hed from America to Silovakia and supported national movements there. See him now as he blesses himself on finishing his rosary. He looks caJlm and untroubled but a heavy oross lies upon his heart. "How wiU this affair end?" he asks himself. Here he is coming to a rally intended to alleviate suffering abroad and to strengthen the spirit of his people on this new soil, aind yet this very ceil~ration threatens to brmg about undesirable Tesults. He and his brother.,priests have designated the gathering to which he is going as a Slovak Catho1ic Congress, but enemies - like the GOiSpel sowers of tares among the wheat - have been busy noi:sing it abroad that Father Furdek and his al'lies planned this mass meeting in order to launch a new heresy and to effect a schism of Slovak Catholics. And the wi1d rumor was reported officiail!ly even to the Apostolic Delegate in W a:sihimgton and to various bisihops and archbishops, urging t:Jhem to suspend and penalize all those priests wlho were in any way associa,ted with the affair. Father Furdek's name, namuraUy, led the rest in the list of tJhose who were marked to be proscribed. What was the outcome to 1be? The great S,lova1k Catholic Co'lligress took pla:ce on La:bor Day, September 3, 1906 in Wrl1kes-Barre. It attraoted oveT ten thousand Slovaks from all parts of Amedca and that in a day when traveling was time-consuming, tiresome, imconvenient, a:nd much of a humry for people wi1lh limited earnings. The program of tJhe day was planned to irndude religious services a1nd a series of addresses both in English and in Slovak on subjects of vital interest and conseque-nce to the Slovruk people. 1 Father Furdek arranged for representatives of the daily newspapers as well as editors of leading SlovaJk publications to be present in order to cover t'he story. Tihis would provide a greater circUJlation of reports on Slova1k matters among ,a little-informed American iputbHc as well as among an interested Slovruk audience. It was for this reasorn also that he arranged for notable American officiaJls and dignitaries to attend. It would be very he1pful to 'have tJhem become acquaimted with the Slovruk question. Bishop Hoban of Scranton had agreed to preside. �34 SLOVAKIA WihaJt was Fa!tlher Furdek to eX!pect of his plans now that such damaging stories were ma!king their rounds in o,nficia:l circles as well as among the common people? Would Bishop Hdban honor the occasion with rhis presence? And if he came, would it lbe to censure or to question or to approve tJhe true effort of Father Flurdek and his co-wo!1kers? One could not very welll iknow before hand. On the morning of the Congress, Father Furdek and Faltlher Murgas set out by horise and carriage for Sugar Notc'h where tJhey were to call for Bishop Hoban and drive Mm to the Congress. They went with mixed emotions but they were fortified by the consciousness of upright motives 0Jnd blameless conduct. Bislhop Hoban did not disaippoint them. He graciously accepted their offer of a ride and showed that he was eager to act as chairman of the event which they had prepared. As he mounted the carriage 8/Ild sat between the two priests, he put ithem at ease by p1ungilllg at once into the subject of their to:r,menting thoug,hts, the painful topic of the accusations whicih had 1been made against them. He discussed some of the charges at length and judiciously disposed of them. For inst8Jllce, he found it ridiculous that in America where liberty prevaiils someone shOU!ld giloaJt ilil laibeling them PianSlavs (because of their a:Megiance to tJheir native lamd. "I iknow yoUT people well, " Bishop Hdban said wit!h gentle UIIlderstanding in tJhe couTISe of itihi s conversation. Then as they were passing the Ashley ohurcih he added, "l built tfuis ohur,c'h when I was pastor here. Among my parishioners were m8/Ily Slova:k,s and I became wel!l. acquainted wiibh them. I have great sympathy for the SlovaJks." 1 "I am an American althoug;h my ancestors came from Irel81Ild," the Bishop continued as though he were marshalli!ng faots in a debate. "The Irish have a long history of political persecution; tlle Irish :kin.ow wlhat it is to be oppressed. I have great sympa:tJhy for every oppressed nation whetlher irt be Armeruam, Polish, kish or whatever it may be. There a,re many nationalities in my diocese and I do not discriminate. We are all OatJhoHcs." Bishop Hoban could not undel'Stand why the idea of Pan-Slav should figure in an indictment presented to eccles- �35 SLOVAKIA iastical superiors. "What has that to do wit'h it? fo America one may be a Pan-American; ilil Germany, let him wiho wishes ,b e a Pan-Gennam. It is no crime or sin to be a Pam-S[av. 'l'he term has political implication only." He was shrewd enoug,h to perceive that the charges which had ,been trumped up under c-lerical pretentiOIIlS were 1basicaJBy of a politicall nature and tha;t they were essentially distortions or gross misrepresentations. Im the course of this ride, Bishop Hobim also showed FaJther Furdek a communication from t!he Apostolic Delegate inqu~riD'g ililto the nature of the accusations. But Bishop Hoban assured both priests that he had already sent to Washington a complete report vindicating the acoused and exiplainililg the motives that had prompted 1:Jhe effort to foil 1:Jhe success of the Catholic Congress. And they were, in fact, extreme measures to which the p'lotJters had resorted. At the last moment they even tried to intimidate Bishop Hoban by sendililg him a telegram warning that his presence at the Silovak Catholic Congress wou[d reflect discredit UipOn t!he American Catholic hierarchy. But BiSlhop Hobam was not to be deterred by t!hreats. In fact, he justly resented the attempts to put pressure on him from un8Juthor1zed quarters. Becaiuse of Bishop Hoban's fundaJmental ohaTity for ahl, his sympathy for the downtrodden and his unbiased sense of democracy, the Catholic Congress of Slovak Americans was a more glorious event than even Father Furdek had hoped it would be. It wa•s a complete vindicatiO!Il of the priests who 'had ,b een maJligned and it was am unqoo:lified triumph for the Slova:k people. Bishop Hoban openly championed their cause, the press gave the even.rt fulil coverage, and the SlovaJk people themselves were iby this huge gatJhering more closely bound to one amother than they had ever been before. The manifestation was a Catiholic Congress but it attracted many Slovruk•s of other religious denominrutions, too, as well as from various fraternall orgaJnizations both Ca:tholic and non-sectarian. This triumph of September 3, 1906 marked a lmld of renaissamce in Slovak life on two continents and it inspired Father Fourdek to urge upon Slovaik leaders iJil publ-ic life the formation of a national SloV0Jk organizrution to unify 1 �36 SLOVAKIA the American effort on behalf of Slov,a;kia. The outcome was the S1ovaik League of America which iin time evolved from suClh pre1i1minary movements as Furdek's drive "Za tu nasu slovenicinu !" (Jin defense of the Slovak cause!) which netted some ten thousand doll,ars for 1:Jhe na,t ional aid in the home1a:nd; the National Fund which sUJbsidized at least two hundred Slovruk students abroad rund brought relief to very many Slovak political leaders ,t hen houinded by unjust persecution, a:nd the lawnching of "Indignation Meetings" or pwbli,c demonstrations throughout the United States in order to protest the injushce and 1:Jhe human cruelty which viotimiized the Slovak people in their own homeland. 'I1hese tokens of help from America re-vitaUzed the crushed spirit and the depleted energies of S1ova!k patriots who were driven almost to t:he brilllk of despair iin fueir efiforts to save Silova kia. Costly :fii:nes and unrelenting pressure were syistematicaUy draining their resources and counteracting their achievements. American interest and Americain slllpport were their only encouraigement and mainstay. FiinanciaJ help came from tJhe drives which were organized expressly to raise funds. Morrul support was won by the Indignation Raillies, seven of which were originally planned to be held in key cities of the United States. T:he first of these was arranged by Father Furdek in 0levelaind. 1 LiJke all of Father Furdek's projects, tMs Indignation RaHy, too, was staimped with his spirit. Jit was an inspired and an inspiring demonstration, and it set 1:Jhe pattern for similar puiblic meetings. It:s puripose was to publicize Slov,aJkia's grievances against autocratic Hungarian agression, to prove t:hat Hungary was not in reality that "islallld of liberty" in central Europe which it gloried in caiHing itself, and to solicit the sympathy and the understanding of true leaders of liberty among the Americam people. Outstanding representatives of Americain 1ife amd thought participated in these rallies. For example, at the Cleveland gathering held on February 10, 1907, a crupaoity audience in Gray's Armory gave speHbo·u nd attention to addresses delivered by Professor Bourine, by three attorneys, three priests, and seveml journailists. The American public and especially the American thinking :public was quickly beginning to see the truth. At the �37 SLOVAKIA same time, the f,ire of truth amd the justified indignarti<on orf all lovers of justice was rea,ching out among S'loV'aJks and non-Slo'V'aJks alike, to enkindJe effective means for the triumph of true Iiiberty and fairness. ~he time seemed to be right then for Father FuTdek to try again to efifect a nationwide unification of the Slovak people in America. He had attempted it before when he founded the Matica S•l ovenska, a cultural society which did not thrive lonig because new world cond~tions were not yet favo:r,a!ble for such am undertwkrng (1893). Thi:s newer effort originated at a Pittsburgh meeting of SlovaJk journalisrts convened at Fa,ther Furdek's iinvitation on April 7, 1907 where it wa,,s agreed to stage a SlovaJk Congress in May for the purpose of founding the Slovak League of America. The time was ausipi'Cious, the attitude was enthusiastic, the fruit of the movement was good. 1 The Slovak L eague of America became a civic and cultural organization with a dual objective: 1) to advaJnce American interests and security and 2) to create a better understanding and ruppredation of the islova•k nation - its history, culture, traditions, achievements, and its long, bitter struggle for freedom and autonomy. The first president of the Slovak League was Father Furdelk and he aJbly guided its interests and its efforts and helped to launch it very successfully upon its fruitful career. Furdek 's spirit of self-sacrifice and his relentless drive took :lwavy toH on his physical resources. He burned out his life young but the flame of his ardor would allow no sparing of self when there was so much to be done for God and nation, for bme and for eternity. And even when it was apparent that his energies were faiNng, he did not stop to think of himself. Always his dominant thought was for others and for the general good. Extensive traveling, constant literary production, frequent appearances as a pubEc spewker or a church preacher, steady devotion to the management of his parish, constant attention to the needs of his school and its advancement , concern for the welrfare of a,,11 his people - these and many related issues crowded his days and his nights. 1 It is difficult to realize how he managed such a rich and fruitful life, how he provided in it for projects of nat - �38 SLOVAKIA ionail scope and significance as weM as for close and immediate needs such as tJhe compiling of three textbooks, a gra,matiJka and two citamky of such S'lllperior practicail use and benefit thaJt they served .s everal generations with soUJDd advantage. He also experimented wibh a patented pedaJgogic,rul device for fille teadhring of a,:r,~tlhmetic. A,s early as 1906 Father Fur<lek had brought about officiail aotion for the founding of a home for oriphans. F\inaiHy in 1914 he had the joy of seeing such a home a reality ilrl Middletown, Pennsylv,ania where Phili,p and Mary Hroba!k of Lakewood, Ohio were the first children under J ednota care in a home manruged by tlhe S1isters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Father Furdeik was also deeply initerested in t!lris new Slovak Community of Sisters and he endorsed the efforts of the Jednota ovgani21ation to adv,am,ce it and its wovks. After 1912 FatJher Furoek's healit:Jh was so much on the declrine that hris vision became imiparirred. Yet he carnied on heroicailly and even shortly after the New Year 1915 he accepted an invitation to preacll at a Forty Hours' Devotion ;in LoraJin, Ohio. It wrus on his retmm fr.om t!his priestly servke that he suffered eX)posure in a wintry storm amd on January 18, 1915, in t!he fifty-lllinbh year of his life, the thirty-second of his priesthood, he was called to his eternal reward. Fi,fty thousand Jedn<Ybars and cowntless friends and adirniirers on both sides of the Ati1'amtic mourned his death. 1 The tvue greatness of Father Furdek is made more digtJin:ct to us as it stamds in the perspective of years since his death. T,he void left by his deparrture to etemal life has IIlever been fiiil.led, and we see now tJhat it was with prophetic appreciaition and with some degree of regrettruble lament that Father J anikola spdke 1:Jhese words in his euJlogy on t'he day orf Father Furdek's funeral, "We wiH never see his like again. Slovrukia shall not send us another Furdek; America wi:Jil not produce another." 1 The greaJtness of Father Furdek's achievements derives from fille gifts of hi:s mind rund Clharrucl:er not from a mere aiccident of circumstances. We have even now ,t he need for ArrneriJcan Slovruks of uncommon gifts and moral stature to foad on in a modem world of mrugni:fl1cent opport.ll!Ilities. We need leaders who are seers and doe11s, wtho can vi:talli:ze and �SLOVAKIA 3g inspire, who can hold before us the V1s1on and dispel our lethargy so that we American Slova!ks will want to :reaclh out for the attaiinment, will want to assert a pride of aincestry and a new hig,h of national greatness. But it has not been given us to have a second Furdelk in America. God grant that a younger geineration may pl'O'V'ide fuat in,s piration end greatness. As we survey Father FuTdek's place and his merits in American Slovalk history, we come to realize how well he deserves to be honored 8Jlld remembeTed as tlhe Father of American Sllovaks. BIBLIOGRAPHY Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1906. 214 pp. Cooke, Vincent, "Catholic Objectives in the Care of Children," Catholic Action, XXXII (May, 1950), 8. Culen Konlitantin, "American Slovaks and Slovak Statehood," Slovakia, I (May, 1951), 18. Culen, Konl;tantin, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, Slovakia, Matica Slovenska Press, 1938. 519 pp. Culen. Konstantin, "Stefan Furdek," Kultura, VII (September 1935), 377-386. Emerentia, Mother M., History of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Unpublished Master's thesis, Marywood College. Falcon, The, (Katolicky Sokol), Passaic, N. J ., July 5, 1944. Fortieth Anniversary Souvenir 1907-1947, Saints Cyril and Methodius Church, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Furdek, Stephen, Prvci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, Druhci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, "Hymna americkych Slovakov," Kalendcir Jednota, I (January, 1896), 22. Furdek, Stephen, Kalendcir Jednota, 19 Vol. (1896-1915 ). Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicka Jednota vo Spojenych Statoch," Kalendcir Jednota, I (1896 ), 26-37. Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicky Slovensky Kongress," Kalendcir Jednota, XII (1907), 145-155. Furdek, Stephen, "Keby nie jeho, nepotreboval by som dnes ziadneho -Ostavu," Kalendcir Jednota, (1914), 69. �40 SLOVAKIA Furdek, Stephen, Sv et a jeho zahady. Cleveland: Furdek, 1910. 250 pp. Hlinka, Andrew, "K jubileu striebornej konvencie Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty v Amerike," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) , 35. Hrobak, Philip, Ed., Editorial, Slov akia, I, (May, 1951). Hrobak, Philip, "The First Catholic Slovak Union of the U.S.A. ," Slov ak Record, (September, 1943) . Rusek, Joseph, "K dvadsat'pat'rocnici I. Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (January, 1916) 30-59. Rusek, Stephanie, "The Slovaks in America," Kalendar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 111-116. J ednota, Middletown, Pa., Dec. 17, 1913; Mar. 11, 1914; June 17, 1914; June 17, 1914; Sept. 23, 1914; Jan. 20, 1915; Jan. 27, 1915; Feb. 11, 1915; Apr. 24, 1935; June 18, 1952. K niha dejin Spolku sv. Jozefa, cislo 1. Z prilezitosti oslavy 50. rocneho jubileuma. Cleveland: 1939. Kozak, A. V., "-Ostav I. Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, ( 1912) 19-24. Leech, George L. , Letter to First Catholic Slovak Union on the Occasion of Its Golden Jubilee, 1940. Liscinsky, John Method, "Katolicka Slovenska 2enska Jednota," ( 1911 ) 180-184. Martvon, John, "Autobiograficky nacrt," Kale ndar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 19. Mulcahy, George, "Life of Saints Cyril and Methodius," Radio Broadcast on Diocesan Catholic Hour, WHP, Feb. 13, 1940. Palickar, Stephen J., " Father Furdek, Leader," Commonweal, VI (June 8, 1927) 126. Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, "Kulturny Program Prvej Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) 31. Rovnianek, P . V., Zapi sky za ziva pochovaneho. Pittsburgh: Rovnianek Press, 1924. Slovak League of America, Editorial, "What Is It?" The Slov ak Digest, I, (November-December, 1946) . Slovak v Amerike, New York, N. Y., August 30, 1949. Spolok Panny Marie Ruzencovej , Z Dejin I .K.S.J. , Pamatnik Slavnej XVII. Konvencie I.K.S.J., (September, 1925), Scranton, Pa. Tybor, Caroline, " Slovak Language in Our Academy," Fialky, IV (December, 1924) 71-72. Yurchak, Peter J. , The Slovaks, Their History and Tradition, Whiting : John J . Lach, 1946. 278 pp. Zlamal, Oldrich, "Life of Reverend Stephen Furdek," Sixtieth Anniv ersary of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, (Svet Publishing Co. , Cleveland, Ohio) 1943. � SLOVAKIA 25 FATHER OF AMERICAN SLOVAKS By Si ster M . Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. The noisy night tra1n daittered out of Cleveland, Ohio. Its pa;sse:ngers -by tmns re'la.xed or braced tfuemselves in keepin1g with tihe jo1ti1Ilg ThytJhms of the orange-eyed monster as it spumed spat1ks and ,c inders and hurtled along the shiny rails toward Pennsylvania. Among the travelers, it ca·ITied a thougihllful priest wihose quiet eyes looked upon liife with a wisdom born of natural gifts and rich exiperience. 'l'he tr,ain ste adied itself to ain even speed. A conductor came down the aisle punohirng tiokets and as ihe took U!p Fatller's, the yehlow gleam from tfue ga:s jet ovet1head showed that it was daited early iJil September 1906 and was made ourt for Wilkes-Barre. '11he dim light also reveailed the identirf,ication tag on Father's traveling bag marked Rev. Stephen Furdek Our Lady of Lou'I'ldes Church Cleveland, Ohio For a few moments after the conductoT moved on, Father fingered the gold cross that huing from his watoh chain. Then he studied some letters and paipers from his porbfolio, and finally he reached into ihis pocket for his prayer beads. From early dhi:1dhood lh e had Oll'ltivated a m3/I'lked dev,otion to OuT Lady and he 1ha,d in her a sure refuge and he'lp in every need. He had grown up amid hardships and difificuUies of aH kinds ·b ut the wais not hurt or wa11ped lby them. In fact, crosses had only made him the stronger to endure more. Let us trace some of ihis growing-up days a:nd you wihl see fOT yourself. September 2, 1855 was the date of Stephen furdek's bir,tJh, and Tr,s tena in Orava County, 1Sloviakia, was the phaoe. In maiteTial resouTces Oreva ,is one of tlh.e poorest regions orf central Europe but it has given -tfue Slovak people a remairkaJble number orf intellectuails and leaders. Stephen Furdelk, too, 'becairne one of tihese grea,t men of his people, for God had fitted him for a parti!oohar work amd lh.e was reaidy when the time was right. His scholastic career was bri.ililianrt even from his ele- �26 SLOVAKIA merutaTy grades at the villaige sdhool where he was ta'l.tght by 1:Jhe Franciscans. For his ,hig1h school courses Stephen went to Bamska Bystrioa amd then to the gymnazium or senior high sdhool in Nitra. lt was m Nitra, too, tihat he begoo 'his semim.ary training for the priestlhood. Because of his outstandin1g success in phHosophy and -theology, howeveT, his bishop singled out Stephen FuTdek for special studies at tJhe univemity in Budapest. This 'hirg,h honor and distinction was especially gratifying to lris parents who were providi!ng for ihirs education at the cost of great sacrifice. Unfortunately, the young student took sick in Buda,pe,st and iha:d to return home. On recovering, he resumed hirs studies ·but he decided to Teturn to itlhe Nirtra seminary r-atiher tham ,to tlle university in Budapest. He <Xmcenrtrated on his lessoos 'but politiml troubles dirstu111bed the times very much and the spirit of unrest and hosthl:ity reached even into the seminary. ,Stephen Fu<rdek's tempernment preferred peace to contention. Y oll!Ilg as he was, he h,ad a sixth sense whiic:ih directed birm toward a tactful line of CO'lldruct, toward a decisiion wihioh would avoid tmUJble wiitlhout sia,crifici111g principle. Besi<les, he enjoyed the fatfuerly guidance of the Trstemiborn Dr. Martin Hattala, an eminent priest-philologist who was at tlhis time a professor of languages at ChaTles University in Pr-ague. Acti'lllg under these two iin:filuences, tJhe student Furdek withdrew from see1:1hirng Nitra. 'Dhis step demanded the sacrifice of ihis priestly ideal! but the ·s pirit of the times was such thaJt a SlovaJk patriot was denied the opportunity to complete his studies for professional work. 'Dhe overlords demanded that you eicf:lher tramsfex- your ai1legiamoe or surrender academic pur~suit. Ln leaving the semin,a.ry, Stephen did what he 1!hougiht was •r ight and he firmly trusted in God. FoT some time after he left Nitra, Furdek was a teacher in Stramirl.ce, MoraViia. This took him out of t!he region of trouble 1b ut his new work did not satisfy him. Realizing thaJt this was not really his vocation, he decided to return to 1his books. Perhaps he felt 1!hat iif he had to be denied the privfiledge of serving his people as a priest, he wOIU!ld .t ry to serve them as a fully ti,ained professionaJl, a specia:liized teaC'heT, pemaps one Hke Dr. Haittala whose distiinction it was to be both a priest and a teac!her. �SLOVAKIA 27 F,or tihree years F1t.mieJk diligently studied classical laJnguages and ,philology at OhaI'les Universiity. Dlll'ing this tirme he ibecame acquainted wiith Dr. Flrancis Bauer who was rector of the diocesan seminary in P,r ague amd was deslbined to •b ecome camdmaJl ar<fub1slhop of O1omoUJc in Moravia. Dr. Bauer saw ilrl the promising s.tudenit the greaiter promise of service for botJh God amd country. He advised Furdek .to Teturn to his seminary couTses and lh e suggested that it would be well for him to do so rig.ht there in Prague. F1uridek was haJppy to have this encouraigement. It retll!I'ned to him tJhe hope dearest ito his th eart and brought him oloser to its Tealiization. He followed Dr. Bauer's advice e8)gerly . .AJbout four years lateT, w!hen he was in hls last year of theology, FuTdek learned tlhat an urgent appe81l from America rea•o hed his superiors. lt 08)me from Bishop Riobard Gi:lrmour of Cleveland, Ohio, and eXJpressed ,h is concern foT the spirituaJ care of many Slavic immigrants lirvmg in his diocese wrthout a priest of their OWtil tongue to minister to their needs. Bishop GilmoUT ha;d written to severau European bishops amd to various religious orders beg,gi:ng for priests and for advanced students who wouid be ruble to finish their studies ilrl America 01nd serve these people in Christ's narrne. 'Dhis was a caJ!l for generous and missiona,rysouled worikers. Who would be foU1I1d willing to answer? Who would be qualified? Father Francis Sasinek, am eXJperiienced and soholtarly Slovak priest, recommended tJhe semi.nariam Furdek for this responsible work. Furrdek's superions at the seminary endorsed the recommenda:tion, for they knew that ,t his young man had 'tJhe spiTituaJ.ity and the tiauenrt:s to succeed in such an assig,nmenrt of pionem-ing for Ohrist among the immigramts in America. The prospects were ma:de known to him and though it cost muoh to part frcxm al!l that was so dear to him, Stephen Furdek generously mrade the sa,cr.iifice. It was tJhe g,uiding prindple of his lirfe to wol'k for God amd for country, and here is taJil'gilble proof tJhat he did not merely iderulize t,hat motto; he lived it wibh aU its implioations. He bade farewell to ,his famhly and friends in tJhe spring of 1882 and embanked for .America. By March 15 he w,as in Cleveland, strengtihened by itihe ,g ,ra,ce of God and seasoned by past hardships for whatever trials might lie in the years �28 SLOVAKIA aJhead. Jin tfuis new and wondel'fttl though still st'l'!all!ge world, he completed his studies in a few montlhs and was ordained by Bishop Gilmour in St. Wenceslaus Church on JUJly 1 of t!he same year. This was tJhe fulfillment of hi:s fondest dreams. For aibout ten months a;fter ordination, Father Furdek served as an assistant at St. Wenceslaus. At the same bme, however, he arranged for the Slova!ks of the area to attend Sunday mass offered by a non.,SloV1aJk Franciscan Father at St. Joseph's ohurch in Clevelailld where he himself would come every week to prea•ch, to inst'I'll'ct, and to hea:r confessions in Slovak. This 1kind of dual apostolate •becaJme FatJher Furdek's liifework. For all his priesi'ly yeiars dati:ng from April 1883 until his death on J ,a nuary 18, 1915, he was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes par~sh which the bishop authori!zed him to organize, and he devoted hims~Lf to the care and guidance of countless Sloy,a•IDs throughout America. For what do we remeimbeT him most? He was an exemplary pr,iest, educator, leader, organizer, journalist, novelist, poet, paitriot - and he merited every one of these distmctions folly. Yet over and a:bove aill this, he was in the true sense of 1Jhe word t!he F'atJher of Amerioan Slovaks. He ha:d 'haroly orientiated h~mself i:n this adopted coootry when he reaJLized that his God.igiven mission extended beyond the immediate needs of the parish work that was a:ssi:gned to him. He always discharged his pastora.'l duties conscientiously ,but parish wonk was not hiiis one falent to be hidden safely m a napkin and retu:rmed to the Master at His coming. Fat!her Furdek was entrusted v,ivh mamy talents and he zealously trafficked with the much that had been g,iven him. Besides ,buildi:ng a maignificent church and a modem school of sixteen classrooms, besides managing all the interests of Our Lady of Lourdes parish and its sohool witlh an enrollment of a thousand pupils, Father Furdek heliped to organize many Slovruk parishes ·both in Clevelaind and in other widely scattered Slovak •s ettlements. The need of the hour was to help these Sloviak immigrants to achieve a sense of belongiiing, to giive them a bond of unity, to satisfy their spiriturul cravmg a.ind their sociail needs amd to educaJte tJhem. It was important to teach them cooperation in wmikiing for common i:nterests and mutual helpfuhl.ess. Solicitous F1ather �SLOVAKIA 29 of all the Slova:ks in America that he was, Father Furdek took each of these problems to heaTt and worked for its soliution. To iprovide priests for newly organized and organi,z ing panishes, Father Furdek undertook more th3Jn one trip to Slova,kia because both hiis bishop a,nd he realized that personal conta,ct would be more effectiv,e than any ot her type of solicitation. And he did succeed in interesting a number of worthy priests a,nd derics from abroad to come to these pioneer parishes a,mong the immigrants. But even wi1:Jh individuail parishes organized here and there a,s circumstances warranited it, the entire ,problem of the Slovak immigrant in America was not solved. Father Furdek in hi:s missionary travels among the people witnessed their efforts to for,m local fraternal and benefiicial societies. He saw a:lso that his countrymen needed to 1be safeguarded from leaders and movements that threatened their spiritua[ outlook while pretending to offer them materiaJl advantages. Before ,}ong he realized, too, that most of those newcomers were going to establish permanent homes in America; they needed to plan for a secure future and a wlholesome heritage for their posteriity :iin the new world. Riis keen vision sa,w 'beyond the immediate present, 0JS does every true leader's. Beg,inning wi:th a nucleus of pioneers in Clevela,nd, Father Furdek in 1890 founded a men's organization called the First Catholic Slova,k Union or the Jednota. Two years later a similia:r ladies' organization wa;s began. The Jecmota grew to be the largest Slovak fratemal bene£it organization in the world. It is also a strong pillar of Slova:k Ca,t;Jholicity in America. 'J1hrough it, Father Furdeik propag,ated the vivifying ti deal "For God and N ruti001." On this Chri:stiain prin~ ciple is formulated the entire philosophy a;nd structure of the Jednota aind this is what ,g ives tJhe body its stabi'Li:ty and strength. To a people making history in a la:nd where they were without traditions, without established precedent, it was essentiall to build wisely and well. Father Furdeik with his gift of vision prepared that ·b luepriint for them e~ceptiona1ly wel!l. His firm hut tactflllil leadershiip directed the early funmigrants toward healthy progress. 'Dhe Jeiooota pmvided aU tlhe ·benefits of a mutual aid society, it brought the mem- �30 SLOVAKIA hers of a local branch together for periodic meetings and conferences, it ,s pomored national conventions and its bylaws emphasrzed fidelity to reliigious duty. This was putting first thing,s first. Flather Furdelk repeatedly msisted that it was imperative for Cathollics to jom Catlholic societies because non-sectarian infiJ.uences, innocuous as they may seem to be, have a tendency to cool fervor and lead to indifference in the spiritual liife. AIS a matter of fuct, there were some sad instaJn ces to prove that suoh Hberallism even resulted in ag,nostici,s,m aJild free thinikling. These were the rugged days of early pioneering for great numbe11s of :immigrants. In theiT period of adjustment they were e~osed to both adva,ntJa:ges and <lis•a dvanta,ges. Men who 'had 'been iong suppressed and oppressed found themselves sudden,l y free amd they couM have leaned over too far, disregaroing or discoun:tin:g some forms of autJhority completely, claiming an Ulllcontro:J.lled emancipation. Father FuTdek's presence and influence among them was the needed leaven. Patiently and finnJ.y he worlked to balance their outlook. CourageQIUJS•l y he set himself again,s t tJhe forces that advocated a ,c omplete libera!l<tsm or secuffiarism, tJhat disregard for spiritual discipline that would have resulted in crass materialism. Wit'h the gnts of a !born tea·o her he rooched his people and restrained tJhem from becoming the victims of such errors. He saved them from tJhe influence of false ,l eaders and besides ta<king a necessa11Hy agressive stand in these ma;tters, he also stimll'lated lay acti'Vity. In teaching the meaning of 1iib erty, Father Furde'k stressed the opportunities wthich his peo'.)le should use here for self-improvement amd cultural adva;ncement. One year after founding the Jednota o:t1ganization, he launched tlhe J,ffiDNOTA weekly (1891) whi-dh 1became the offici~l organ of tJhe society. In 1896 at his own e~ense he gave his people their first JE}DNOTA iK:ALffiNDAiR, an annrua•l or a!hnanac. llil t his way :h e brought into the homes of ha:t1d-worlcing common people press materials whioh became a medium of culture and a weHspring of spiritual refreshment. The duties of editing and publicrution were his and althougih it meant a tremendous demand on his time, energy and talent to compose rund expedite a newspaper every week 8.llld a ri~h almanac every year, he aJSSumed this blll'den and responsibility in addition to his pastoral wook be- �SLOVAKIA 31 cause he knew how mu,~h the Slovairos in Ameriica needed such wholesome reading matter. He also invited quaJlirfied oontriibutors to send mainuscriipts and it was usually our priests both here and from aibr-oad wiho did sulbmit some exceHent articles for the Jednota publication. Slov,aJk immigr,ants with theiir new privilege of reading t!heir own newspapers in America were being instructed amd infoI1llled lb y them. A Jedinotar w,ho took up his copy alter a day's strenuous wcmk on the furm or in a mine, mill or factory, found relaxation and enjoyment in reading its columns. His Catholic weekly broug1ht him news items, editoriials, tJhe Sunday epistle amd gospel wiibh a homhly, e~lanations of the oatMhism and of tJhe Hturgical year, interesting lessons on :the duties and privileges of American citizenship, and a survey of American history presented eit!her topicaHy or serially or throug.h biographical sketches. Father Furdek's admiration for America and his devotion to the ideal of democr,acy prompted him to write on this subject repeatedly and to urge Slovaks in America to become natlurcli1irzed. His patriotism to two countries was baJlanced with an uneXJceiled nicety and with demoeratic expertness which 'he e~ressed very a:ptly in the poem "Amerika, zem velilka" ("America, Great Land") which was awarded first honors in a competition sponsored by P. V. Rovnianek. In th4:s poem Furdek sings the glories of America - her progress, her emancipation of the slave, her democracy, her greaJt native sons, her mothering of the oppressed who come to her shores, the opportunities she o:fifera to all witJhout discrimination. Then he voices a touohilllg apostrophe to his homeland, characterized by the snow-ca:pped Tatry, as if he wished to e~ress the assurance that the ocean may separate but it does not divide a loyial people. Poetically and neatly he arigues that a son still. loves his mother tJhoug,h he gives his heart to his wife, and that it is by just such a pa,ra'Hel that loyial emigrants love the land they left as well as the country of their adoption. 'Dhe more he studied the problems of the day, the more he became convinced that practica11y all the Slovak :immigrants in America were here to stay. This reaili2Jation made him aiH the more eager to he]Jp them :to become intelligent .American citizens, men and women capaible of a great love �32 SLOVAKIA for this democratic new wonld yet mindful and proud of their ancestry. He often reminded them to note how muoh ilm.iproved their living cO'llditions were here over w'ihat ~hey had been under the MaJgy,a r regime at home. He urged them to compare America's repulblicaJn fomn orf government with Hungary's despotism. He repeatedly pointed out that there is no subject class in this country aJnd 1Jhat ruH wiho enjoyed America's freedom have many opportunities to advance and improve themselves. Furdek's articles represented America as a great school w;here t!he iimmig:r,ant could learn out orf the book of actuaJ living amd doing. He pointed out that here even an unschooled SlovaJk w011ker learns rhow to mine ores, he comes to understand the intricacies amd 1:Jhe operation of simple and orf complex machines, he reads aind he learns from his newspapers, he travels free1y and cain master basic geography, he struggles with tJhe fanguage problem and everutua:lly he can come to sipea:k English as well a:s a teacher. In short, whatever he needs to know, he can learn in 1:Jhe scthool of Amerioan 1ife. Furdek thad am unlbound patriotism which is reflected in all his journaJlistic output. As a matter of fact, he was no mere journa:list; he was a pub1ioist who propagiated his open admiration aind devotion to America togetJher with a steady remembrance and love for Slovalkia. He forecast the Americanization of the Slovaks - not becaJUse America is a melting pot but because it is irmposs~ble for human life and thoug,ht to withsbrund the tide of change and the demands of reasona1ble adjustment. But he did not favor a sudden and complete sundering from home ties. Wisely he urged his people to preserve a love for ancestraJl roots and an appreciation of their national culture aJnd to transmit this devotion to future generations. It is not without cause that we look upon him ais the Father of American Slovaks. There was no problem of American Stlovak life that escruped his serious study and analysis. He took a definite stand in every sigmificant isSl\le and wherever the need required it, he was bhe spiI'itual a:dviser, prime mover, •a nd inspiration to thousands of people. His was a many-sided creatiwiess and 1he had a genius for keeping pace with the progress orf time. '!'he Jednota, whiclh he founded, preserved the ideals of Fu11dek because he himself �SLOVAKIA 33 was so deeply imbued with the spiriit which he imparted to it. It was a spirit which even reac'hed from America to Silovakia and supported national movements there. See him now as he blesses himself on finishing his rosary. He looks caJlm and untroubled but a heavy oross lies upon his heart. "How wiU this affair end?" he asks himself. Here he is coming to a rally intended to alleviate suffering abroad and to strengthen the spirit of his people on this new soil, aind yet this very ceil~ration threatens to brmg about undesirable Tesults. He and his brother.,priests have designated the gathering to which he is going as a Slovak Catho1ic Congress, but enemies - like the GOiSpel sowers of tares among the wheat - have been busy noi:sing it abroad that Father Furdek and his al'lies planned this mass meeting in order to launch a new heresy and to effect a schism of Slovak Catholics. And the wi1d rumor was reported officiail!ly even to the Apostolic Delegate in W a:sihimgton and to various bisihops and archbishops, urging t:Jhem to suspend and penalize all those priests wlho were in any way associa,ted with the affair. Father Furdek's name, namuraUy, led the rest in the list of tJhose who were marked to be proscribed. What was the outcome to 1be? The great S,lova1k Catholic Co'lligress took pla:ce on La:bor Day, September 3, 1906 in Wrl1kes-Barre. It attraoted oveT ten thousand Slovaks from all parts of Amedca and that in a day when traveling was time-consuming, tiresome, imconvenient, a:nd much of a humry for people wi1lh limited earnings. The program of tJhe day was planned to irndude religious services a1nd a series of addresses both in English and in Slovak on subjects of vital interest and conseque-nce to the Slovruk people. 1 Father Furdek arranged for representatives of the daily newspapers as well as editors of leading SlovaJk publications to be present in order to cover t'he story. Tihis would provide a greater circUJlation of reports on Slova1k matters among ,a little-informed American iputbHc as well as among an interested Slovruk audience. It was for this reasorn also that he arranged for notable American officiaJls and dignitaries to attend. It would be very he1pful to 'have tJhem become acquaimted with the Slovruk question. Bishop Hoban of Scranton had agreed to preside. �34 SLOVAKIA WihaJt was Fa!tlher Furdek to eX!pect of his plans now that such damaging stories were ma!king their rounds in o,nficia:l circles as well as among the common people? Would Bishop Hdban honor the occasion with rhis presence? And if he came, would it lbe to censure or to question or to approve tJhe true effort of Father Flurdek and his co-wo!1kers? One could not very welll iknow before hand. On the morning of the Congress, Father Furdek and Faltlher Murgas set out by horise and carriage for Sugar Notc'h where tJhey were to call for Bishop Hoban and drive Mm to the Congress. They went with mixed emotions but they were fortified by the consciousness of upright motives 0Jnd blameless conduct. Bislhop Hoban did not disaippoint them. He graciously accepted their offer of a ride and showed that he was eager to act as chairman of the event which they had prepared. As he mounted the carriage 8/Ild sat between the two priests, he put ithem at ease by p1ungilllg at once into the subject of their to:r,menting thoug,hts, the painful topic of the accusations whicih had 1been made against them. He discussed some of the charges at length and judiciously disposed of them. For inst8Jllce, he found it ridiculous that in America where liberty prevaiils someone shOU!ld giloaJt ilil laibeling them PianSlavs (because of their a:Megiance to tJheir native lamd. "I iknow yoUT people well, " Bishop Hdban said wit!h gentle UIIlderstanding in tJhe couTISe of itihi s conversation. Then as they were passing the Ashley ohurcih he added, "l built tfuis ohur,c'h when I was pastor here. Among my parishioners were m8/Ily Slova:k,s and I became wel!l. acquainted wiibh them. I have great sympathy for the SlovaJks." 1 "I am an American althoug;h my ancestors came from Irel81Ild," the Bishop continued as though he were marshalli!ng faots in a debate. "The Irish have a long history of political persecution; tlle Irish :kin.ow wlhat it is to be oppressed. I have great sympa:tJhy for every oppressed nation whetlher irt be Armeruam, Polish, kish or whatever it may be. There a,re many nationalities in my diocese and I do not discriminate. We are all OatJhoHcs." Bishop Hoban could not undel'Stand why the idea of Pan-Slav should figure in an indictment presented to eccles- �35 SLOVAKIA iastical superiors. "What has that to do wit'h it? fo America one may be a Pan-American; ilil Germany, let him wiho wishes ,b e a Pan-Gennam. It is no crime or sin to be a Pam-S[av. 'l'he term has political implication only." He was shrewd enoug,h to perceive that the charges which had ,been trumped up under c-lerical pretentiOIIlS were 1basicaJBy of a politicall nature and tha;t they were essentially distortions or gross misrepresentations. Im the course of this ride, Bishop Hobim also showed FaJther Furdek a communication from t!he Apostolic Delegate inqu~riD'g ililto the nature of the accusations. But Bishop Hoban assured both priests that he had already sent to Washington a complete report vindicating the acoused and exiplainililg the motives that had prompted 1:Jhe effort to foil 1:Jhe success of the Catholic Congress. And they were, in fact, extreme measures to which the p'lotJters had resorted. At the last moment they even tried to intimidate Bishop Hoban by sendililg him a telegram warning that his presence at the Silovak Catholic Congress wou[d reflect discredit UipOn t!he American Catholic hierarchy. But BiSlhop Hobam was not to be deterred by t!hreats. In fact, he justly resented the attempts to put pressure on him from un8Juthor1zed quarters. Becaiuse of Bishop Hoban's fundaJmental ohaTity for ahl, his sympathy for the downtrodden and his unbiased sense of democracy, the Catholic Congress of Slovak Americans was a more glorious event than even Father Furdek had hoped it would be. It wa•s a complete vindicatiO!Il of the priests who 'had ,b een maJligned and it was am unqoo:lified triumph for the Slova:k people. Bishop Hoban openly championed their cause, the press gave the even.rt fulil coverage, and the SlovaJk people themselves were iby this huge gatJhering more closely bound to one amother than they had ever been before. The manifestation was a Catiholic Congress but it attracted many Slovruk•s of other religious denominrutions, too, as well as from various fraternall orgaJnizations both Ca:tholic and non-sectarian. This triumph of September 3, 1906 marked a lmld of renaissamce in Slovak life on two continents and it inspired Father Fourdek to urge upon Slovaik leaders iJil publ-ic life the formation of a national SloV0Jk organizrution to unify 1 �36 SLOVAKIA the American effort on behalf of Slov,a;kia. The outcome was the S1ovaik League of America which iin time evolved from suClh pre1i1minary movements as Furdek's drive "Za tu nasu slovenicinu !" (Jin defense of the Slovak cause!) which netted some ten thousand doll,ars for 1:Jhe na,t ional aid in the home1a:nd; the National Fund which sUJbsidized at least two hundred Slovruk students abroad rund brought relief to very many Slovak political leaders ,t hen houinded by unjust persecution, a:nd the lawnching of "Indignation Meetings" or pwbli,c demonstrations throughout the United States in order to protest the injushce and 1:Jhe human cruelty which viotimiized the Slovak people in their own homeland. 'I1hese tokens of help from America re-vitaUzed the crushed spirit and the depleted energies of S1ova!k patriots who were driven almost to t:he brilllk of despair iin fueir efiforts to save Silova kia. Costly :fii:nes and unrelenting pressure were syistematicaUy draining their resources and counteracting their achievements. American interest and Americain slllpport were their only encouraigement and mainstay. FiinanciaJ help came from tJhe drives which were organized expressly to raise funds. Morrul support was won by the Indignation Raillies, seven of which were originally planned to be held in key cities of the United States. T:he first of these was arranged by Father Furdek in 0levelaind. 1 LiJke all of Father Furdek's projects, tMs Indignation RaHy, too, was staimped with his spirit. Jit was an inspired and an inspiring demonstration, and it set 1:Jhe pattern for similar puiblic meetings. It:s puripose was to publicize Slov,aJkia's grievances against autocratic Hungarian agression, to prove t:hat Hungary was not in reality that "islallld of liberty" in central Europe which it gloried in caiHing itself, and to solicit the sympathy and the understanding of true leaders of liberty among the Americam people. Outstanding representatives of Americain 1ife amd thought participated in these rallies. For example, at the Cleveland gathering held on February 10, 1907, a crupaoity audience in Gray's Armory gave speHbo·u nd attention to addresses delivered by Professor Bourine, by three attorneys, three priests, and seveml journailists. The American public and especially the American thinking :public was quickly beginning to see the truth. At the �37 SLOVAKIA same time, the f,ire of truth amd the justified indignarti<on orf all lovers of justice was rea,ching out among S'loV'aJks and non-Slo'V'aJks alike, to enkindJe effective means for the triumph of true Iiiberty and fairness. ~he time seemed to be right then for Father FuTdek to try again to efifect a nationwide unification of the Slovak people in America. He had attempted it before when he founded the Matica S•l ovenska, a cultural society which did not thrive lonig because new world cond~tions were not yet favo:r,a!ble for such am undertwkrng (1893). Thi:s newer effort originated at a Pittsburgh meeting of SlovaJk journalisrts convened at Fa,ther Furdek's iinvitation on April 7, 1907 where it wa,,s agreed to stage a SlovaJk Congress in May for the purpose of founding the Slovak League of America. The time was ausipi'Cious, the attitude was enthusiastic, the fruit of the movement was good. 1 The Slovak L eague of America became a civic and cultural organization with a dual objective: 1) to advaJnce American interests and security and 2) to create a better understanding and ruppredation of the islova•k nation - its history, culture, traditions, achievements, and its long, bitter struggle for freedom and autonomy. The first president of the Slovak League was Father Furdelk and he aJbly guided its interests and its efforts and helped to launch it very successfully upon its fruitful career. Furdek 's spirit of self-sacrifice and his relentless drive took :lwavy toH on his physical resources. He burned out his life young but the flame of his ardor would allow no sparing of self when there was so much to be done for God and nation, for bme and for eternity. And even when it was apparent that his energies were faiNng, he did not stop to think of himself. Always his dominant thought was for others and for the general good. Extensive traveling, constant literary production, frequent appearances as a pubEc spewker or a church preacher, steady devotion to the management of his parish, constant attention to the needs of his school and its advancement , concern for the welrfare of a,,11 his people - these and many related issues crowded his days and his nights. 1 It is difficult to realize how he managed such a rich and fruitful life, how he provided in it for projects of nat - �38 SLOVAKIA ionail scope and significance as weM as for close and immediate needs such as tJhe compiling of three textbooks, a gra,matiJka and two citamky of such S'lllperior practicail use and benefit thaJt they served .s everal generations with soUJDd advantage. He also experimented wibh a patented pedaJgogic,rul device for fille teadhring of a,:r,~tlhmetic. A,s early as 1906 Father Fur<lek had brought about officiail aotion for the founding of a home for oriphans. F\inaiHy in 1914 he had the joy of seeing such a home a reality ilrl Middletown, Pennsylv,ania where Phili,p and Mary Hroba!k of Lakewood, Ohio were the first children under J ednota care in a home manruged by tlhe S1isters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Father Furdeik was also deeply initerested in t!lris new Slovak Community of Sisters and he endorsed the efforts of the Jednota ovgani21ation to adv,am,ce it and its wovks. After 1912 FatJher Furoek's healit:Jh was so much on the declrine that hris vision became imiparirred. Yet he carnied on heroicailly and even shortly after the New Year 1915 he accepted an invitation to preacll at a Forty Hours' Devotion ;in LoraJin, Ohio. It wrus on his retmm fr.om t!his priestly servke that he suffered eX)posure in a wintry storm amd on January 18, 1915, in t!he fifty-lllinbh year of his life, the thirty-second of his priesthood, he was called to his eternal reward. Fi,fty thousand Jedn<Ybars and cowntless friends and adirniirers on both sides of the Ati1'amtic mourned his death. 1 The tvue greatness of Father Furdek is made more digtJin:ct to us as it stamds in the perspective of years since his death. T,he void left by his deparrture to etemal life has IIlever been fiiil.led, and we see now tJhat it was with prophetic appreciaition and with some degree of regrettruble lament that Father J anikola spdke 1:Jhese words in his euJlogy on t'he day orf Father Furdek's funeral, "We wiH never see his like again. Slovrukia shall not send us another Furdek; America wi:Jil not produce another." 1 The greaJtness of Father Furdek's achievements derives from fille gifts of hi:s mind rund Clharrucl:er not from a mere aiccident of circumstances. We have even now ,t he need for ArrneriJcan Slovruks of uncommon gifts and moral stature to foad on in a modem world of mrugni:fl1cent opport.ll!Ilities. We need leaders who are seers and doe11s, wtho can vi:talli:ze and �SLOVAKIA 3g inspire, who can hold before us the V1s1on and dispel our lethargy so that we American Slova!ks will want to :reaclh out for the attaiinment, will want to assert a pride of aincestry and a new hig,h of national greatness. But it has not been given us to have a second Furdelk in America. God grant that a younger geineration may pl'O'V'ide fuat in,s piration end greatness. As we survey Father FuTdek's place and his merits in American Slovalk history, we come to realize how well he deserves to be honored 8Jlld remembeTed as tlhe Father of American Sllovaks. BIBLIOGRAPHY Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1906. 214 pp. Cooke, Vincent, "Catholic Objectives in the Care of Children," Catholic Action, XXXII (May, 1950), 8. Culen Konlitantin, "American Slovaks and Slovak Statehood," Slovakia, I (May, 1951), 18. Culen, Konl;tantin, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, Slovakia, Matica Slovenska Press, 1938. 519 pp. Culen. Konstantin, "Stefan Furdek," Kultura, VII (September 1935), 377-386. Emerentia, Mother M., History of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Unpublished Master's thesis, Marywood College. Falcon, The, (Katolicky Sokol), Passaic, N. J ., July 5, 1944. Fortieth Anniversary Souvenir 1907-1947, Saints Cyril and Methodius Church, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Furdek, Stephen, Prvci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, Druhci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, "Hymna americkych Slovakov," Kalendcir Jednota, I (January, 1896), 22. Furdek, Stephen, Kalendcir Jednota, 19 Vol. (1896-1915 ). Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicka Jednota vo Spojenych Statoch," Kalendcir Jednota, I (1896 ), 26-37. Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicky Slovensky Kongress," Kalendcir Jednota, XII (1907), 145-155. Furdek, Stephen, "Keby nie jeho, nepotreboval by som dnes ziadneho -Ostavu," Kalendcir Jednota, (1914), 69. �40 SLOVAKIA Furdek, Stephen, Sv et a jeho zahady. Cleveland: Furdek, 1910. 250 pp. Hlinka, Andrew, "K jubileu striebornej konvencie Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty v Amerike," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) , 35. Hrobak, Philip, Ed., Editorial, Slov akia, I, (May, 1951). Hrobak, Philip, "The First Catholic Slovak Union of the U.S.A. ," Slov ak Record, (September, 1943) . Rusek, Joseph, "K dvadsat'pat'rocnici I. Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (January, 1916) 30-59. Rusek, Stephanie, "The Slovaks in America," Kalendar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 111-116. J ednota, Middletown, Pa., Dec. 17, 1913; Mar. 11, 1914; June 17, 1914; June 17, 1914; Sept. 23, 1914; Jan. 20, 1915; Jan. 27, 1915; Feb. 11, 1915; Apr. 24, 1935; June 18, 1952. K niha dejin Spolku sv. Jozefa, cislo 1. Z prilezitosti oslavy 50. rocneho jubileuma. Cleveland: 1939. Kozak, A. V., "-Ostav I. Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, ( 1912) 19-24. Leech, George L. , Letter to First Catholic Slovak Union on the Occasion of Its Golden Jubilee, 1940. Liscinsky, John Method, "Katolicka Slovenska 2enska Jednota," ( 1911 ) 180-184. Martvon, John, "Autobiograficky nacrt," Kale ndar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 19. Mulcahy, George, "Life of Saints Cyril and Methodius," Radio Broadcast on Diocesan Catholic Hour, WHP, Feb. 13, 1940. Palickar, Stephen J., " Father Furdek, Leader," Commonweal, VI (June 8, 1927) 126. Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, "Kulturny Program Prvej Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) 31. Rovnianek, P . V., Zapi sky za ziva pochovaneho. Pittsburgh: Rovnianek Press, 1924. Slovak League of America, Editorial, "What Is It?" The Slov ak Digest, I, (November-December, 1946) . Slovak v Amerike, New York, N. Y., August 30, 1949. Spolok Panny Marie Ruzencovej , Z Dejin I .K.S.J. , Pamatnik Slavnej XVII. Konvencie I.K.S.J., (September, 1925), Scranton, Pa. Tybor, Caroline, " Slovak Language in Our Academy," Fialky, IV (December, 1924) 71-72. Yurchak, Peter J. , The Slovaks, Their History and Tradition, Whiting : John J . Lach, 1946. 278 pp. Zlamal, Oldrich, "Life of Reverend Stephen Furdek," Sixtieth Anniv ersary of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, (Svet Publishing Co. , Cleveland, Ohio) 1943. � 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 1966, Vol. 16 Description An account of the resource Vol. 16 (No. 39), 1966. 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 1966 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 25 FATHER OF AMERICAN SLOVAKS By Si ster M . Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. The noisy night tra1n daittered out of Cleveland, Ohio. Its pa;sse:ngers -by tmns re'la.xed or braced tfuemselves in keepin1g with tihe jo1ti1Ilg ThytJhms of the orange-eyed monster as it spumed spat1ks and ,c inders and hurtled along the shiny rails toward Pennsylvania. Among the travelers, it ca·ITied a thougihllful priest wihose quiet eyes looked upon liife with a wisdom born of natural gifts and rich exiperience. 'l'he tr,ain ste adied itself to ain even speed. A conductor came down the aisle punohirng tiokets and as ihe took U!p Fatller's, the yehlow gleam from tfue ga:s jet ovet1head showed that it was daited early iJil September 1906 and was made ourt for Wilkes-Barre. '11he dim light also reveailed the identirf,ication tag on Father's traveling bag marked Rev. Stephen Furdek Our Lady of Lou'I'ldes Church Cleveland, Ohio For a few moments after the conductoT moved on, Father fingered the gold cross that huing from his watoh chain. Then he studied some letters and paipers from his porbfolio, and finally he reached into ihis pocket for his prayer beads. From early dhi:1dhood lh e had Oll'ltivated a m3/I'lked dev,otion to OuT Lady and he 1ha,d in her a sure refuge and he'lp in every need. He had grown up amid hardships and difificuUies of aH kinds ·b ut the wais not hurt or wa11ped lby them. In fact, crosses had only made him the stronger to endure more. Let us trace some of ihis growing-up days a:nd you wihl see fOT yourself. September 2, 1855 was the date of Stephen furdek's bir,tJh, and Tr,s tena in Orava County, 1Sloviakia, was the phaoe. In maiteTial resouTces Oreva ,is one of tlh.e poorest regions orf central Europe but it has given -tfue Slovak people a remairkaJble number orf intellectuails and leaders. Stephen Furdelk, too, 'becairne one of tihese grea,t men of his people, for God had fitted him for a parti!oohar work amd lh.e was reaidy when the time was right. His scholastic career was bri.ililianrt even from his ele- 26 SLOVAKIA merutaTy grades at the villaige sdhool where he was ta'l.tght by 1:Jhe Franciscans. For his ,hig1h school courses Stephen went to Bamska Bystrioa amd then to the gymnazium or senior high sdhool in Nitra. lt was m Nitra, too, tihat he begoo 'his semim.ary training for the priestlhood. Because of his outstandin1g success in phHosophy and -theology, howeveT, his bishop singled out Stephen FuTdek for special studies at tJhe univemity in Budapest. This 'hirg,h honor and distinction was especially gratifying to lris parents who were providi!ng for ihirs education at the cost of great sacrifice. Unfortunately, the young student took sick in Buda,pe,st and iha:d to return home. On recovering, he resumed hirs studies ·but he decided to Teturn to itlhe Nirtra seminary r-atiher tham ,to tlle university in Budapest. He <Xmcenrtrated on his lessoos 'but politiml troubles dirstu111bed the times very much and the spirit of unrest and hosthl:ity reached even into the seminary. ,Stephen Fu<rdek's tempernment preferred peace to contention. Y oll!Ilg as he was, he h,ad a sixth sense whiic:ih directed birm toward a tactful line of CO'lldruct, toward a decisiion wihioh would avoid tmUJble wiitlhout sia,crifici111g principle. Besi<les, he enjoyed the fatfuerly guidance of the Trstemiborn Dr. Martin Hattala, an eminent priest-philologist who was at tlhis time a professor of languages at ChaTles University in Pr-ague. Acti'lllg under these two iin:filuences, tJhe student Furdek withdrew from see1:1hirng Nitra. 'Dhis step demanded the sacrifice of ihis priestly ideal! but the ·s pirit of the times was such thaJt a SlovaJk patriot was denied the opportunity to complete his studies for professional work. 'Dhe overlords demanded that you eicf:lher tramsfex- your ai1legiamoe or surrender academic pur~suit. Ln leaving the semin,a.ry, Stephen did what he 1!hougiht was •r ight and he firmly trusted in God. FoT some time after he left Nitra, Furdek was a teacher in Stramirl.ce, MoraViia. This took him out of t!he region of trouble 1b ut his new work did not satisfy him. Realizing thaJt this was not really his vocation, he decided to return to 1his books. Perhaps he felt 1!hat iif he had to be denied the privfiledge of serving his people as a priest, he wOIU!ld .t ry to serve them as a fully ti,ained professionaJl, a specia:liized teaC'heT, pemaps one Hke Dr. Haittala whose distiinction it was to be both a priest and a teac!her. SLOVAKIA 27 F,or tihree years F1t.mieJk diligently studied classical laJnguages and ,philology at OhaI'les Universiity. Dlll'ing this tirme he ibecame acquainted wiith Dr. Flrancis Bauer who was rector of the diocesan seminary in P,r ague amd was deslbined to •b ecome camdmaJl ar<fub1slhop of O1omoUJc in Moravia. Dr. Bauer saw ilrl the promising s.tudenit the greaiter promise of service for botJh God amd country. He advised Furdek .to Teturn to his seminary couTses and lh e suggested that it would be well for him to do so rig.ht there in Prague. F1uridek was haJppy to have this encouraigement. It retll!I'ned to him tJhe hope dearest ito his th eart and brought him oloser to its Tealiization. He followed Dr. Bauer's advice e8)gerly . .AJbout four years lateT, w!hen he was in hls last year of theology, FuTdek learned tlhat an urgent appe81l from America rea•o hed his superiors. lt 08)me from Bishop Riobard Gi:lrmour of Cleveland, Ohio, and eXJpressed ,h is concern foT the spirituaJ care of many Slavic immigrants lirvmg in his diocese wrthout a priest of their OWtil tongue to minister to their needs. Bishop GilmoUT ha;d written to severau European bishops amd to various religious orders beg,gi:ng for priests and for advanced students who wouid be ruble to finish their studies ilrl America 01nd serve these people in Christ's narrne. 'Dhis was a caJ!l for generous and missiona,rysouled worikers. Who would be foU1I1d willing to answer? Who would be qualified? Father Francis Sasinek, am eXJperiienced and soholtarly Slovak priest, recommended tJhe semi.nariam Furdek for this responsible work. Furrdek's superions at the seminary endorsed the recommenda:tion, for they knew that ,t his young man had 'tJhe spiTituaJ.ity and the tiauenrt:s to succeed in such an assig,nmenrt of pionem-ing for Ohrist among the immigramts in America. The prospects were ma:de known to him and though it cost muoh to part frcxm al!l that was so dear to him, Stephen Furdek generously mrade the sa,cr.iifice. It was tJhe g,uiding prindple of his lirfe to wol'k for God amd for country, and here is taJil'gilble proof tJhat he did not merely iderulize t,hat motto; he lived it wibh aU its implioations. He bade farewell to ,his famhly and friends in tJhe spring of 1882 and embanked for .America. By March 15 he w,as in Cleveland, strengtihened by itihe ,g ,ra,ce of God and seasoned by past hardships for whatever trials might lie in the years 28 SLOVAKIA aJhead. Jin tfuis new and wondel'fttl though still st'l'!all!ge world, he completed his studies in a few montlhs and was ordained by Bishop Gilmour in St. Wenceslaus Church on JUJly 1 of t!he same year. This was tJhe fulfillment of hi:s fondest dreams. For aibout ten months a;fter ordination, Father Furdek served as an assistant at St. Wenceslaus. At the same bme, however, he arranged for the Slova!ks of the area to attend Sunday mass offered by a non.,SloV1aJk Franciscan Father at St. Joseph's ohurch in Clevelailld where he himself would come every week to prea•ch, to inst'I'll'ct, and to hea:r confessions in Slovak. This 1kind of dual apostolate •becaJme FatJher Furdek's liifework. For all his priesi'ly yeiars dati:ng from April 1883 until his death on J ,a nuary 18, 1915, he was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes par~sh which the bishop authori!zed him to organize, and he devoted hims~Lf to the care and guidance of countless Sloy,a•IDs throughout America. For what do we remeimbeT him most? He was an exemplary pr,iest, educator, leader, organizer, journalist, novelist, poet, paitriot - and he merited every one of these distmctions folly. Yet over and a:bove aill this, he was in the true sense of 1Jhe word t!he F'atJher of Amerioan Slovaks. He ha:d 'haroly orientiated h~mself i:n this adopted coootry when he reaJLized that his God.igiven mission extended beyond the immediate needs of the parish work that was a:ssi:gned to him. He always discharged his pastora.'l duties conscientiously ,but parish wonk was not hiiis one falent to be hidden safely m a napkin and retu:rmed to the Master at His coming. Fat!her Furdek was entrusted v,ivh mamy talents and he zealously trafficked with the much that had been g,iven him. Besides ,buildi:ng a maignificent church and a modem school of sixteen classrooms, besides managing all the interests of Our Lady of Lourdes parish and its sohool witlh an enrollment of a thousand pupils, Father Furdek heliped to organize many Slovruk parishes ·both in Clevelaind and in other widely scattered Slovak •s ettlements. The need of the hour was to help these Sloviak immigrants to achieve a sense of belongiiing, to giive them a bond of unity, to satisfy their spiriturul cravmg a.ind their sociail needs amd to educaJte tJhem. It was important to teach them cooperation in wmikiing for common i:nterests and mutual helpfuhl.ess. Solicitous F1ather SLOVAKIA 29 of all the Slova:ks in America that he was, Father Furdek took each of these problems to heaTt and worked for its soliution. To iprovide priests for newly organized and organi,z ing panishes, Father Furdek undertook more th3Jn one trip to Slova,kia because both hiis bishop a,nd he realized that personal conta,ct would be more effectiv,e than any ot her type of solicitation. And he did succeed in interesting a number of worthy priests a,nd derics from abroad to come to these pioneer parishes a,mong the immigrants. But even wi1:Jh individuail parishes organized here and there a,s circumstances warranited it, the entire ,problem of the Slovak immigrant in America was not solved. Father Furdek in hi:s missionary travels among the people witnessed their efforts to for,m local fraternal and benefiicial societies. He saw a:lso that his countrymen needed to 1be safeguarded from leaders and movements that threatened their spiritua[ outlook while pretending to offer them materiaJl advantages. Before ,}ong he realized, too, that most of those newcomers were going to establish permanent homes in America; they needed to plan for a secure future and a wlholesome heritage for their posteriity :iin the new world. Riis keen vision sa,w 'beyond the immediate present, 0JS does every true leader's. Beg,inning wi:th a nucleus of pioneers in Clevela,nd, Father Furdek in 1890 founded a men's organization called the First Catholic Slova,k Union or the Jednota. Two years later a similia:r ladies' organization wa;s began. The Jecmota grew to be the largest Slovak fratemal bene£it organization in the world. It is also a strong pillar of Slova:k Ca,t;Jholicity in America. 'J1hrough it, Father Furdeik propag,ated the vivifying ti deal "For God and N ruti001." On this Chri:stiain prin~ ciple is formulated the entire philosophy a;nd structure of the Jednota aind this is what ,g ives tJhe body its stabi'Li:ty and strength. To a people making history in a la:nd where they were without traditions, without established precedent, it was essentiall to build wisely and well. Father Furdeik with his gift of vision prepared that ·b luepriint for them e~ceptiona1ly wel!l. His firm hut tactflllil leadershiip directed the early funmigrants toward healthy progress. 'Dhe Jeiooota pmvided aU tlhe ·benefits of a mutual aid society, it brought the mem- 30 SLOVAKIA hers of a local branch together for periodic meetings and conferences, it ,s pomored national conventions and its bylaws emphasrzed fidelity to reliigious duty. This was putting first thing,s first. Flather Furdelk repeatedly msisted that it was imperative for Cathollics to jom Catlholic societies because non-sectarian infiJ.uences, innocuous as they may seem to be, have a tendency to cool fervor and lead to indifference in the spiritual liife. AIS a matter of fuct, there were some sad instaJn ces to prove that suoh Hberallism even resulted in ag,nostici,s,m aJild free thinikling. These were the rugged days of early pioneering for great numbe11s of :immigrants. In theiT period of adjustment they were e~osed to both adva,ntJa:ges and <lis•a dvanta,ges. Men who 'had 'been iong suppressed and oppressed found themselves sudden,l y free amd they couM have leaned over too far, disregaroing or discoun:tin:g some forms of autJhority completely, claiming an Ulllcontro:J.lled emancipation. Father FuTdek's presence and influence among them was the needed leaven. Patiently and finnJ.y he worlked to balance their outlook. CourageQIUJS•l y he set himself again,s t tJhe forces that advocated a ,c omplete libera!l<tsm or secuffiarism, tJhat disregard for spiritual discipline that would have resulted in crass materialism. Wit'h the gnts of a !born tea·o her he rooched his people and restrained tJhem from becoming the victims of such errors. He saved them from tJhe influence of false ,l eaders and besides ta<king a necessa11Hy agressive stand in these ma;tters, he also stimll'lated lay acti'Vity. In teaching the meaning of 1iib erty, Father Furde'k stressed the opportunities wthich his peo'.)le should use here for self-improvement amd cultural adva;ncement. One year after founding the Jednota o:t1ganization, he launched tlhe J,ffiDNOTA weekly (1891) whi-dh 1became the offici~l organ of tJhe society. In 1896 at his own e~ense he gave his people their first JE}DNOTA iK:ALffiNDAiR, an annrua•l or a!hnanac. llil t his way :h e brought into the homes of ha:t1d-worlcing common people press materials whioh became a medium of culture and a weHspring of spiritual refreshment. The duties of editing and publicrution were his and althougih it meant a tremendous demand on his time, energy and talent to compose rund expedite a newspaper every week 8.llld a ri~h almanac every year, he aJSSumed this blll'den and responsibility in addition to his pastoral wook be- SLOVAKIA 31 cause he knew how mu,~h the Slovairos in Ameriica needed such wholesome reading matter. He also invited quaJlirfied oontriibutors to send mainuscriipts and it was usually our priests both here and from aibr-oad wiho did sulbmit some exceHent articles for the Jednota publication. Slov,aJk immigr,ants with theiir new privilege of reading t!heir own newspapers in America were being instructed amd infoI1llled lb y them. A Jedinotar w,ho took up his copy alter a day's strenuous wcmk on the furm or in a mine, mill or factory, found relaxation and enjoyment in reading its columns. His Catholic weekly broug1ht him news items, editoriials, tJhe Sunday epistle amd gospel wiibh a homhly, e~lanations of the oatMhism and of tJhe Hturgical year, interesting lessons on :the duties and privileges of American citizenship, and a survey of American history presented eit!her topicaHy or serially or throug.h biographical sketches. Father Furdek's admiration for America and his devotion to the ideal of democr,acy prompted him to write on this subject repeatedly and to urge Slovaks in America to become natlurcli1irzed. His patriotism to two countries was baJlanced with an uneXJceiled nicety and with demoeratic expertness which 'he e~ressed very a:ptly in the poem "Amerika, zem velilka" ("America, Great Land") which was awarded first honors in a competition sponsored by P. V. Rovnianek. In th4:s poem Furdek sings the glories of America - her progress, her emancipation of the slave, her democracy, her greaJt native sons, her mothering of the oppressed who come to her shores, the opportunities she o:fifera to all witJhout discrimination. Then he voices a touohilllg apostrophe to his homeland, characterized by the snow-ca:pped Tatry, as if he wished to e~ress the assurance that the ocean may separate but it does not divide a loyial people. Poetically and neatly he arigues that a son still. loves his mother tJhoug,h he gives his heart to his wife, and that it is by just such a pa,ra'Hel that loyial emigrants love the land they left as well as the country of their adoption. 'Dhe more he studied the problems of the day, the more he became convinced that practica11y all the Slovak :immigrants in America were here to stay. This reaili2Jation made him aiH the more eager to he]Jp them :to become intelligent .American citizens, men and women capaible of a great love 32 SLOVAKIA for this democratic new wonld yet mindful and proud of their ancestry. He often reminded them to note how muoh ilm.iproved their living cO'llditions were here over w'ihat ~hey had been under the MaJgy,a r regime at home. He urged them to compare America's repulblicaJn fomn orf government with Hungary's despotism. He repeatedly pointed out that there is no subject class in this country aJnd 1Jhat ruH wiho enjoyed America's freedom have many opportunities to advance and improve themselves. Furdek's articles represented America as a great school w;here t!he iimmig:r,ant could learn out orf the book of actuaJ living amd doing. He pointed out that here even an unschooled SlovaJk w011ker learns rhow to mine ores, he comes to understand the intricacies amd 1:Jhe operation of simple and orf complex machines, he reads aind he learns from his newspapers, he travels free1y and cain master basic geography, he struggles with tJhe fanguage problem and everutua:lly he can come to sipea:k English as well a:s a teacher. In short, whatever he needs to know, he can learn in 1:Jhe scthool of Amerioan 1ife. Furdek thad am unlbound patriotism which is reflected in all his journaJlistic output. As a matter of fact, he was no mere journa:list; he was a pub1ioist who propagiated his open admiration aind devotion to America togetJher with a steady remembrance and love for Slovalkia. He forecast the Americanization of the Slovaks - not becaJUse America is a melting pot but because it is irmposs~ble for human life and thoug,ht to withsbrund the tide of change and the demands of reasona1ble adjustment. But he did not favor a sudden and complete sundering from home ties. Wisely he urged his people to preserve a love for ancestraJl roots and an appreciation of their national culture aJnd to transmit this devotion to future generations. It is not without cause that we look upon him ais the Father of American Slovaks. There was no problem of American Stlovak life that escruped his serious study and analysis. He took a definite stand in every sigmificant isSl\le and wherever the need required it, he was bhe spiI'itual a:dviser, prime mover, •a nd inspiration to thousands of people. His was a many-sided creatiwiess and 1he had a genius for keeping pace with the progress orf time. '!'he Jednota, whiclh he founded, preserved the ideals of Fu11dek because he himself SLOVAKIA 33 was so deeply imbued with the spiriit which he imparted to it. It was a spirit which even reac'hed from America to Silovakia and supported national movements there. See him now as he blesses himself on finishing his rosary. He looks caJlm and untroubled but a heavy oross lies upon his heart. "How wiU this affair end?" he asks himself. Here he is coming to a rally intended to alleviate suffering abroad and to strengthen the spirit of his people on this new soil, aind yet this very ceil~ration threatens to brmg about undesirable Tesults. He and his brother.,priests have designated the gathering to which he is going as a Slovak Catho1ic Congress, but enemies - like the GOiSpel sowers of tares among the wheat - have been busy noi:sing it abroad that Father Furdek and his al'lies planned this mass meeting in order to launch a new heresy and to effect a schism of Slovak Catholics. And the wi1d rumor was reported officiail!ly even to the Apostolic Delegate in W a:sihimgton and to various bisihops and archbishops, urging t:Jhem to suspend and penalize all those priests wlho were in any way associa,ted with the affair. Father Furdek's name, namuraUy, led the rest in the list of tJhose who were marked to be proscribed. What was the outcome to 1be? The great S,lova1k Catholic Co'lligress took pla:ce on La:bor Day, September 3, 1906 in Wrl1kes-Barre. It attraoted oveT ten thousand Slovaks from all parts of Amedca and that in a day when traveling was time-consuming, tiresome, imconvenient, a:nd much of a humry for people wi1lh limited earnings. The program of tJhe day was planned to irndude religious services a1nd a series of addresses both in English and in Slovak on subjects of vital interest and conseque-nce to the Slovruk people. 1 Father Furdek arranged for representatives of the daily newspapers as well as editors of leading SlovaJk publications to be present in order to cover t'he story. Tihis would provide a greater circUJlation of reports on Slova1k matters among ,a little-informed American iputbHc as well as among an interested Slovruk audience. It was for this reasorn also that he arranged for notable American officiaJls and dignitaries to attend. It would be very he1pful to 'have tJhem become acquaimted with the Slovruk question. Bishop Hoban of Scranton had agreed to preside. 34 SLOVAKIA WihaJt was Fa!tlher Furdek to eX!pect of his plans now that such damaging stories were ma!king their rounds in o,nficia:l circles as well as among the common people? Would Bishop Hdban honor the occasion with rhis presence? And if he came, would it lbe to censure or to question or to approve tJhe true effort of Father Flurdek and his co-wo!1kers? One could not very welll iknow before hand. On the morning of the Congress, Father Furdek and Faltlher Murgas set out by horise and carriage for Sugar Notc'h where tJhey were to call for Bishop Hoban and drive Mm to the Congress. They went with mixed emotions but they were fortified by the consciousness of upright motives 0Jnd blameless conduct. Bislhop Hoban did not disaippoint them. He graciously accepted their offer of a ride and showed that he was eager to act as chairman of the event which they had prepared. As he mounted the carriage 8/Ild sat between the two priests, he put ithem at ease by p1ungilllg at once into the subject of their to:r,menting thoug,hts, the painful topic of the accusations whicih had 1been made against them. He discussed some of the charges at length and judiciously disposed of them. For inst8Jllce, he found it ridiculous that in America where liberty prevaiils someone shOU!ld giloaJt ilil laibeling them PianSlavs (because of their a:Megiance to tJheir native lamd. "I iknow yoUT people well, " Bishop Hdban said wit!h gentle UIIlderstanding in tJhe couTISe of itihi s conversation. Then as they were passing the Ashley ohurcih he added, "l built tfuis ohur,c'h when I was pastor here. Among my parishioners were m8/Ily Slova:k,s and I became wel!l. acquainted wiibh them. I have great sympathy for the SlovaJks." 1 "I am an American althoug;h my ancestors came from Irel81Ild," the Bishop continued as though he were marshalli!ng faots in a debate. "The Irish have a long history of political persecution; tlle Irish :kin.ow wlhat it is to be oppressed. I have great sympa:tJhy for every oppressed nation whetlher irt be Armeruam, Polish, kish or whatever it may be. There a,re many nationalities in my diocese and I do not discriminate. We are all OatJhoHcs." Bishop Hoban could not undel'Stand why the idea of Pan-Slav should figure in an indictment presented to eccles- 35 SLOVAKIA iastical superiors. "What has that to do wit'h it? fo America one may be a Pan-American; ilil Germany, let him wiho wishes ,b e a Pan-Gennam. It is no crime or sin to be a Pam-S[av. 'l'he term has political implication only." He was shrewd enoug,h to perceive that the charges which had ,been trumped up under c-lerical pretentiOIIlS were 1basicaJBy of a politicall nature and tha;t they were essentially distortions or gross misrepresentations. Im the course of this ride, Bishop Hobim also showed FaJther Furdek a communication from t!he Apostolic Delegate inqu~riD'g ililto the nature of the accusations. But Bishop Hoban assured both priests that he had already sent to Washington a complete report vindicating the acoused and exiplainililg the motives that had prompted 1:Jhe effort to foil 1:Jhe success of the Catholic Congress. And they were, in fact, extreme measures to which the p'lotJters had resorted. At the last moment they even tried to intimidate Bishop Hoban by sendililg him a telegram warning that his presence at the Silovak Catholic Congress wou[d reflect discredit UipOn t!he American Catholic hierarchy. But BiSlhop Hobam was not to be deterred by t!hreats. In fact, he justly resented the attempts to put pressure on him from un8Juthor1zed quarters. Becaiuse of Bishop Hoban's fundaJmental ohaTity for ahl, his sympathy for the downtrodden and his unbiased sense of democracy, the Catholic Congress of Slovak Americans was a more glorious event than even Father Furdek had hoped it would be. It wa•s a complete vindicatiO!Il of the priests who 'had ,b een maJligned and it was am unqoo:lified triumph for the Slova:k people. Bishop Hoban openly championed their cause, the press gave the even.rt fulil coverage, and the SlovaJk people themselves were iby this huge gatJhering more closely bound to one amother than they had ever been before. The manifestation was a Catiholic Congress but it attracted many Slovruk•s of other religious denominrutions, too, as well as from various fraternall orgaJnizations both Ca:tholic and non-sectarian. This triumph of September 3, 1906 marked a lmld of renaissamce in Slovak life on two continents and it inspired Father Fourdek to urge upon Slovaik leaders iJil publ-ic life the formation of a national SloV0Jk organizrution to unify 1 36 SLOVAKIA the American effort on behalf of Slov,a;kia. The outcome was the S1ovaik League of America which iin time evolved from suClh pre1i1minary movements as Furdek's drive "Za tu nasu slovenicinu !" (Jin defense of the Slovak cause!) which netted some ten thousand doll,ars for 1:Jhe na,t ional aid in the home1a:nd; the National Fund which sUJbsidized at least two hundred Slovruk students abroad rund brought relief to very many Slovak political leaders ,t hen houinded by unjust persecution, a:nd the lawnching of "Indignation Meetings" or pwbli,c demonstrations throughout the United States in order to protest the injushce and 1:Jhe human cruelty which viotimiized the Slovak people in their own homeland. 'I1hese tokens of help from America re-vitaUzed the crushed spirit and the depleted energies of S1ova!k patriots who were driven almost to t:he brilllk of despair iin fueir efiforts to save Silova kia. Costly :fii:nes and unrelenting pressure were syistematicaUy draining their resources and counteracting their achievements. American interest and Americain slllpport were their only encouraigement and mainstay. FiinanciaJ help came from tJhe drives which were organized expressly to raise funds. Morrul support was won by the Indignation Raillies, seven of which were originally planned to be held in key cities of the United States. T:he first of these was arranged by Father Furdek in 0levelaind. 1 LiJke all of Father Furdek's projects, tMs Indignation RaHy, too, was staimped with his spirit. Jit was an inspired and an inspiring demonstration, and it set 1:Jhe pattern for similar puiblic meetings. It:s puripose was to publicize Slov,aJkia's grievances against autocratic Hungarian agression, to prove t:hat Hungary was not in reality that "islallld of liberty" in central Europe which it gloried in caiHing itself, and to solicit the sympathy and the understanding of true leaders of liberty among the Americam people. Outstanding representatives of Americain 1ife amd thought participated in these rallies. For example, at the Cleveland gathering held on February 10, 1907, a crupaoity audience in Gray's Armory gave speHbo·u nd attention to addresses delivered by Professor Bourine, by three attorneys, three priests, and seveml journailists. The American public and especially the American thinking :public was quickly beginning to see the truth. At the 37 SLOVAKIA same time, the f,ire of truth amd the justified indignarti<on orf all lovers of justice was rea,ching out among S'loV'aJks and non-Slo'V'aJks alike, to enkindJe effective means for the triumph of true Iiiberty and fairness. ~he time seemed to be right then for Father FuTdek to try again to efifect a nationwide unification of the Slovak people in America. He had attempted it before when he founded the Matica S•l ovenska, a cultural society which did not thrive lonig because new world cond~tions were not yet favo:r,a!ble for such am undertwkrng (1893). Thi:s newer effort originated at a Pittsburgh meeting of SlovaJk journalisrts convened at Fa,ther Furdek's iinvitation on April 7, 1907 where it wa,,s agreed to stage a SlovaJk Congress in May for the purpose of founding the Slovak League of America. The time was ausipi'Cious, the attitude was enthusiastic, the fruit of the movement was good. 1 The Slovak L eague of America became a civic and cultural organization with a dual objective: 1) to advaJnce American interests and security and 2) to create a better understanding and ruppredation of the islova•k nation - its history, culture, traditions, achievements, and its long, bitter struggle for freedom and autonomy. The first president of the Slovak League was Father Furdelk and he aJbly guided its interests and its efforts and helped to launch it very successfully upon its fruitful career. Furdek 's spirit of self-sacrifice and his relentless drive took :lwavy toH on his physical resources. He burned out his life young but the flame of his ardor would allow no sparing of self when there was so much to be done for God and nation, for bme and for eternity. And even when it was apparent that his energies were faiNng, he did not stop to think of himself. Always his dominant thought was for others and for the general good. Extensive traveling, constant literary production, frequent appearances as a pubEc spewker or a church preacher, steady devotion to the management of his parish, constant attention to the needs of his school and its advancement , concern for the welrfare of a,,11 his people - these and many related issues crowded his days and his nights. 1 It is difficult to realize how he managed such a rich and fruitful life, how he provided in it for projects of nat - 38 SLOVAKIA ionail scope and significance as weM as for close and immediate needs such as tJhe compiling of three textbooks, a gra,matiJka and two citamky of such S'lllperior practicail use and benefit thaJt they served .s everal generations with soUJDd advantage. He also experimented wibh a patented pedaJgogic,rul device for fille teadhring of a,:r,~tlhmetic. A,s early as 1906 Father Fur<lek had brought about officiail aotion for the founding of a home for oriphans. F\inaiHy in 1914 he had the joy of seeing such a home a reality ilrl Middletown, Pennsylv,ania where Phili,p and Mary Hroba!k of Lakewood, Ohio were the first children under J ednota care in a home manruged by tlhe S1isters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Father Furdeik was also deeply initerested in t!lris new Slovak Community of Sisters and he endorsed the efforts of the Jednota ovgani21ation to adv,am,ce it and its wovks. After 1912 FatJher Furoek's healit:Jh was so much on the declrine that hris vision became imiparirred. Yet he carnied on heroicailly and even shortly after the New Year 1915 he accepted an invitation to preacll at a Forty Hours' Devotion ;in LoraJin, Ohio. It wrus on his retmm fr.om t!his priestly servke that he suffered eX)posure in a wintry storm amd on January 18, 1915, in t!he fifty-lllinbh year of his life, the thirty-second of his priesthood, he was called to his eternal reward. Fi,fty thousand Jedn<Ybars and cowntless friends and adirniirers on both sides of the Ati1'amtic mourned his death. 1 The tvue greatness of Father Furdek is made more digtJin:ct to us as it stamds in the perspective of years since his death. T,he void left by his deparrture to etemal life has IIlever been fiiil.led, and we see now tJhat it was with prophetic appreciaition and with some degree of regrettruble lament that Father J anikola spdke 1:Jhese words in his euJlogy on t'he day orf Father Furdek's funeral, "We wiH never see his like again. Slovrukia shall not send us another Furdek; America wi:Jil not produce another." 1 The greaJtness of Father Furdek's achievements derives from fille gifts of hi:s mind rund Clharrucl:er not from a mere aiccident of circumstances. We have even now ,t he need for ArrneriJcan Slovruks of uncommon gifts and moral stature to foad on in a modem world of mrugni:fl1cent opport.ll!Ilities. We need leaders who are seers and doe11s, wtho can vi:talli:ze and SLOVAKIA 3g inspire, who can hold before us the V1s1on and dispel our lethargy so that we American Slova!ks will want to :reaclh out for the attaiinment, will want to assert a pride of aincestry and a new hig,h of national greatness. But it has not been given us to have a second Furdelk in America. God grant that a younger geineration may pl'O'V'ide fuat in,s piration end greatness. As we survey Father FuTdek's place and his merits in American Slovalk history, we come to realize how well he deserves to be honored 8Jlld remembeTed as tlhe Father of American Sllovaks. BIBLIOGRAPHY Capek, Thomas, The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1906. 214 pp. Cooke, Vincent, "Catholic Objectives in the Care of Children," Catholic Action, XXXII (May, 1950), 8. Culen Konlitantin, "American Slovaks and Slovak Statehood," Slovakia, I (May, 1951), 18. Culen, Konl;tantin, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, Slovakia, Matica Slovenska Press, 1938. 519 pp. Culen. Konstantin, "Stefan Furdek," Kultura, VII (September 1935), 377-386. Emerentia, Mother M., History of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Unpublished Master's thesis, Marywood College. Falcon, The, (Katolicky Sokol), Passaic, N. J ., July 5, 1944. Fortieth Anniversary Souvenir 1907-1947, Saints Cyril and Methodius Church, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Furdek, Stephen, Prvci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, Druhci Citanka pre Slovenske Skoly, Cleveland: Furdek, 1913. 125 pp. Furdek, Stephen, "Hymna americkych Slovakov," Kalendcir Jednota, I (January, 1896), 22. Furdek, Stephen, Kalendcir Jednota, 19 Vol. (1896-1915 ). Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicka Jednota vo Spojenych Statoch," Kalendcir Jednota, I (1896 ), 26-37. Furdek, Stephen, "Katolicky Slovensky Kongress," Kalendcir Jednota, XII (1907), 145-155. Furdek, Stephen, "Keby nie jeho, nepotreboval by som dnes ziadneho -Ostavu," Kalendcir Jednota, (1914), 69. 40 SLOVAKIA Furdek, Stephen, Sv et a jeho zahady. Cleveland: Furdek, 1910. 250 pp. Hlinka, Andrew, "K jubileu striebornej konvencie Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty v Amerike," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) , 35. Hrobak, Philip, Ed., Editorial, Slov akia, I, (May, 1951). Hrobak, Philip, "The First Catholic Slovak Union of the U.S.A. ," Slov ak Record, (September, 1943) . Rusek, Joseph, "K dvadsat'pat'rocnici I. Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (January, 1916) 30-59. Rusek, Stephanie, "The Slovaks in America," Kalendar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 111-116. J ednota, Middletown, Pa., Dec. 17, 1913; Mar. 11, 1914; June 17, 1914; June 17, 1914; Sept. 23, 1914; Jan. 20, 1915; Jan. 27, 1915; Feb. 11, 1915; Apr. 24, 1935; June 18, 1952. K niha dejin Spolku sv. Jozefa, cislo 1. Z prilezitosti oslavy 50. rocneho jubileuma. Cleveland: 1939. Kozak, A. V., "-Ostav I. Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, ( 1912) 19-24. Leech, George L. , Letter to First Catholic Slovak Union on the Occasion of Its Golden Jubilee, 1940. Liscinsky, John Method, "Katolicka Slovenska 2enska Jednota," ( 1911 ) 180-184. Martvon, John, "Autobiograficky nacrt," Kale ndar Jednota, Golden Jubilee, (September 2, 1940) 19. Mulcahy, George, "Life of Saints Cyril and Methodius," Radio Broadcast on Diocesan Catholic Hour, WHP, Feb. 13, 1940. Palickar, Stephen J., " Father Furdek, Leader," Commonweal, VI (June 8, 1927) 126. Prva Katolicka Slovenska Jednota, "Kulturny Program Prvej Kat. Slov. Jednoty," Kalendar Jednota, (1935) 31. Rovnianek, P . V., Zapi sky za ziva pochovaneho. Pittsburgh: Rovnianek Press, 1924. Slovak League of America, Editorial, "What Is It?" The Slov ak Digest, I, (November-December, 1946) . Slovak v Amerike, New York, N. Y., August 30, 1949. Spolok Panny Marie Ruzencovej , Z Dejin I .K.S.J. , Pamatnik Slavnej XVII. Konvencie I.K.S.J., (September, 1925), Scranton, Pa. Tybor, Caroline, " Slovak Language in Our Academy," Fialky, IV (December, 1924) 71-72. Yurchak, Peter J. , The Slovaks, Their History and Tradition, Whiting : John J . Lach, 1946. 278 pp. Zlamal, Oldrich, "Life of Reverend Stephen Furdek," Sixtieth Anniv ersary of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, (Svet Publishing Co. , Cleveland, Ohio) 1943.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Father of American Slovaks Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 16 (No. 39), 1966 pp. 25-40 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1966 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/8255f67ae9326bbaccfa1149b4eb8341.pdf 5dd7297cebc2e0a57e099b2be6b7a886 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 137 PETER V. ROVNIANEK (1867-1967) He sat in his room at St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, and looked upon groups of seminarians who were out for a bit of relaxation. Spring quickened the air. It was the spring of 1889 and memories thronged upon him, and prospects and promise burned in his soul. But problems lay heavy upon his heart. It is likely that you have never heard of him although he had been a striking personality and a powerful leader of men in his day. He was Peter Victor Rovnianek. God blessed him with many gifts: a mind that was keener than average, a strong body and distinguished appearance, noble idealism and energetic force, unusual qualities for leadership and organization, and apparently a vocation to the priesthood. He was born in Dolny Hricov, Trencin County, Slovakia, on June 27, 1867 and had come to America on September 5, 1888, one of many hopeful immigrants brought tram the port of Bremen, Germany, on the ship Adler (Eagle). Here he hoped to find freedom to assert his Slovak nationalism, the opportunity to complete his priestly studies without oppression or political interference, and a pastorate among Slovak immigrants. All this he wished to do, vibrant with patriotism and fortified by the religious training of a good Catholic mother and father. He seemed to be filled with eagerness almost beyond control. "Studying your lecture notes?" It was his friend Vaclav Panuska who addressed him. "Don't need to," Peter answered. "I've studied most of this before I reached America, so it comes easily. Besides, I think I've completed the prescribed studies." He had been terribly lonely in this new country but he had gradually adjusted himself. "You're gifted anyway," commented Vaclav with admiration. He knew of Peter's brilliant achievements in Europe, of his prizes for scholarship and writing and pub- �138 SLOVAKIA lie speaking. "Then what do you do with all your spare time?" Vaclav asked. "O, I follow the schedule of prayers and meditations, and then the rest of the time is for something like this," answered Peter as he pointed to his much loved collection of Slovak books. "I read, I think, and I write." Vaclav Panuska noticed that among the Slovak books there were other volumes, works by Dostojevsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, and Tolstoj. He may have commented that French writers were missing on the shelves, for Peter observed that he had studied French literature but considered it frivolous. Neither did he care for German literary influence because he found it materialistic in comparison with Slav culture. The Slavs respect the soul. He had long cultivated a taste for foreign writers and he was fond of translating stories from his favorite works. Often he sent translations out for newspaper publication, using the pen name of Rovinov. In this capacity of free lance writer he gradually became associated with several Catholic newspapers as well as with the non-sectarian Ndrodne Noviny abroad. In America he had made close connections with Novd Vlast' of Streator, Illinois, and even closer bonds with the Amerikdnsko-Slovenske Noviny founded by Julius Wolf and Janko Slovensky in Pittsburgh. Just at this moment Wolf and Slovensky were pleading with him for the benefit of his talents. For a moment Peter's racing thoughts turned to the past and he recalled that in the course of time he had, as Rovinov, varied the tone of his writings. His first contributions had been entertaining stories. Later he wrote essays of various sorts, then instructive and religious articles. As time went on, however, he became more and more carried away by nationalism. The spirit of freedom that America offered to all comers inspired him to work with unbounded energies in behalf of his countrymen living here in a land of opportunity. Now he began to envision the founding of a National Slovak Society in America and he planned to urge vehe- �SLOVAKIA 139 mently that all creeds and classes of Slovaks should belong to this organization. It seemed to be such a wonderful enterprise and so necessary. His pen and all his gifts he would dedicate to this cause. He had great dreams and great energies, and he was in a land where no laws hindered their fulfillment. In his homeland he had suffered severe penalties for his devotion to Slovak interests. In spite of all, however, he had refused to renounce his Slovak language or to deny his nationality. Magyar students had mocked him and his professors openly showed their disfavor of his Slovak loyalty though they had to credit his brilliance and his scholastic achievements. While he was a student at the theological seminary in Budapest all this ferment mounted to a climax. Now in Cleveland he remembered distinctly how he had learned about the active literary club which an earlier generation of Slovak students had cultivated at this same Budapest seminary. He recalled how he had discovered a locked room in the library. He knew that it was the room where the Slovak books of this society were stored because the Magyar authorities had suppressed the organization and had put its library under ban. He was determined to reach that forbidden collection and to feast his spirit upon it. It was still exciting for him to recall how he had ingratiated himself with the seminary librarian who was a Czech; how he had won his sympathies and confidence and finally held in his hand the coveted key to that book treasure. A trusted ally was with him-Andrew Bielek. Secretly they explored this proscribed territory; very cautiously they ventured there once, twice, oftener. The risk was great but they felt that the rewards were greater. Here they had access to a wonderland of unparalleled beauty expressed in Slovak prose and poetry. Gradually they grew bolder, bold enough to hide some of these books under their coats, to smuggle them out on loan to their own rooms and to revel in the reading there. With utmost care they would lock these books into their trunks after the reading because it was a serious offense �140 SLOVAKIA to read Slovak books or to have them in one's possession here. Over two hundred Slovak students had been expelled from Hungarian schools for this reason, and the Magyar government would not allow the Slovaks to have any schools of their own. It was a case of obey the law, renege your Slovak loyalties, or else. Of course, the inevitable happened to Rovnianek and his colleagues. They were suspected; they were watched; they were reported. There followed an investigation of their rooms by the authorities and when the locks were wrenched off their trunks for an offcial searching, the contraband books were found and confiscated. Expulsion followed because this transgression was considered unpardonable . This was the sequence of events that had really made Rovnianek leave his homeland. He continued his studies in Austria where there was more freedom but finally the lure of America was irresistible and here he was. In this spring of 1889, Peter was about ready for ordination but his bishop felt that he was too young for the sacred oils and the aspiring seminarian himself realized that it was so. The impatience of youth, however, prompted him to wait no longer. He toyed with the idea that he would rather return to Europe than wait longer in an American seminary. Should he really do that? He sensed that the attraction for returning home grew upon him steadily. This was the problem with which he was troubled as he looked out upon the seminarians on the grounds of St. Mary's College as we opened our account. How did he decide? Did he leave or did he stay? No one interfered with his free choice. There was urgent need for priests among the Slovak people of America but no one would induce Peter to stay against his own will. He battled in spirit. All his life of twenty-two years he had been looking forward to the priesthood and preparing for it. By his own free choice he did not become a priest. Nor did he return to Europe as he had planned. On June 28, 1889, he left Cleveland and his life's dreams to follow the call of ambition through a journalistic career. He had the �SLOVAKIA 141 capacities for leadership and he had a gifted and prolific pen. He easily set himself to become the teacher of thousands. He had many inborn virtues and ideal home training yet he did not attain the renown or the nobility for which he seemed to have been destined. He worked tirelesly and persistently but perhaps he was under some undesirable influence or in unwholesome surroundings which warped his natural goodness or stilled the workings of God's grace within him. It is pathetic to read in his memoirs that when he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, after twenty-three years of uninterrupted labors in behalf of nationalism, he was not only far poorer in material goods than he had been when he first entered that Pittsburgh newspaper office but he was also woefully impoverished in spiritual assets. We are not to conclude, however, that his whole life and efforts were just wasted. He did attain some of his goals. In the first place, he raised the tone, the literary standards, and the circulation of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, and in 1889 he launched the organization of the N<irodny Slovensky Spolok v Amerike. This was just three months before the Reverend Stephen Furdek founded the Katolicka Slovensk<i Jednota. Peter Rovnianek's ambition was to organize all the Slovaks in America, regardless of creed, for beneficial and national purposes whereas Father Furdek aimed to create a purely Catholic fraternal organization which would in the first place preserve moral and religious ideals and secondarily safeguard Slovak national culture and help Slovak immigrants living in America. Rovnianek did all in his power to gain Father Furdek's support in organizing the N<irodny Spolok, urging that one strongly organized body was the prime necessity but Father Furdek refused to be attracted by gilded values and by proffered honors, and he consistently declined association with Rovnianek's group . Father Furdek's priestly zeal made it a vital duty for him to shepherd the soul of his good people and he was convinced that once their spiritual interests were secure, it would naturally follow that the Slovak spirit in America would be preserved together with Slovakia's heritage, the Catholic faith . Father Furdek gener- �142 SLOVAKIA ously gave Rovnianek credit for his upright aims but he insisted that the things of God must come first. It was Rovnianek's tragic mistake to compromise and to capitalize on the interest of this world even at the cost of spiritual values. Consequently, the Slovak element in America seemed to be drawn into two great camps: Rovnianek's under the national emblem alone and Father Furdek's bearing the cause of nationalism under the symbol of the cross. Many Slovaks were members of both societies but the years eventually bred more or less rivalry between them. Both survived, however, and today Rovnianek's Ndrodny Spolok in America numbers over 30,000 members, Furdek's Katolicka Jednota has a membership of 105,000. Its counterpart for the ladies, the Katolicka zenskd Jednota numbers 103,000 members. Rovnianek at this time became an outstanding Slovak leader in America. He was noticed and honored in political circles. He was also very successful in the business of publication, was much in demand as a lecturer, and he was a capable editor. By 1901 his weekly Gazette had 30,000 subscribers and his Daily had 8,000. He began a literary magazine called Majak (Beacon) which showed great promise but survived only eighteen months. His humorous Rardsek (Puck) fared better. It continued to appear for eighteen years. Success smiled on Rovnianek and he enjoyed prosperity. People had very great confidence in him and entrusted their savings to him. He became a promising banker. If Rovnianek had died with these accomplishments in fraternalism and journalism and business to his credit, we might still look to him with a measure of undisguised admiration. Unfortunately he became involved in major business reverses and financial troubles which took on tragic proportions and affected hundreds of poor and middle class Slovak people. In 1902 he had reached the peak of his fame and he gloried in the fact that he had effected the cooperation of Catholics and atheists and mixed creeds in behalf of a national cause. But he did not reap joy in his accomplishment. Did his ambition reach too far? Did he �SLOVAKIA 143 build on an unworthy foundation? Did he allow his own plans to become perverted? Or was he just victimized? We cannot judge. One after another his banking and business enterprises failed in the hard years around 1908. Then the fickle voices of acclaim that had once hailed him began to shout loud reproach and even hate. Rovnianek tasted of both the ambrosia of glory and the ashes of humiliation. He knew blackmail and fraud, lawsuits and scheming, and in the bitterness of his disillusion and frustration he walked the brink of near-despair as he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, beggared both materially and spiritually. He set out for a secluded place in the open spaces of the West and tried to numb painful memories with hard work in Nevada and in California. From 1911 on, he lived in virtual exile and in 1916 he was even divested of membership of the N <irodny Spolok, the very organization he had founded. He did not regain recognition in his lifetime. He died on November 16, 1933, at Hornitos in California. He is buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. Sister M. Martina, SS.CM. SOURCES: Peter V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho . Kon~tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike. Narodny Kalendar, 1935. Dr. Jozef Pauco, 75 rokoi, Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Vincent Bolecek, Peter V . Rovnianek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � SLOVAKIA 137 PETER V. ROVNIANEK (1867-1967) He sat in his room at St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, and looked upon groups of seminarians who were out for a bit of relaxation. Spring quickened the air. It was the spring of 1889 and memories thronged upon him, and prospects and promise burned in his soul. But problems lay heavy upon his heart. It is likely that you have never heard of him although he had been a striking personality and a powerful leader of men in his day. He was Peter Victor Rovnianek. God blessed him with many gifts: a mind that was keener than average, a strong body and distinguished appearance, noble idealism and energetic force, unusual qualities for leadership and organization, and apparently a vocation to the priesthood. He was born in Dolny Hricov, Trencin County, Slovakia, on June 27, 1867 and had come to America on September 5, 1888, one of many hopeful immigrants brought tram the port of Bremen, Germany, on the ship Adler (Eagle). Here he hoped to find freedom to assert his Slovak nationalism, the opportunity to complete his priestly studies without oppression or political interference, and a pastorate among Slovak immigrants. All this he wished to do, vibrant with patriotism and fortified by the religious training of a good Catholic mother and father. He seemed to be filled with eagerness almost beyond control. "Studying your lecture notes?" It was his friend Vaclav Panuska who addressed him. "Don't need to," Peter answered. "I've studied most of this before I reached America, so it comes easily. Besides, I think I've completed the prescribed studies." He had been terribly lonely in this new country but he had gradually adjusted himself. "You're gifted anyway," commented Vaclav with admiration. He knew of Peter's brilliant achievements in Europe, of his prizes for scholarship and writing and pub- �138 SLOVAKIA lie speaking. "Then what do you do with all your spare time?" Vaclav asked. "O, I follow the schedule of prayers and meditations, and then the rest of the time is for something like this," answered Peter as he pointed to his much loved collection of Slovak books. "I read, I think, and I write." Vaclav Panuska noticed that among the Slovak books there were other volumes, works by Dostojevsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, and Tolstoj. He may have commented that French writers were missing on the shelves, for Peter observed that he had studied French literature but considered it frivolous. Neither did he care for German literary influence because he found it materialistic in comparison with Slav culture. The Slavs respect the soul. He had long cultivated a taste for foreign writers and he was fond of translating stories from his favorite works. Often he sent translations out for newspaper publication, using the pen name of Rovinov. In this capacity of free lance writer he gradually became associated with several Catholic newspapers as well as with the non-sectarian Ndrodne Noviny abroad. In America he had made close connections with Novd Vlast' of Streator, Illinois, and even closer bonds with the Amerikdnsko-Slovenske Noviny founded by Julius Wolf and Janko Slovensky in Pittsburgh. Just at this moment Wolf and Slovensky were pleading with him for the benefit of his talents. For a moment Peter's racing thoughts turned to the past and he recalled that in the course of time he had, as Rovinov, varied the tone of his writings. His first contributions had been entertaining stories. Later he wrote essays of various sorts, then instructive and religious articles. As time went on, however, he became more and more carried away by nationalism. The spirit of freedom that America offered to all comers inspired him to work with unbounded energies in behalf of his countrymen living here in a land of opportunity. Now he began to envision the founding of a National Slovak Society in America and he planned to urge vehe- �SLOVAKIA 139 mently that all creeds and classes of Slovaks should belong to this organization. It seemed to be such a wonderful enterprise and so necessary. His pen and all his gifts he would dedicate to this cause. He had great dreams and great energies, and he was in a land where no laws hindered their fulfillment. In his homeland he had suffered severe penalties for his devotion to Slovak interests. In spite of all, however, he had refused to renounce his Slovak language or to deny his nationality. Magyar students had mocked him and his professors openly showed their disfavor of his Slovak loyalty though they had to credit his brilliance and his scholastic achievements. While he was a student at the theological seminary in Budapest all this ferment mounted to a climax. Now in Cleveland he remembered distinctly how he had learned about the active literary club which an earlier generation of Slovak students had cultivated at this same Budapest seminary. He recalled how he had discovered a locked room in the library. He knew that it was the room where the Slovak books of this society were stored because the Magyar authorities had suppressed the organization and had put its library under ban. He was determined to reach that forbidden collection and to feast his spirit upon it. It was still exciting for him to recall how he had ingratiated himself with the seminary librarian who was a Czech; how he had won his sympathies and confidence and finally held in his hand the coveted key to that book treasure. A trusted ally was with him-Andrew Bielek. Secretly they explored this proscribed territory; very cautiously they ventured there once, twice, oftener. The risk was great but they felt that the rewards were greater. Here they had access to a wonderland of unparalleled beauty expressed in Slovak prose and poetry. Gradually they grew bolder, bold enough to hide some of these books under their coats, to smuggle them out on loan to their own rooms and to revel in the reading there. With utmost care they would lock these books into their trunks after the reading because it was a serious offense �140 SLOVAKIA to read Slovak books or to have them in one's possession here. Over two hundred Slovak students had been expelled from Hungarian schools for this reason, and the Magyar government would not allow the Slovaks to have any schools of their own. It was a case of obey the law, renege your Slovak loyalties, or else. Of course, the inevitable happened to Rovnianek and his colleagues. They were suspected; they were watched; they were reported. There followed an investigation of their rooms by the authorities and when the locks were wrenched off their trunks for an offcial searching, the contraband books were found and confiscated. Expulsion followed because this transgression was considered unpardonable . This was the sequence of events that had really made Rovnianek leave his homeland. He continued his studies in Austria where there was more freedom but finally the lure of America was irresistible and here he was. In this spring of 1889, Peter was about ready for ordination but his bishop felt that he was too young for the sacred oils and the aspiring seminarian himself realized that it was so. The impatience of youth, however, prompted him to wait no longer. He toyed with the idea that he would rather return to Europe than wait longer in an American seminary. Should he really do that? He sensed that the attraction for returning home grew upon him steadily. This was the problem with which he was troubled as he looked out upon the seminarians on the grounds of St. Mary's College as we opened our account. How did he decide? Did he leave or did he stay? No one interfered with his free choice. There was urgent need for priests among the Slovak people of America but no one would induce Peter to stay against his own will. He battled in spirit. All his life of twenty-two years he had been looking forward to the priesthood and preparing for it. By his own free choice he did not become a priest. Nor did he return to Europe as he had planned. On June 28, 1889, he left Cleveland and his life's dreams to follow the call of ambition through a journalistic career. He had the �SLOVAKIA 141 capacities for leadership and he had a gifted and prolific pen. He easily set himself to become the teacher of thousands. He had many inborn virtues and ideal home training yet he did not attain the renown or the nobility for which he seemed to have been destined. He worked tirelesly and persistently but perhaps he was under some undesirable influence or in unwholesome surroundings which warped his natural goodness or stilled the workings of God's grace within him. It is pathetic to read in his memoirs that when he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, after twenty-three years of uninterrupted labors in behalf of nationalism, he was not only far poorer in material goods than he had been when he first entered that Pittsburgh newspaper office but he was also woefully impoverished in spiritual assets. We are not to conclude, however, that his whole life and efforts were just wasted. He did attain some of his goals. In the first place, he raised the tone, the literary standards, and the circulation of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, and in 1889 he launched the organization of the N<irodny Slovensky Spolok v Amerike. This was just three months before the Reverend Stephen Furdek founded the Katolicka Slovensk<i Jednota. Peter Rovnianek's ambition was to organize all the Slovaks in America, regardless of creed, for beneficial and national purposes whereas Father Furdek aimed to create a purely Catholic fraternal organization which would in the first place preserve moral and religious ideals and secondarily safeguard Slovak national culture and help Slovak immigrants living in America. Rovnianek did all in his power to gain Father Furdek's support in organizing the N<irodny Spolok, urging that one strongly organized body was the prime necessity but Father Furdek refused to be attracted by gilded values and by proffered honors, and he consistently declined association with Rovnianek's group . Father Furdek's priestly zeal made it a vital duty for him to shepherd the soul of his good people and he was convinced that once their spiritual interests were secure, it would naturally follow that the Slovak spirit in America would be preserved together with Slovakia's heritage, the Catholic faith . Father Furdek gener- �142 SLOVAKIA ously gave Rovnianek credit for his upright aims but he insisted that the things of God must come first. It was Rovnianek's tragic mistake to compromise and to capitalize on the interest of this world even at the cost of spiritual values. Consequently, the Slovak element in America seemed to be drawn into two great camps: Rovnianek's under the national emblem alone and Father Furdek's bearing the cause of nationalism under the symbol of the cross. Many Slovaks were members of both societies but the years eventually bred more or less rivalry between them. Both survived, however, and today Rovnianek's Ndrodny Spolok in America numbers over 30,000 members, Furdek's Katolicka Jednota has a membership of 105,000. Its counterpart for the ladies, the Katolicka zenskd Jednota numbers 103,000 members. Rovnianek at this time became an outstanding Slovak leader in America. He was noticed and honored in political circles. He was also very successful in the business of publication, was much in demand as a lecturer, and he was a capable editor. By 1901 his weekly Gazette had 30,000 subscribers and his Daily had 8,000. He began a literary magazine called Majak (Beacon) which showed great promise but survived only eighteen months. His humorous Rardsek (Puck) fared better. It continued to appear for eighteen years. Success smiled on Rovnianek and he enjoyed prosperity. People had very great confidence in him and entrusted their savings to him. He became a promising banker. If Rovnianek had died with these accomplishments in fraternalism and journalism and business to his credit, we might still look to him with a measure of undisguised admiration. Unfortunately he became involved in major business reverses and financial troubles which took on tragic proportions and affected hundreds of poor and middle class Slovak people. In 1902 he had reached the peak of his fame and he gloried in the fact that he had effected the cooperation of Catholics and atheists and mixed creeds in behalf of a national cause. But he did not reap joy in his accomplishment. Did his ambition reach too far? Did he �SLOVAKIA 143 build on an unworthy foundation? Did he allow his own plans to become perverted? Or was he just victimized? We cannot judge. One after another his banking and business enterprises failed in the hard years around 1908. Then the fickle voices of acclaim that had once hailed him began to shout loud reproach and even hate. Rovnianek tasted of both the ambrosia of glory and the ashes of humiliation. He knew blackmail and fraud, lawsuits and scheming, and in the bitterness of his disillusion and frustration he walked the brink of near-despair as he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, beggared both materially and spiritually. He set out for a secluded place in the open spaces of the West and tried to numb painful memories with hard work in Nevada and in California. From 1911 on, he lived in virtual exile and in 1916 he was even divested of membership of the N <irodny Spolok, the very organization he had founded. He did not regain recognition in his lifetime. He died on November 16, 1933, at Hornitos in California. He is buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. Sister M. Martina, SS.CM. SOURCES: Peter V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho . Kon~tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike. Narodny Kalendar, 1935. Dr. Jozef Pauco, 75 rokoi, Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Vincent Bolecek, Peter V . Rovnianek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � 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 1967, Vol. 17 Description An account of the resource Special Issue: Sixty Years of the Slovak League of America Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967. 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 1967 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 137 PETER V. ROVNIANEK (1867-1967) He sat in his room at St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, and looked upon groups of seminarians who were out for a bit of relaxation. Spring quickened the air. It was the spring of 1889 and memories thronged upon him, and prospects and promise burned in his soul. But problems lay heavy upon his heart. It is likely that you have never heard of him although he had been a striking personality and a powerful leader of men in his day. He was Peter Victor Rovnianek. God blessed him with many gifts: a mind that was keener than average, a strong body and distinguished appearance, noble idealism and energetic force, unusual qualities for leadership and organization, and apparently a vocation to the priesthood. He was born in Dolny Hricov, Trencin County, Slovakia, on June 27, 1867 and had come to America on September 5, 1888, one of many hopeful immigrants brought tram the port of Bremen, Germany, on the ship Adler (Eagle). Here he hoped to find freedom to assert his Slovak nationalism, the opportunity to complete his priestly studies without oppression or political interference, and a pastorate among Slovak immigrants. All this he wished to do, vibrant with patriotism and fortified by the religious training of a good Catholic mother and father. He seemed to be filled with eagerness almost beyond control. "Studying your lecture notes?" It was his friend Vaclav Panuska who addressed him. "Don't need to," Peter answered. "I've studied most of this before I reached America, so it comes easily. Besides, I think I've completed the prescribed studies." He had been terribly lonely in this new country but he had gradually adjusted himself. "You're gifted anyway," commented Vaclav with admiration. He knew of Peter's brilliant achievements in Europe, of his prizes for scholarship and writing and pub- 138 SLOVAKIA lie speaking. "Then what do you do with all your spare time?" Vaclav asked. "O, I follow the schedule of prayers and meditations, and then the rest of the time is for something like this," answered Peter as he pointed to his much loved collection of Slovak books. "I read, I think, and I write." Vaclav Panuska noticed that among the Slovak books there were other volumes, works by Dostojevsky, Lermontov, Turgenev, and Tolstoj. He may have commented that French writers were missing on the shelves, for Peter observed that he had studied French literature but considered it frivolous. Neither did he care for German literary influence because he found it materialistic in comparison with Slav culture. The Slavs respect the soul. He had long cultivated a taste for foreign writers and he was fond of translating stories from his favorite works. Often he sent translations out for newspaper publication, using the pen name of Rovinov. In this capacity of free lance writer he gradually became associated with several Catholic newspapers as well as with the non-sectarian Ndrodne Noviny abroad. In America he had made close connections with Novd Vlast' of Streator, Illinois, and even closer bonds with the Amerikdnsko-Slovenske Noviny founded by Julius Wolf and Janko Slovensky in Pittsburgh. Just at this moment Wolf and Slovensky were pleading with him for the benefit of his talents. For a moment Peter's racing thoughts turned to the past and he recalled that in the course of time he had, as Rovinov, varied the tone of his writings. His first contributions had been entertaining stories. Later he wrote essays of various sorts, then instructive and religious articles. As time went on, however, he became more and more carried away by nationalism. The spirit of freedom that America offered to all comers inspired him to work with unbounded energies in behalf of his countrymen living here in a land of opportunity. Now he began to envision the founding of a National Slovak Society in America and he planned to urge vehe- SLOVAKIA 139 mently that all creeds and classes of Slovaks should belong to this organization. It seemed to be such a wonderful enterprise and so necessary. His pen and all his gifts he would dedicate to this cause. He had great dreams and great energies, and he was in a land where no laws hindered their fulfillment. In his homeland he had suffered severe penalties for his devotion to Slovak interests. In spite of all, however, he had refused to renounce his Slovak language or to deny his nationality. Magyar students had mocked him and his professors openly showed their disfavor of his Slovak loyalty though they had to credit his brilliance and his scholastic achievements. While he was a student at the theological seminary in Budapest all this ferment mounted to a climax. Now in Cleveland he remembered distinctly how he had learned about the active literary club which an earlier generation of Slovak students had cultivated at this same Budapest seminary. He recalled how he had discovered a locked room in the library. He knew that it was the room where the Slovak books of this society were stored because the Magyar authorities had suppressed the organization and had put its library under ban. He was determined to reach that forbidden collection and to feast his spirit upon it. It was still exciting for him to recall how he had ingratiated himself with the seminary librarian who was a Czech; how he had won his sympathies and confidence and finally held in his hand the coveted key to that book treasure. A trusted ally was with him-Andrew Bielek. Secretly they explored this proscribed territory; very cautiously they ventured there once, twice, oftener. The risk was great but they felt that the rewards were greater. Here they had access to a wonderland of unparalleled beauty expressed in Slovak prose and poetry. Gradually they grew bolder, bold enough to hide some of these books under their coats, to smuggle them out on loan to their own rooms and to revel in the reading there. With utmost care they would lock these books into their trunks after the reading because it was a serious offense 140 SLOVAKIA to read Slovak books or to have them in one's possession here. Over two hundred Slovak students had been expelled from Hungarian schools for this reason, and the Magyar government would not allow the Slovaks to have any schools of their own. It was a case of obey the law, renege your Slovak loyalties, or else. Of course, the inevitable happened to Rovnianek and his colleagues. They were suspected; they were watched; they were reported. There followed an investigation of their rooms by the authorities and when the locks were wrenched off their trunks for an offcial searching, the contraband books were found and confiscated. Expulsion followed because this transgression was considered unpardonable . This was the sequence of events that had really made Rovnianek leave his homeland. He continued his studies in Austria where there was more freedom but finally the lure of America was irresistible and here he was. In this spring of 1889, Peter was about ready for ordination but his bishop felt that he was too young for the sacred oils and the aspiring seminarian himself realized that it was so. The impatience of youth, however, prompted him to wait no longer. He toyed with the idea that he would rather return to Europe than wait longer in an American seminary. Should he really do that? He sensed that the attraction for returning home grew upon him steadily. This was the problem with which he was troubled as he looked out upon the seminarians on the grounds of St. Mary's College as we opened our account. How did he decide? Did he leave or did he stay? No one interfered with his free choice. There was urgent need for priests among the Slovak people of America but no one would induce Peter to stay against his own will. He battled in spirit. All his life of twenty-two years he had been looking forward to the priesthood and preparing for it. By his own free choice he did not become a priest. Nor did he return to Europe as he had planned. On June 28, 1889, he left Cleveland and his life's dreams to follow the call of ambition through a journalistic career. He had the SLOVAKIA 141 capacities for leadership and he had a gifted and prolific pen. He easily set himself to become the teacher of thousands. He had many inborn virtues and ideal home training yet he did not attain the renown or the nobility for which he seemed to have been destined. He worked tirelesly and persistently but perhaps he was under some undesirable influence or in unwholesome surroundings which warped his natural goodness or stilled the workings of God's grace within him. It is pathetic to read in his memoirs that when he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, after twenty-three years of uninterrupted labors in behalf of nationalism, he was not only far poorer in material goods than he had been when he first entered that Pittsburgh newspaper office but he was also woefully impoverished in spiritual assets. We are not to conclude, however, that his whole life and efforts were just wasted. He did attain some of his goals. In the first place, he raised the tone, the literary standards, and the circulation of the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny, and in 1889 he launched the organization of the N<irodny Slovensky Spolok v Amerike. This was just three months before the Reverend Stephen Furdek founded the Katolicka Slovensk<i Jednota. Peter Rovnianek's ambition was to organize all the Slovaks in America, regardless of creed, for beneficial and national purposes whereas Father Furdek aimed to create a purely Catholic fraternal organization which would in the first place preserve moral and religious ideals and secondarily safeguard Slovak national culture and help Slovak immigrants living in America. Rovnianek did all in his power to gain Father Furdek's support in organizing the N<irodny Spolok, urging that one strongly organized body was the prime necessity but Father Furdek refused to be attracted by gilded values and by proffered honors, and he consistently declined association with Rovnianek's group . Father Furdek's priestly zeal made it a vital duty for him to shepherd the soul of his good people and he was convinced that once their spiritual interests were secure, it would naturally follow that the Slovak spirit in America would be preserved together with Slovakia's heritage, the Catholic faith . Father Furdek gener- 142 SLOVAKIA ously gave Rovnianek credit for his upright aims but he insisted that the things of God must come first. It was Rovnianek's tragic mistake to compromise and to capitalize on the interest of this world even at the cost of spiritual values. Consequently, the Slovak element in America seemed to be drawn into two great camps: Rovnianek's under the national emblem alone and Father Furdek's bearing the cause of nationalism under the symbol of the cross. Many Slovaks were members of both societies but the years eventually bred more or less rivalry between them. Both survived, however, and today Rovnianek's Ndrodny Spolok in America numbers over 30,000 members, Furdek's Katolicka Jednota has a membership of 105,000. Its counterpart for the ladies, the Katolicka zenskd Jednota numbers 103,000 members. Rovnianek at this time became an outstanding Slovak leader in America. He was noticed and honored in political circles. He was also very successful in the business of publication, was much in demand as a lecturer, and he was a capable editor. By 1901 his weekly Gazette had 30,000 subscribers and his Daily had 8,000. He began a literary magazine called Majak (Beacon) which showed great promise but survived only eighteen months. His humorous Rardsek (Puck) fared better. It continued to appear for eighteen years. Success smiled on Rovnianek and he enjoyed prosperity. People had very great confidence in him and entrusted their savings to him. He became a promising banker. If Rovnianek had died with these accomplishments in fraternalism and journalism and business to his credit, we might still look to him with a measure of undisguised admiration. Unfortunately he became involved in major business reverses and financial troubles which took on tragic proportions and affected hundreds of poor and middle class Slovak people. In 1902 he had reached the peak of his fame and he gloried in the fact that he had effected the cooperation of Catholics and atheists and mixed creeds in behalf of a national cause. But he did not reap joy in his accomplishment. Did his ambition reach too far? Did he SLOVAKIA 143 build on an unworthy foundation? Did he allow his own plans to become perverted? Or was he just victimized? We cannot judge. One after another his banking and business enterprises failed in the hard years around 1908. Then the fickle voices of acclaim that had once hailed him began to shout loud reproach and even hate. Rovnianek tasted of both the ambrosia of glory and the ashes of humiliation. He knew blackmail and fraud, lawsuits and scheming, and in the bitterness of his disillusion and frustration he walked the brink of near-despair as he left Pittsburgh on July 26, 1911, beggared both materially and spiritually. He set out for a secluded place in the open spaces of the West and tried to numb painful memories with hard work in Nevada and in California. From 1911 on, he lived in virtual exile and in 1916 he was even divested of membership of the N <irodny Spolok, the very organization he had founded. He did not regain recognition in his lifetime. He died on November 16, 1933, at Hornitos in California. He is buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. Sister M. Martina, SS.CM. SOURCES: Peter V. Rovnianek, Zapisky za ziva pochovaneho . Kon~tantin Culen, Slovaci v Amerike. Narodny Kalendar, 1935. Dr. Jozef Pauco, 75 rokoi, Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Vincent Bolecek, Peter V . Rovnianek. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U. S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English.  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 Peter V. Rovnianek (1867-1967) Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 17 (No. 40), 1967 pp. 137-143 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1967 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/3913c0c0e176b5794db9f9f04f5a5cc6.pdf ec93320ccc8b7b93c0e0d3293708081e PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 121 FIRST SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN IN AMERICA Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS .C.M. In 1879 two interesting romantics set out from their native city of Krompachy in Spis County, Slovakia. They were Janko Slovensky, then twenty-two years old, and his cousin, Julius J. Wolf, only nineteen. They had finished elementary school in Krompachy and college studies in Presov. After that, they attended the renowned Jesuit Teachers' College, Klastor pod Znievom, and earned their diplomas. Slovensky had some experience as tutor with a wealthy family in the county of Gerner but he soon convinced himself that was not the life for him. He preferred big game hunting in Africa and he planned to make this romantic impulse a reality. Julius Wolf, who had also tutored in a private family, was readily won to his cousin's idea and he gladly decided to accompany him. They were kindred spirits. They left home in the summer of 1879 against the advice of their parents. Their fathers reluctantly allowed them to go only becal:lse, parentwise, they hoped that a few practical lessons in the school of life would teach these sons the folly of such a fantastic undertaking. The adventurers left with no equipment, no guns, nothing but the fullness of anticipation and a thirst for excitement. Strangely, they did not go by a direct route to Africa. They may have planned their intinerary in a roundabout way because they considered England the gateway to the wide world and the English language the key to a realm of mystery. They traveled through Germany into England and Scotland where the unforseen happened. Either they boyishly lost courage or they sanely judged their resources to be inadequate in the light of reality or they made a mistake and boarded the wrong boat from Edinburgh. At any rate, their next stop after a long sea voyage was on the shores of the United States. Starting Life in U.S.A. with $35 At Ellis Island they pooled their funds and discovered that they had thirty-five dollars with which to establish �122 SLOVAKIA themselves in America. This realization ended their romantic dreams abruptly. The clamoring of hunger made them realize that they would have to accept the inescapable reality of work. And it would have to be the back breaking work of a common laborer since professional or clerical employment was beyond them until they would attain proficiency in English. They studied the situation soberly and agreed to spend their money for tickets to the industrial area around Pittsburgh. There they hired themselves out as day laborers and agonized at their new experience in the National Tube Works of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. The aching of their limbs only whetted their efforts to improve their position. They did their utmost to progress from primer English and to become Americanized, and they did not grow discouraged. Gradually they became hardened for strenous work in various capacities: as day laborers, carpenters, masons, and miners. Before long they even came to pride themselves on the fact that they were able to earn their livelihood by such taxing work and in such an alien world. Happily, their feeling of strangeness began to wear off soon, and native ability helped them to triumph over the language barrier. Then, to their joy, five other Slovak immigrants unexpectedly came into McKeesport in the spring of 1880. Life was definitely brighter from then on. Gradually, more and more Slovaks joined the little group in this mining and manufacturing region of Pennsylvania. There was a marked influx of immigration from Austria-Hungary and its tide was swelled by large numbers of Slovaks. They came especially from the more oppressed districts of eastern Slovakia where the contemporary political regime had denied them, among other rights, opportunities for schooling and self-improvement . The more enlightened classes from central and western Slovakia had sent out very few emigrants as yet. Natural Leaders of Slovak Immigrants Slovensky and Wolf had improved themselves considerably by this time and they became the natural leaders among the good-hearted newcomers in western Pennsylvania. Wolf had progressed from laborer to factory timekeeper, then to clerk, and before long he opened a business �SLOVAKIA 123 of his own. Slovensky, too, advanced himself and came to hold a position in the office of Max Scharnberg, former Austro-Hungarian consul in Pittsburgh. Through correspondence and personal contact, directly and indirectly he became increasingly aware of the many problems that were complicating the lives of Slovaks in America. Day by day the mail brought many questions to his employer's office. Some of them were very rational; others bordered on the fantastic, being the outgrowth of wild rumors and attempts to exploit strangers in a new world. But every problem which was brought to his attention was undeniably real. Are you wondering what some of these odd questions might have been? Here are a few: "Is it true that every man who does not return at once to his regiment in Hungary will be shot when he does come back?" "Is it true that the Turks have conquered Hungary and are going to behead everyone who does not become a Moslem?" (You must remember that Slovakia was at this time unwillingly incorporated within the territories of Austria-Hungary; hence, these men were worried about the families and relatives whom they had left behind.) "Please, tell me if it is true that after the Fourth of July no Slovak will get a job here, and if he doesn't leave America within a month, he will lose his life." "They tell me that everyone from Hungary must pay a ten-dollar tax every month if he wants to work in America. Is this really true?" There were also many letters asking for help in tracing families and relatives in America. A bewildered laborer had perhaps lost an address which he needed in order to find his relatives here and was helpless in the face of the situation. And would you believe it? Some poor things came with blind trust only. They had no idea of the size of their adopted land and, provincial-minded as they were at that time, they simply felt that once they had reached America, they would meet their friends and relatives as if they had come into their own familiar village. They had no address whatever and no idea where to begin their search for their kin in this vast new land. �124 SLOVAKIA Bulletin Published to Answer Questions On seeing how much his fellowmen needed help, Slovensky was anxious to relieve them as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible. When a flood of letters would come into Mr. Schamberg's office, repeating the same question or presenting similar problems, it occurred to Slovensky that the easiest way out to reach so many with the same necessary information, with the same helpful advice or instruction would be through a newspaper or a news sheet. But they had none. Would they like to have one, Slovensky wondered. Then he took the logical step. He sent out circular letters with that inquiry and after he had filed thirty prospectives agreeing to pay ten cents per copy of a weekly "Bulletin" which he proposed, he launched his new though modest venture and brought out the first Slovak "newspaper" in America at two o'clock one memorable morning in 1885. It consisted of a single sheet handwritten with duplicating ink and hectographed on foolscap since that was the size of the gelatin pad which Slovensky then had available for his "publication." The first page featured "news of the world" and the second featured "news items from home." This paper was not merely a local news sheet to be distributed in the immediate neighborhood of McKeesport; it reached out as far as Bonne Terre, Missouri, and Port Arthur, Canada. Issues were enclosed in envelopes for mailing and postage consumed two cents out of every ten-cent subscription fee or copy. We can hardly understand how daring was this enterprise. It took uncommon courage to propose a newspaper for people who had been denied the very fundamentals of literacy, a people who had been so exploited that they hardly knew how to appreciate the printed page as part of their ordinary lives, who had been so crushed as to be made to feel that "newspapers are for the elite only." For these reasons there commonly prevailed among them a tendency to feel that it was snobbishness or pretention tc aspire to such culture; it had so long been beyond their attaining. But Slovensky's faith in his people was not misplaced and he had the initiative to blaze the trail to better things for them in this new and promising world. The first twenty numbers of the "Bulletin" followed �SLOVAKIA 125 the format and the pattern of the original. The issue was generally read aloud in a public gathering place, often a tavern or an eating place, and then individual features and news items became more or less common property and was prominently posted on the main window of the establishment or placed behind glass in a picture frame and hung' where all might read-if they could-or refer to it. A large crowd always gathered in these places whenever the "Bulletin" was due. Everybody was eager for the news it brought; everybody wanted to be present for the reading of the "newspaper" which Slovensky edited in the saris dialect. He had chosen this dialect because it was his own and because it was most representative of the readers for whom the sheet was intended at the time. Such a favorable reception of the "Bulletin" was highly gratifying to Slovensky because he saw that it both helped and pleased his people, and he was assured that they were willing to support it, since the number of subscribers was mounting from week to week. In fact, the demand soon exceeded the capabilities of a hectograph job. Consequently, in the twentieth issue Slovensky announced that as soon as adjustments could be made, he would begin to publish a standard newspaper of eight pages and he asked his subscribers to bear with him until the change could be effected. Meanwhile he discontinued the hectographed sheet. While the broadening circle of his reading public waited with eager anticipation, Slovensky, wholly raw in this field but stimulated by enthusiasm and the desire to propagate a general good, applied himself to learn from German and American printeries all that a printer should know. He diligently scouted for type that would be suitable for Slovak reading and when by lucky chance he found something desirable in Chicago, he unhesitatingly gave for it all that he had saved from his five years' earnings in America. Julius Wolf was no less sacrificing in this cause. He sold out his flourishing business in favor of a partnership with Slovensky. First Slovak Newspaper in America The investment made, they both ardently set themselves to work and on October 2, 1886 they proudly released from the press in Pittsburgh the first edition of the new paper. It bore the title banner "Amerikanszko-Szlovenske �126 SLOVAKIA Noviny" (American-Slovak News). If you know a little Slovak, that spelling in the Slovak phrase will seem peculiar to you. Remember that these original journalistic efforts were in the saris or eastern dialect and with phonetic spelling closely resembling the Magyar language which both these men had learned in the only schools they had been allowed to attend in their boyhood. The luxury of a Slovak newspaper was now available to all these Slovak immigrants who had never dared to dream of such a privilege in their peasant serfdom. Circulation Rises Within two years the circulation of Slovensky's paper had risen increasingly: there were about six thousand paid subscribers. The efforts originally launched through that humble hectographed sheet evolved into a formidable teacher and protector of Slovak interests in this land of freedom. Both Slovensky and Wolf were conscious of their shortcomings as newspaper men, for neither had studied journalism, and neither had had any previous experience in printing or publishing. Realizing that they needed specialized help, they advertized for a professional copy writer or editor abroad. They waited patiently and hopefully but their appeal brought no response. Manfully, therefore, they carried on to the best of their ability. They were remarkably successful in reporting current news, fresh opportunities and prevailing conditions in America. They took pains to acquaint Slovak immigrants with their obligations as well as with the priviledges provided them under the laws of their new country. As occasion demanded it, they wrote editorials weighted with sound admonitions and with recommendations in order to protect their readers from snares and dangers of various types, and helped them to become Americanized more rapidly. Simplicity and intimacy characterized the paper to such an extent that one can easily see in it a kind of open correspondence with a reading public rather than a formal journalistic project in the full sense of the word. New Impetus in 1888 In 1888 new impetus and quality came to the paper because of the highly improved caliber of contributions �SLOVAK.IA 127 which Rovinov had begun to submit to it. Rovinov was the pen name of Peter Victor Rovnianek, an aspiring Slovak intellectual who migrated to America in order to enjoy academic and political freedom here. He was an ardent patriot, more eager to advance the national cause than to do anything else.For that reason he had originally undertaken studies for the priesthood, realizing that a good priest is both the leader and the teacher of many. When Rovnianek's aspirations were warped by the political atmosphere at home, and when brighter prospects were offered in America, he came to St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, as a young seminarian quite close to ordination. It was from this seminary that he sent out his freelance contributions to various publications both here and abroad. Because his heart was in his work, he had the capacity to impart his ardor to others. His brilliance was quickly recognized and appreciated. The Slovensky-Wolf partnership profited by Rovnianek's talents and stood in admiration of his gifts. They saw in him more than the personification of their ideal editor and felt that it was no longer necessary to seek help from abroad; Rovnianek was the one eminently qualified for the editorship of their paper. Unfortunately for them, he was at this time seriously contemplating a return to Europe. On May 13, 1889 fire destroyed practically the entire shop and assets of the American-Slovak Press and made Slovensky and Wolf feel that they were doomed to terminate their publication. In this dark hour, the mails brought to Pittsburgh Rovnianek's farewell letter. He had made his decision; he was leaving for home. Wolf received the message and at once telegraphed Slovensky who was in New York on business. He, in turn, immediately set out for Cleveland to dissuade Rovinov from leaving. After considerable discussion and persuasion, Slovensky concluded his interview with this stipulation: the American-Slovak News would continue to appear only if Slovensky, Wolf and Rovinov would form a partnership to be known as John Slovensky and Company. Otherwise he would not carry on. It was up to Rovnianek to seal either the doom or the promise of the paper. Because this was a momentous challenge for him, Rovnianek requested two weeks for consideration, and the matter rested. Rovnianek was now bitterly tom between the natural �128 SLOVAKIA desire to return home and the apparent need to stay in America. Monthly reports from Ellis Island indicated that immigration from Hungary was very much on the increase. It brought a steady stream of Slovaks into a better land and they needing help in orientating themselves. Rovnianek foresaw that the influx of Slovak immigrants at the current rate could easily mean a guarantee for the re-birth of his crushed nation in some better day. He realized how great was the need for these uprooted people in America to have wise leaders and true teachers. He saw how readily they could be exposed to error and false allegiance especially since there were already forces at work to undermine all that he had endeavored to elevate. These and other considerations, too, seemed to bear upon Rovnianek the conviction that if he really wished to be where he could do the greatest good as a patriot, he should assume the offered editorship of the still crude but highly potential American-Slovak News. He consulted with some of his intellectual friends: Vaclav Panuska, Dr. Francisci, Miller and others. They, too, advised against his return to Europe. Rovnianek Assumes Leadership Accordingly, Rovnianek resolved to become a partner and to accept the responsibilities of editorship. He sacrificed his seminary career and left Cleveland on June 28, 1889. As a 22 year old editor he began in earnest to establish his reputation in American-Slovak national life. He introduced many changes to improve the paper, the most spectacular and significant of which was to discard the use of the dialect form of expression and Hungarian spellings. Quietly but firmly he instated the true literary form of Slovak and American patriotism and tolerated no pretense of regard for foreign overlords. He prepared for his readers comprehensive reports on news from America and from the world at large, especially from Slovakia, so close to the hearts of the immigrants. Working-men always consulted Rovnianek's paper because it was his policy to include items bearing on labor conditions in various localities. He called attention to the fact that one mill or another was ready to hire additional help; that a shop in this town closed and consequently it would be frustrating to try to find employment there; that �SLOVAKIA 129 a strike was called at such and such a mine and it was unwise to scab and invite violence. Activities from various Slovak colonies in America were featured and were read with great interest. Serious editorials, instructive articles, essays and stories were provided in abundance. Rovinov ran an interesting serial on American history and he offered many translations of American Indian stories. Besides all this, his paper had many valuable contributions solicited from leading Slovak writers abroad: Vajansky, Sasinek, Dr. Wagner and others. Rovinov's own style was energetic, warm, colorful and fascinating, and his underprivileged public as well as literary readers found it appealing. The project did not fail do draw criticism and opposition from certain unfriendly factions but Rovnianek's im, mediate working atmosphere was favorable and amicable. He found in Wolf his greatest support and understanding. Julius Wolf was his bosom friend and Rovnianek pays him glowing tribute both in his memoirs and in a biographical sketch prepared for the Slovak National Almanac of 1894, referring to him as "a meek, well-tempered man, affable and urbane in society, accomodating and good-hearted at all times. He was wholly devoted to the Slovak cause and his zeal often mounted to fire." In all their 22 years of close collaboration they had but one misunderstanding and that one was very minor and puerile, ensuing upon a card game and opera engagement. Three Partners Work Hard All three partners worked indefatiguably seven days a week, eighteen to twenty hours per day, for the royal salary of nine dollars a week. The work of copy writing, editing, composing and printing did not in itself requisition all this labor. The fact is that there were innumerable business details calling for attention and demanding incessant work and more and more and more of everybody's time. The most time-consuming of them was soliciting new subscribers by house to house canvasses. Their entire plant consisted of one room measuring about 16 by 30. It was divided by a wooden partition. The fore section served as business office, book shop, editorial office, and administration department. Here Slovensky's desk was near the window. Through the center of the room �130 SLOVAKIA there stretched a long table covered with green felt. At its head sat the expeditor who folded copies and prepared them for mailing. One side of the table was reserved for Wolf who had been doing editorial writing until Rovnianek came. In the new partnership, the other side was allotted to Rovnianek as his working area. The rear section of the plant housed the composing and printing department where Joseph Gallik and Morris Greenstein operated a hand powered machine. Only Slovensky had the benefit of daylight. For the others, electric lights burned night and day . Soliciting Subscriptions When Rovnianek came to Pittsburgh, the paper's special list of subscribers ran to 1700 but there was no business manager to collect payments or to check for active subscribers, change of address, etc. Generally it was necessary to send an agent to collect and to solicit subscriptions. On week-ends, Rovnianek and Wolf often undertook such missions personally because the new editor felt that such contacts were essential in order to "sell" the newspaper idea to newer immigrants and to those who still felt too impoverished culturally and materially to invest in a subscription. Rovnianek also dedicated himself to the cause of fraternalizing. He visited town after town. When national consciousness was already awakened, he advanced the idea of a nationwide organization of all Slovaks in America. Often he came upon a home housing 20 to 30 or even 50 to 60 boarders none of whom cared to be bothered about subscribing to a paper which none of them would be able to read. Rovnianek did not appraise such a situation as hopeless. ·He would take out a primer he usually carried on such occasions and tactfully but effectively he would demonstrate how one begins to learn to read. Patiently he taught sounds and syllables, and usually he sold at least one primer in that house before he left, happy with the satisfaction that the spark of literacy was lighted in another mind. Eventually, after a few subsequent visits and instructions, he was able to sign up one or more new subscribers from amortg those who had started out so humbly but -earnestly. �SLOVAK.IA 131 In this way Rovnianek familiarized himself with the realities of life among his people in America and to form this knowledge and contact he drew factual material and background for articles, news items, editorials, and stories. He flayed weaknesses and failings that were avoidable; he censured lapses and deficiencies that were culpable; he commended diligence, virtue, achievement and honor. He could not condone sub-standard or unhygienic living conditions or loose and crude manners of life especially where children might be exposed to such undesirable influences. Exploiters inveighed against him and his paper but he was undaunted and carried on his vigorous campaign. Meanwhile Janko Slovensky began to experience a recurrence of the romantic urge. The wanderlust was upon him. His association with Rovnianek began to grow temperamental and finally in 1892 the partnership was dissolved. The P. V. Rovnianek & Co. carried on the publishing business and related interests. Slovensky married Mrs. Stewart, the widow of a sea captain and their long-time landlady. Then he settled in New Albany, Indiana, where he manufactured cigars until there was a relapse of restlessness. This time gold fever combined with wanderlust, and he began to prospect in Colorado and in Mexico. He hopefully formed the Elk Gold Mining Company and sold shares to Slovak acquaintances and to many who aspired to ready wealth. He learned from sad reverses, however, that his lack of experience in such a field served him very poorly. He had done much better prospecting amid the treasures of the mind in the world of journalism. From his gold mine in Mexico he finally returned to Los Angeles where family troubles were added to his business worries, and he died a tragic death in 1891. Wolf died in 1930. Their brain child, the promising pioneer Slovak American newspaper, carried on until 1924 when a large progeny of publications like Jednota, Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Obrana, and Slovak v Amerike were capably serving Slovaks in America. SOURCES K. Culen, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. K. Culen, J . Slovensky, Winnipeg, 1955. P . V. Rovnianek, Zcipisky za iiva pochovaneho, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1924. Early issues of Ncirodny kalendcir. � SLOVAKIA 121 FIRST SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN IN AMERICA Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS .C.M. In 1879 two interesting romantics set out from their native city of Krompachy in Spis County, Slovakia. They were Janko Slovensky, then twenty-two years old, and his cousin, Julius J. Wolf, only nineteen. They had finished elementary school in Krompachy and college studies in Presov. After that, they attended the renowned Jesuit Teachers' College, Klastor pod Znievom, and earned their diplomas. Slovensky had some experience as tutor with a wealthy family in the county of Gerner but he soon convinced himself that was not the life for him. He preferred big game hunting in Africa and he planned to make this romantic impulse a reality. Julius Wolf, who had also tutored in a private family, was readily won to his cousin's idea and he gladly decided to accompany him. They were kindred spirits. They left home in the summer of 1879 against the advice of their parents. Their fathers reluctantly allowed them to go only becal:lse, parentwise, they hoped that a few practical lessons in the school of life would teach these sons the folly of such a fantastic undertaking. The adventurers left with no equipment, no guns, nothing but the fullness of anticipation and a thirst for excitement. Strangely, they did not go by a direct route to Africa. They may have planned their intinerary in a roundabout way because they considered England the gateway to the wide world and the English language the key to a realm of mystery. They traveled through Germany into England and Scotland where the unforseen happened. Either they boyishly lost courage or they sanely judged their resources to be inadequate in the light of reality or they made a mistake and boarded the wrong boat from Edinburgh. At any rate, their next stop after a long sea voyage was on the shores of the United States. Starting Life in U.S.A. with $35 At Ellis Island they pooled their funds and discovered that they had thirty-five dollars with which to establish �122 SLOVAKIA themselves in America. This realization ended their romantic dreams abruptly. The clamoring of hunger made them realize that they would have to accept the inescapable reality of work. And it would have to be the back breaking work of a common laborer since professional or clerical employment was beyond them until they would attain proficiency in English. They studied the situation soberly and agreed to spend their money for tickets to the industrial area around Pittsburgh. There they hired themselves out as day laborers and agonized at their new experience in the National Tube Works of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. The aching of their limbs only whetted their efforts to improve their position. They did their utmost to progress from primer English and to become Americanized, and they did not grow discouraged. Gradually they became hardened for strenous work in various capacities: as day laborers, carpenters, masons, and miners. Before long they even came to pride themselves on the fact that they were able to earn their livelihood by such taxing work and in such an alien world. Happily, their feeling of strangeness began to wear off soon, and native ability helped them to triumph over the language barrier. Then, to their joy, five other Slovak immigrants unexpectedly came into McKeesport in the spring of 1880. Life was definitely brighter from then on. Gradually, more and more Slovaks joined the little group in this mining and manufacturing region of Pennsylvania. There was a marked influx of immigration from Austria-Hungary and its tide was swelled by large numbers of Slovaks. They came especially from the more oppressed districts of eastern Slovakia where the contemporary political regime had denied them, among other rights, opportunities for schooling and self-improvement . The more enlightened classes from central and western Slovakia had sent out very few emigrants as yet. Natural Leaders of Slovak Immigrants Slovensky and Wolf had improved themselves considerably by this time and they became the natural leaders among the good-hearted newcomers in western Pennsylvania. Wolf had progressed from laborer to factory timekeeper, then to clerk, and before long he opened a business �SLOVAKIA 123 of his own. Slovensky, too, advanced himself and came to hold a position in the office of Max Scharnberg, former Austro-Hungarian consul in Pittsburgh. Through correspondence and personal contact, directly and indirectly he became increasingly aware of the many problems that were complicating the lives of Slovaks in America. Day by day the mail brought many questions to his employer's office. Some of them were very rational; others bordered on the fantastic, being the outgrowth of wild rumors and attempts to exploit strangers in a new world. But every problem which was brought to his attention was undeniably real. Are you wondering what some of these odd questions might have been? Here are a few: "Is it true that every man who does not return at once to his regiment in Hungary will be shot when he does come back?" "Is it true that the Turks have conquered Hungary and are going to behead everyone who does not become a Moslem?" (You must remember that Slovakia was at this time unwillingly incorporated within the territories of Austria-Hungary; hence, these men were worried about the families and relatives whom they had left behind.) "Please, tell me if it is true that after the Fourth of July no Slovak will get a job here, and if he doesn't leave America within a month, he will lose his life." "They tell me that everyone from Hungary must pay a ten-dollar tax every month if he wants to work in America. Is this really true?" There were also many letters asking for help in tracing families and relatives in America. A bewildered laborer had perhaps lost an address which he needed in order to find his relatives here and was helpless in the face of the situation. And would you believe it? Some poor things came with blind trust only. They had no idea of the size of their adopted land and, provincial-minded as they were at that time, they simply felt that once they had reached America, they would meet their friends and relatives as if they had come into their own familiar village. They had no address whatever and no idea where to begin their search for their kin in this vast new land. �124 SLOVAKIA Bulletin Published to Answer Questions On seeing how much his fellowmen needed help, Slovensky was anxious to relieve them as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible. When a flood of letters would come into Mr. Schamberg's office, repeating the same question or presenting similar problems, it occurred to Slovensky that the easiest way out to reach so many with the same necessary information, with the same helpful advice or instruction would be through a newspaper or a news sheet. But they had none. Would they like to have one, Slovensky wondered. Then he took the logical step. He sent out circular letters with that inquiry and after he had filed thirty prospectives agreeing to pay ten cents per copy of a weekly "Bulletin" which he proposed, he launched his new though modest venture and brought out the first Slovak "newspaper" in America at two o'clock one memorable morning in 1885. It consisted of a single sheet handwritten with duplicating ink and hectographed on foolscap since that was the size of the gelatin pad which Slovensky then had available for his "publication." The first page featured "news of the world" and the second featured "news items from home." This paper was not merely a local news sheet to be distributed in the immediate neighborhood of McKeesport; it reached out as far as Bonne Terre, Missouri, and Port Arthur, Canada. Issues were enclosed in envelopes for mailing and postage consumed two cents out of every ten-cent subscription fee or copy. We can hardly understand how daring was this enterprise. It took uncommon courage to propose a newspaper for people who had been denied the very fundamentals of literacy, a people who had been so exploited that they hardly knew how to appreciate the printed page as part of their ordinary lives, who had been so crushed as to be made to feel that "newspapers are for the elite only." For these reasons there commonly prevailed among them a tendency to feel that it was snobbishness or pretention tc aspire to such culture; it had so long been beyond their attaining. But Slovensky's faith in his people was not misplaced and he had the initiative to blaze the trail to better things for them in this new and promising world. The first twenty numbers of the "Bulletin" followed �SLOVAKIA 125 the format and the pattern of the original. The issue was generally read aloud in a public gathering place, often a tavern or an eating place, and then individual features and news items became more or less common property and was prominently posted on the main window of the establishment or placed behind glass in a picture frame and hung' where all might read-if they could-or refer to it. A large crowd always gathered in these places whenever the "Bulletin" was due. Everybody was eager for the news it brought; everybody wanted to be present for the reading of the "newspaper" which Slovensky edited in the saris dialect. He had chosen this dialect because it was his own and because it was most representative of the readers for whom the sheet was intended at the time. Such a favorable reception of the "Bulletin" was highly gratifying to Slovensky because he saw that it both helped and pleased his people, and he was assured that they were willing to support it, since the number of subscribers was mounting from week to week. In fact, the demand soon exceeded the capabilities of a hectograph job. Consequently, in the twentieth issue Slovensky announced that as soon as adjustments could be made, he would begin to publish a standard newspaper of eight pages and he asked his subscribers to bear with him until the change could be effected. Meanwhile he discontinued the hectographed sheet. While the broadening circle of his reading public waited with eager anticipation, Slovensky, wholly raw in this field but stimulated by enthusiasm and the desire to propagate a general good, applied himself to learn from German and American printeries all that a printer should know. He diligently scouted for type that would be suitable for Slovak reading and when by lucky chance he found something desirable in Chicago, he unhesitatingly gave for it all that he had saved from his five years' earnings in America. Julius Wolf was no less sacrificing in this cause. He sold out his flourishing business in favor of a partnership with Slovensky. First Slovak Newspaper in America The investment made, they both ardently set themselves to work and on October 2, 1886 they proudly released from the press in Pittsburgh the first edition of the new paper. It bore the title banner "Amerikanszko-Szlovenske �126 SLOVAKIA Noviny" (American-Slovak News). If you know a little Slovak, that spelling in the Slovak phrase will seem peculiar to you. Remember that these original journalistic efforts were in the saris or eastern dialect and with phonetic spelling closely resembling the Magyar language which both these men had learned in the only schools they had been allowed to attend in their boyhood. The luxury of a Slovak newspaper was now available to all these Slovak immigrants who had never dared to dream of such a privilege in their peasant serfdom. Circulation Rises Within two years the circulation of Slovensky's paper had risen increasingly: there were about six thousand paid subscribers. The efforts originally launched through that humble hectographed sheet evolved into a formidable teacher and protector of Slovak interests in this land of freedom. Both Slovensky and Wolf were conscious of their shortcomings as newspaper men, for neither had studied journalism, and neither had had any previous experience in printing or publishing. Realizing that they needed specialized help, they advertized for a professional copy writer or editor abroad. They waited patiently and hopefully but their appeal brought no response. Manfully, therefore, they carried on to the best of their ability. They were remarkably successful in reporting current news, fresh opportunities and prevailing conditions in America. They took pains to acquaint Slovak immigrants with their obligations as well as with the priviledges provided them under the laws of their new country. As occasion demanded it, they wrote editorials weighted with sound admonitions and with recommendations in order to protect their readers from snares and dangers of various types, and helped them to become Americanized more rapidly. Simplicity and intimacy characterized the paper to such an extent that one can easily see in it a kind of open correspondence with a reading public rather than a formal journalistic project in the full sense of the word. New Impetus in 1888 In 1888 new impetus and quality came to the paper because of the highly improved caliber of contributions �SLOVAK.IA 127 which Rovinov had begun to submit to it. Rovinov was the pen name of Peter Victor Rovnianek, an aspiring Slovak intellectual who migrated to America in order to enjoy academic and political freedom here. He was an ardent patriot, more eager to advance the national cause than to do anything else.For that reason he had originally undertaken studies for the priesthood, realizing that a good priest is both the leader and the teacher of many. When Rovnianek's aspirations were warped by the political atmosphere at home, and when brighter prospects were offered in America, he came to St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, as a young seminarian quite close to ordination. It was from this seminary that he sent out his freelance contributions to various publications both here and abroad. Because his heart was in his work, he had the capacity to impart his ardor to others. His brilliance was quickly recognized and appreciated. The Slovensky-Wolf partnership profited by Rovnianek's talents and stood in admiration of his gifts. They saw in him more than the personification of their ideal editor and felt that it was no longer necessary to seek help from abroad; Rovnianek was the one eminently qualified for the editorship of their paper. Unfortunately for them, he was at this time seriously contemplating a return to Europe. On May 13, 1889 fire destroyed practically the entire shop and assets of the American-Slovak Press and made Slovensky and Wolf feel that they were doomed to terminate their publication. In this dark hour, the mails brought to Pittsburgh Rovnianek's farewell letter. He had made his decision; he was leaving for home. Wolf received the message and at once telegraphed Slovensky who was in New York on business. He, in turn, immediately set out for Cleveland to dissuade Rovinov from leaving. After considerable discussion and persuasion, Slovensky concluded his interview with this stipulation: the American-Slovak News would continue to appear only if Slovensky, Wolf and Rovinov would form a partnership to be known as John Slovensky and Company. Otherwise he would not carry on. It was up to Rovnianek to seal either the doom or the promise of the paper. Because this was a momentous challenge for him, Rovnianek requested two weeks for consideration, and the matter rested. Rovnianek was now bitterly tom between the natural �128 SLOVAKIA desire to return home and the apparent need to stay in America. Monthly reports from Ellis Island indicated that immigration from Hungary was very much on the increase. It brought a steady stream of Slovaks into a better land and they needing help in orientating themselves. Rovnianek foresaw that the influx of Slovak immigrants at the current rate could easily mean a guarantee for the re-birth of his crushed nation in some better day. He realized how great was the need for these uprooted people in America to have wise leaders and true teachers. He saw how readily they could be exposed to error and false allegiance especially since there were already forces at work to undermine all that he had endeavored to elevate. These and other considerations, too, seemed to bear upon Rovnianek the conviction that if he really wished to be where he could do the greatest good as a patriot, he should assume the offered editorship of the still crude but highly potential American-Slovak News. He consulted with some of his intellectual friends: Vaclav Panuska, Dr. Francisci, Miller and others. They, too, advised against his return to Europe. Rovnianek Assumes Leadership Accordingly, Rovnianek resolved to become a partner and to accept the responsibilities of editorship. He sacrificed his seminary career and left Cleveland on June 28, 1889. As a 22 year old editor he began in earnest to establish his reputation in American-Slovak national life. He introduced many changes to improve the paper, the most spectacular and significant of which was to discard the use of the dialect form of expression and Hungarian spellings. Quietly but firmly he instated the true literary form of Slovak and American patriotism and tolerated no pretense of regard for foreign overlords. He prepared for his readers comprehensive reports on news from America and from the world at large, especially from Slovakia, so close to the hearts of the immigrants. Working-men always consulted Rovnianek's paper because it was his policy to include items bearing on labor conditions in various localities. He called attention to the fact that one mill or another was ready to hire additional help; that a shop in this town closed and consequently it would be frustrating to try to find employment there; that �SLOVAKIA 129 a strike was called at such and such a mine and it was unwise to scab and invite violence. Activities from various Slovak colonies in America were featured and were read with great interest. Serious editorials, instructive articles, essays and stories were provided in abundance. Rovinov ran an interesting serial on American history and he offered many translations of American Indian stories. Besides all this, his paper had many valuable contributions solicited from leading Slovak writers abroad: Vajansky, Sasinek, Dr. Wagner and others. Rovinov's own style was energetic, warm, colorful and fascinating, and his underprivileged public as well as literary readers found it appealing. The project did not fail do draw criticism and opposition from certain unfriendly factions but Rovnianek's im, mediate working atmosphere was favorable and amicable. He found in Wolf his greatest support and understanding. Julius Wolf was his bosom friend and Rovnianek pays him glowing tribute both in his memoirs and in a biographical sketch prepared for the Slovak National Almanac of 1894, referring to him as "a meek, well-tempered man, affable and urbane in society, accomodating and good-hearted at all times. He was wholly devoted to the Slovak cause and his zeal often mounted to fire." In all their 22 years of close collaboration they had but one misunderstanding and that one was very minor and puerile, ensuing upon a card game and opera engagement. Three Partners Work Hard All three partners worked indefatiguably seven days a week, eighteen to twenty hours per day, for the royal salary of nine dollars a week. The work of copy writing, editing, composing and printing did not in itself requisition all this labor. The fact is that there were innumerable business details calling for attention and demanding incessant work and more and more and more of everybody's time. The most time-consuming of them was soliciting new subscribers by house to house canvasses. Their entire plant consisted of one room measuring about 16 by 30. It was divided by a wooden partition. The fore section served as business office, book shop, editorial office, and administration department. Here Slovensky's desk was near the window. Through the center of the room �130 SLOVAKIA there stretched a long table covered with green felt. At its head sat the expeditor who folded copies and prepared them for mailing. One side of the table was reserved for Wolf who had been doing editorial writing until Rovnianek came. In the new partnership, the other side was allotted to Rovnianek as his working area. The rear section of the plant housed the composing and printing department where Joseph Gallik and Morris Greenstein operated a hand powered machine. Only Slovensky had the benefit of daylight. For the others, electric lights burned night and day . Soliciting Subscriptions When Rovnianek came to Pittsburgh, the paper's special list of subscribers ran to 1700 but there was no business manager to collect payments or to check for active subscribers, change of address, etc. Generally it was necessary to send an agent to collect and to solicit subscriptions. On week-ends, Rovnianek and Wolf often undertook such missions personally because the new editor felt that such contacts were essential in order to "sell" the newspaper idea to newer immigrants and to those who still felt too impoverished culturally and materially to invest in a subscription. Rovnianek also dedicated himself to the cause of fraternalizing. He visited town after town. When national consciousness was already awakened, he advanced the idea of a nationwide organization of all Slovaks in America. Often he came upon a home housing 20 to 30 or even 50 to 60 boarders none of whom cared to be bothered about subscribing to a paper which none of them would be able to read. Rovnianek did not appraise such a situation as hopeless. ·He would take out a primer he usually carried on such occasions and tactfully but effectively he would demonstrate how one begins to learn to read. Patiently he taught sounds and syllables, and usually he sold at least one primer in that house before he left, happy with the satisfaction that the spark of literacy was lighted in another mind. Eventually, after a few subsequent visits and instructions, he was able to sign up one or more new subscribers from amortg those who had started out so humbly but -earnestly. �SLOVAK.IA 131 In this way Rovnianek familiarized himself with the realities of life among his people in America and to form this knowledge and contact he drew factual material and background for articles, news items, editorials, and stories. He flayed weaknesses and failings that were avoidable; he censured lapses and deficiencies that were culpable; he commended diligence, virtue, achievement and honor. He could not condone sub-standard or unhygienic living conditions or loose and crude manners of life especially where children might be exposed to such undesirable influences. Exploiters inveighed against him and his paper but he was undaunted and carried on his vigorous campaign. Meanwhile Janko Slovensky began to experience a recurrence of the romantic urge. The wanderlust was upon him. His association with Rovnianek began to grow temperamental and finally in 1892 the partnership was dissolved. The P. V. Rovnianek & Co. carried on the publishing business and related interests. Slovensky married Mrs. Stewart, the widow of a sea captain and their long-time landlady. Then he settled in New Albany, Indiana, where he manufactured cigars until there was a relapse of restlessness. This time gold fever combined with wanderlust, and he began to prospect in Colorado and in Mexico. He hopefully formed the Elk Gold Mining Company and sold shares to Slovak acquaintances and to many who aspired to ready wealth. He learned from sad reverses, however, that his lack of experience in such a field served him very poorly. He had done much better prospecting amid the treasures of the mind in the world of journalism. From his gold mine in Mexico he finally returned to Los Angeles where family troubles were added to his business worries, and he died a tragic death in 1891. Wolf died in 1930. Their brain child, the promising pioneer Slovak American newspaper, carried on until 1924 when a large progeny of publications like Jednota, Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Obrana, and Slovak v Amerike were capably serving Slovaks in America. SOURCES K. Culen, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. K. Culen, J . Slovensky, Winnipeg, 1955. P . V. Rovnianek, Zcipisky za iiva pochovaneho, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1924. Early issues of Ncirodny kalendcir. � 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 1968, Vol. 18 Description An account of the resource Vol. 18 (No. 41), 1968. 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 1968 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 121 FIRST SLOVAK NEWSPAPERMEN IN AMERICA Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS .C.M. In 1879 two interesting romantics set out from their native city of Krompachy in Spis County, Slovakia. They were Janko Slovensky, then twenty-two years old, and his cousin, Julius J. Wolf, only nineteen. They had finished elementary school in Krompachy and college studies in Presov. After that, they attended the renowned Jesuit Teachers' College, Klastor pod Znievom, and earned their diplomas. Slovensky had some experience as tutor with a wealthy family in the county of Gerner but he soon convinced himself that was not the life for him. He preferred big game hunting in Africa and he planned to make this romantic impulse a reality. Julius Wolf, who had also tutored in a private family, was readily won to his cousin's idea and he gladly decided to accompany him. They were kindred spirits. They left home in the summer of 1879 against the advice of their parents. Their fathers reluctantly allowed them to go only becal:lse, parentwise, they hoped that a few practical lessons in the school of life would teach these sons the folly of such a fantastic undertaking. The adventurers left with no equipment, no guns, nothing but the fullness of anticipation and a thirst for excitement. Strangely, they did not go by a direct route to Africa. They may have planned their intinerary in a roundabout way because they considered England the gateway to the wide world and the English language the key to a realm of mystery. They traveled through Germany into England and Scotland where the unforseen happened. Either they boyishly lost courage or they sanely judged their resources to be inadequate in the light of reality or they made a mistake and boarded the wrong boat from Edinburgh. At any rate, their next stop after a long sea voyage was on the shores of the United States. Starting Life in U.S.A. with $35 At Ellis Island they pooled their funds and discovered that they had thirty-five dollars with which to establish 122 SLOVAKIA themselves in America. This realization ended their romantic dreams abruptly. The clamoring of hunger made them realize that they would have to accept the inescapable reality of work. And it would have to be the back breaking work of a common laborer since professional or clerical employment was beyond them until they would attain proficiency in English. They studied the situation soberly and agreed to spend their money for tickets to the industrial area around Pittsburgh. There they hired themselves out as day laborers and agonized at their new experience in the National Tube Works of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. The aching of their limbs only whetted their efforts to improve their position. They did their utmost to progress from primer English and to become Americanized, and they did not grow discouraged. Gradually they became hardened for strenous work in various capacities: as day laborers, carpenters, masons, and miners. Before long they even came to pride themselves on the fact that they were able to earn their livelihood by such taxing work and in such an alien world. Happily, their feeling of strangeness began to wear off soon, and native ability helped them to triumph over the language barrier. Then, to their joy, five other Slovak immigrants unexpectedly came into McKeesport in the spring of 1880. Life was definitely brighter from then on. Gradually, more and more Slovaks joined the little group in this mining and manufacturing region of Pennsylvania. There was a marked influx of immigration from Austria-Hungary and its tide was swelled by large numbers of Slovaks. They came especially from the more oppressed districts of eastern Slovakia where the contemporary political regime had denied them, among other rights, opportunities for schooling and self-improvement . The more enlightened classes from central and western Slovakia had sent out very few emigrants as yet. Natural Leaders of Slovak Immigrants Slovensky and Wolf had improved themselves considerably by this time and they became the natural leaders among the good-hearted newcomers in western Pennsylvania. Wolf had progressed from laborer to factory timekeeper, then to clerk, and before long he opened a business SLOVAKIA 123 of his own. Slovensky, too, advanced himself and came to hold a position in the office of Max Scharnberg, former Austro-Hungarian consul in Pittsburgh. Through correspondence and personal contact, directly and indirectly he became increasingly aware of the many problems that were complicating the lives of Slovaks in America. Day by day the mail brought many questions to his employer's office. Some of them were very rational; others bordered on the fantastic, being the outgrowth of wild rumors and attempts to exploit strangers in a new world. But every problem which was brought to his attention was undeniably real. Are you wondering what some of these odd questions might have been? Here are a few: "Is it true that every man who does not return at once to his regiment in Hungary will be shot when he does come back?" "Is it true that the Turks have conquered Hungary and are going to behead everyone who does not become a Moslem?" (You must remember that Slovakia was at this time unwillingly incorporated within the territories of Austria-Hungary; hence, these men were worried about the families and relatives whom they had left behind.) "Please, tell me if it is true that after the Fourth of July no Slovak will get a job here, and if he doesn't leave America within a month, he will lose his life." "They tell me that everyone from Hungary must pay a ten-dollar tax every month if he wants to work in America. Is this really true?" There were also many letters asking for help in tracing families and relatives in America. A bewildered laborer had perhaps lost an address which he needed in order to find his relatives here and was helpless in the face of the situation. And would you believe it? Some poor things came with blind trust only. They had no idea of the size of their adopted land and, provincial-minded as they were at that time, they simply felt that once they had reached America, they would meet their friends and relatives as if they had come into their own familiar village. They had no address whatever and no idea where to begin their search for their kin in this vast new land. 124 SLOVAKIA Bulletin Published to Answer Questions On seeing how much his fellowmen needed help, Slovensky was anxious to relieve them as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible. When a flood of letters would come into Mr. Schamberg's office, repeating the same question or presenting similar problems, it occurred to Slovensky that the easiest way out to reach so many with the same necessary information, with the same helpful advice or instruction would be through a newspaper or a news sheet. But they had none. Would they like to have one, Slovensky wondered. Then he took the logical step. He sent out circular letters with that inquiry and after he had filed thirty prospectives agreeing to pay ten cents per copy of a weekly "Bulletin" which he proposed, he launched his new though modest venture and brought out the first Slovak "newspaper" in America at two o'clock one memorable morning in 1885. It consisted of a single sheet handwritten with duplicating ink and hectographed on foolscap since that was the size of the gelatin pad which Slovensky then had available for his "publication." The first page featured "news of the world" and the second featured "news items from home." This paper was not merely a local news sheet to be distributed in the immediate neighborhood of McKeesport; it reached out as far as Bonne Terre, Missouri, and Port Arthur, Canada. Issues were enclosed in envelopes for mailing and postage consumed two cents out of every ten-cent subscription fee or copy. We can hardly understand how daring was this enterprise. It took uncommon courage to propose a newspaper for people who had been denied the very fundamentals of literacy, a people who had been so exploited that they hardly knew how to appreciate the printed page as part of their ordinary lives, who had been so crushed as to be made to feel that "newspapers are for the elite only." For these reasons there commonly prevailed among them a tendency to feel that it was snobbishness or pretention tc aspire to such culture; it had so long been beyond their attaining. But Slovensky's faith in his people was not misplaced and he had the initiative to blaze the trail to better things for them in this new and promising world. The first twenty numbers of the "Bulletin" followed SLOVAKIA 125 the format and the pattern of the original. The issue was generally read aloud in a public gathering place, often a tavern or an eating place, and then individual features and news items became more or less common property and was prominently posted on the main window of the establishment or placed behind glass in a picture frame and hung' where all might read-if they could-or refer to it. A large crowd always gathered in these places whenever the "Bulletin" was due. Everybody was eager for the news it brought; everybody wanted to be present for the reading of the "newspaper" which Slovensky edited in the saris dialect. He had chosen this dialect because it was his own and because it was most representative of the readers for whom the sheet was intended at the time. Such a favorable reception of the "Bulletin" was highly gratifying to Slovensky because he saw that it both helped and pleased his people, and he was assured that they were willing to support it, since the number of subscribers was mounting from week to week. In fact, the demand soon exceeded the capabilities of a hectograph job. Consequently, in the twentieth issue Slovensky announced that as soon as adjustments could be made, he would begin to publish a standard newspaper of eight pages and he asked his subscribers to bear with him until the change could be effected. Meanwhile he discontinued the hectographed sheet. While the broadening circle of his reading public waited with eager anticipation, Slovensky, wholly raw in this field but stimulated by enthusiasm and the desire to propagate a general good, applied himself to learn from German and American printeries all that a printer should know. He diligently scouted for type that would be suitable for Slovak reading and when by lucky chance he found something desirable in Chicago, he unhesitatingly gave for it all that he had saved from his five years' earnings in America. Julius Wolf was no less sacrificing in this cause. He sold out his flourishing business in favor of a partnership with Slovensky. First Slovak Newspaper in America The investment made, they both ardently set themselves to work and on October 2, 1886 they proudly released from the press in Pittsburgh the first edition of the new paper. It bore the title banner "Amerikanszko-Szlovenske 126 SLOVAKIA Noviny" (American-Slovak News). If you know a little Slovak, that spelling in the Slovak phrase will seem peculiar to you. Remember that these original journalistic efforts were in the saris or eastern dialect and with phonetic spelling closely resembling the Magyar language which both these men had learned in the only schools they had been allowed to attend in their boyhood. The luxury of a Slovak newspaper was now available to all these Slovak immigrants who had never dared to dream of such a privilege in their peasant serfdom. Circulation Rises Within two years the circulation of Slovensky's paper had risen increasingly: there were about six thousand paid subscribers. The efforts originally launched through that humble hectographed sheet evolved into a formidable teacher and protector of Slovak interests in this land of freedom. Both Slovensky and Wolf were conscious of their shortcomings as newspaper men, for neither had studied journalism, and neither had had any previous experience in printing or publishing. Realizing that they needed specialized help, they advertized for a professional copy writer or editor abroad. They waited patiently and hopefully but their appeal brought no response. Manfully, therefore, they carried on to the best of their ability. They were remarkably successful in reporting current news, fresh opportunities and prevailing conditions in America. They took pains to acquaint Slovak immigrants with their obligations as well as with the priviledges provided them under the laws of their new country. As occasion demanded it, they wrote editorials weighted with sound admonitions and with recommendations in order to protect their readers from snares and dangers of various types, and helped them to become Americanized more rapidly. Simplicity and intimacy characterized the paper to such an extent that one can easily see in it a kind of open correspondence with a reading public rather than a formal journalistic project in the full sense of the word. New Impetus in 1888 In 1888 new impetus and quality came to the paper because of the highly improved caliber of contributions SLOVAK.IA 127 which Rovinov had begun to submit to it. Rovinov was the pen name of Peter Victor Rovnianek, an aspiring Slovak intellectual who migrated to America in order to enjoy academic and political freedom here. He was an ardent patriot, more eager to advance the national cause than to do anything else.For that reason he had originally undertaken studies for the priesthood, realizing that a good priest is both the leader and the teacher of many. When Rovnianek's aspirations were warped by the political atmosphere at home, and when brighter prospects were offered in America, he came to St. Mary's College in Cleveland, Ohio, as a young seminarian quite close to ordination. It was from this seminary that he sent out his freelance contributions to various publications both here and abroad. Because his heart was in his work, he had the capacity to impart his ardor to others. His brilliance was quickly recognized and appreciated. The Slovensky-Wolf partnership profited by Rovnianek's talents and stood in admiration of his gifts. They saw in him more than the personification of their ideal editor and felt that it was no longer necessary to seek help from abroad; Rovnianek was the one eminently qualified for the editorship of their paper. Unfortunately for them, he was at this time seriously contemplating a return to Europe. On May 13, 1889 fire destroyed practically the entire shop and assets of the American-Slovak Press and made Slovensky and Wolf feel that they were doomed to terminate their publication. In this dark hour, the mails brought to Pittsburgh Rovnianek's farewell letter. He had made his decision; he was leaving for home. Wolf received the message and at once telegraphed Slovensky who was in New York on business. He, in turn, immediately set out for Cleveland to dissuade Rovinov from leaving. After considerable discussion and persuasion, Slovensky concluded his interview with this stipulation: the American-Slovak News would continue to appear only if Slovensky, Wolf and Rovinov would form a partnership to be known as John Slovensky and Company. Otherwise he would not carry on. It was up to Rovnianek to seal either the doom or the promise of the paper. Because this was a momentous challenge for him, Rovnianek requested two weeks for consideration, and the matter rested. Rovnianek was now bitterly tom between the natural 128 SLOVAKIA desire to return home and the apparent need to stay in America. Monthly reports from Ellis Island indicated that immigration from Hungary was very much on the increase. It brought a steady stream of Slovaks into a better land and they needing help in orientating themselves. Rovnianek foresaw that the influx of Slovak immigrants at the current rate could easily mean a guarantee for the re-birth of his crushed nation in some better day. He realized how great was the need for these uprooted people in America to have wise leaders and true teachers. He saw how readily they could be exposed to error and false allegiance especially since there were already forces at work to undermine all that he had endeavored to elevate. These and other considerations, too, seemed to bear upon Rovnianek the conviction that if he really wished to be where he could do the greatest good as a patriot, he should assume the offered editorship of the still crude but highly potential American-Slovak News. He consulted with some of his intellectual friends: Vaclav Panuska, Dr. Francisci, Miller and others. They, too, advised against his return to Europe. Rovnianek Assumes Leadership Accordingly, Rovnianek resolved to become a partner and to accept the responsibilities of editorship. He sacrificed his seminary career and left Cleveland on June 28, 1889. As a 22 year old editor he began in earnest to establish his reputation in American-Slovak national life. He introduced many changes to improve the paper, the most spectacular and significant of which was to discard the use of the dialect form of expression and Hungarian spellings. Quietly but firmly he instated the true literary form of Slovak and American patriotism and tolerated no pretense of regard for foreign overlords. He prepared for his readers comprehensive reports on news from America and from the world at large, especially from Slovakia, so close to the hearts of the immigrants. Working-men always consulted Rovnianek's paper because it was his policy to include items bearing on labor conditions in various localities. He called attention to the fact that one mill or another was ready to hire additional help; that a shop in this town closed and consequently it would be frustrating to try to find employment there; that SLOVAKIA 129 a strike was called at such and such a mine and it was unwise to scab and invite violence. Activities from various Slovak colonies in America were featured and were read with great interest. Serious editorials, instructive articles, essays and stories were provided in abundance. Rovinov ran an interesting serial on American history and he offered many translations of American Indian stories. Besides all this, his paper had many valuable contributions solicited from leading Slovak writers abroad: Vajansky, Sasinek, Dr. Wagner and others. Rovinov's own style was energetic, warm, colorful and fascinating, and his underprivileged public as well as literary readers found it appealing. The project did not fail do draw criticism and opposition from certain unfriendly factions but Rovnianek's im, mediate working atmosphere was favorable and amicable. He found in Wolf his greatest support and understanding. Julius Wolf was his bosom friend and Rovnianek pays him glowing tribute both in his memoirs and in a biographical sketch prepared for the Slovak National Almanac of 1894, referring to him as "a meek, well-tempered man, affable and urbane in society, accomodating and good-hearted at all times. He was wholly devoted to the Slovak cause and his zeal often mounted to fire." In all their 22 years of close collaboration they had but one misunderstanding and that one was very minor and puerile, ensuing upon a card game and opera engagement. Three Partners Work Hard All three partners worked indefatiguably seven days a week, eighteen to twenty hours per day, for the royal salary of nine dollars a week. The work of copy writing, editing, composing and printing did not in itself requisition all this labor. The fact is that there were innumerable business details calling for attention and demanding incessant work and more and more and more of everybody's time. The most time-consuming of them was soliciting new subscribers by house to house canvasses. Their entire plant consisted of one room measuring about 16 by 30. It was divided by a wooden partition. The fore section served as business office, book shop, editorial office, and administration department. Here Slovensky's desk was near the window. Through the center of the room 130 SLOVAKIA there stretched a long table covered with green felt. At its head sat the expeditor who folded copies and prepared them for mailing. One side of the table was reserved for Wolf who had been doing editorial writing until Rovnianek came. In the new partnership, the other side was allotted to Rovnianek as his working area. The rear section of the plant housed the composing and printing department where Joseph Gallik and Morris Greenstein operated a hand powered machine. Only Slovensky had the benefit of daylight. For the others, electric lights burned night and day . Soliciting Subscriptions When Rovnianek came to Pittsburgh, the paper's special list of subscribers ran to 1700 but there was no business manager to collect payments or to check for active subscribers, change of address, etc. Generally it was necessary to send an agent to collect and to solicit subscriptions. On week-ends, Rovnianek and Wolf often undertook such missions personally because the new editor felt that such contacts were essential in order to "sell" the newspaper idea to newer immigrants and to those who still felt too impoverished culturally and materially to invest in a subscription. Rovnianek also dedicated himself to the cause of fraternalizing. He visited town after town. When national consciousness was already awakened, he advanced the idea of a nationwide organization of all Slovaks in America. Often he came upon a home housing 20 to 30 or even 50 to 60 boarders none of whom cared to be bothered about subscribing to a paper which none of them would be able to read. Rovnianek did not appraise such a situation as hopeless. ·He would take out a primer he usually carried on such occasions and tactfully but effectively he would demonstrate how one begins to learn to read. Patiently he taught sounds and syllables, and usually he sold at least one primer in that house before he left, happy with the satisfaction that the spark of literacy was lighted in another mind. Eventually, after a few subsequent visits and instructions, he was able to sign up one or more new subscribers from amortg those who had started out so humbly but -earnestly. SLOVAK.IA 131 In this way Rovnianek familiarized himself with the realities of life among his people in America and to form this knowledge and contact he drew factual material and background for articles, news items, editorials, and stories. He flayed weaknesses and failings that were avoidable; he censured lapses and deficiencies that were culpable; he commended diligence, virtue, achievement and honor. He could not condone sub-standard or unhygienic living conditions or loose and crude manners of life especially where children might be exposed to such undesirable influences. Exploiters inveighed against him and his paper but he was undaunted and carried on his vigorous campaign. Meanwhile Janko Slovensky began to experience a recurrence of the romantic urge. The wanderlust was upon him. His association with Rovnianek began to grow temperamental and finally in 1892 the partnership was dissolved. The P. V. Rovnianek & Co. carried on the publishing business and related interests. Slovensky married Mrs. Stewart, the widow of a sea captain and their long-time landlady. Then he settled in New Albany, Indiana, where he manufactured cigars until there was a relapse of restlessness. This time gold fever combined with wanderlust, and he began to prospect in Colorado and in Mexico. He hopefully formed the Elk Gold Mining Company and sold shares to Slovak acquaintances and to many who aspired to ready wealth. He learned from sad reverses, however, that his lack of experience in such a field served him very poorly. He had done much better prospecting amid the treasures of the mind in the world of journalism. From his gold mine in Mexico he finally returned to Los Angeles where family troubles were added to his business worries, and he died a tragic death in 1891. Wolf died in 1930. Their brain child, the promising pioneer Slovak American newspaper, carried on until 1924 when a large progeny of publications like Jednota, Ndrodne Noviny, Katolicky Sokol, Obrana, and Slovak v Amerike were capably serving Slovaks in America. SOURCES K. Culen, Slovcici v Amerike, Turciansky Sv. Martin, 1938. K. Culen, J . Slovensky, Winnipeg, 1955. P . V. Rovnianek, Zcipisky za iiva pochovaneho, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1924. Early issues of Ncirodny kalendcir.  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 First Slovak Newspapermen in America Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 18 (No. 41), 1968 pp. 121-131 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/58e736c35597fc360380bb232a58bd94.pdf 0796af79766589d3985fcf01f6273126 PDF Text Text SLOVAKIA 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right �12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College �SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, �14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of �SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. �16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) �SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is �18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through �SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." �20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its �SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national �22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before �SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation �SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. �SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. �SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. �SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � SLOVAKIA 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right �12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College �SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, �14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of �SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. �16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) �SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is �18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through �SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." �20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its �SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national �22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before �SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation �SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. �SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. �SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. �SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English. � 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 1970, Vol. 20 Description An account of the resource Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970. 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 1970 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 11 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Sister M . Martina Tybor, SS. C. M . You may heard it said both literally and poetically that Slovakia is a country strategically situated in the heart of central Europe. You may have read that historically it was the crossroads of trade caravans between East and West. You may know that closer to our day, American presidents as well as some European leaders hoped that it would become a bridge between the East and the West to promote world friendship. It may have also occurred to you that over long centuries it seems to be a land unfortunately fated to oppression though it did have a golden glorious epoch in bygone days and hopefully rose as an independent democracy out of the shambles of World War I. If, on the other hand, Czecho-Slovakia is to you and to many persons only a nameless someplace on the map and its people a faceless family among nations, August events in 1968 have blazoned its name upon front page news reports, and the events themselves have shaped a fair perspective to show the world who these people are--the Slovaks and the Czechs, two distinct nations in one unique political cadre. Unfortunately, too many preoccupied nations and unthinking men are letting news from Czecho-Slovakia unconcernedly slip to the thirc:i; and fourth pages of their newspapers and, like hectographed copy left in the sun, the impact of tragic Soviet moves upon a defensless and unaided natio:ri is fading from public notice. Good people honestly hope that the interests of freedom , liberty of spirit, private enterprise and national initiative within the concept of true progressive self-determination and political independence will prevail. However, if good people do not bestir themselves to act on conviction, they do not further the cause of moral good. Their well-intentioned hopes can be merely the stuff of vacuous dreams. And as they dream, destiny sites the wheel of time, spinning, spinning. Democracies may dream that evils will somehow right 12 SLOVAKIA themselves and that there is really no call to become involved. The oppressed and aggrieved wait, for reasonably they can hardly do more with the odds so hopelessly stacked against them, and they must dream that they will yet liberate themselves in spite of the present hopeless outlook, or that-unbelievably but possibly-the seemingly impossible probability-help may yet come to implement their liberation. The aggressors unashamedly plot, with less dreaming than scheming in their designs and efforts, to dupe naive free countries again and to steal another thrust, another vantage area in order to further the realization of their master plan. Ineffectively the world waits. It lets itself grow accustomed to the numbing shock. And as it waits, it too dreams on. History fingers the spun threads and weaves a pattern of events shaped by man. Is the pattern bound to be determined by fate? Are the cycles of ages bound to repeat patterns from the past? Do we learn from the past, build on it, or supinely wait in an easily oblivious present? Some consideration of Slovakia's past may help toward a better understanding of its present plight and its still undying aspirations. Unfortunately some writers tend to treat the historic backgrounds of Slovakia as a peripheral aspect of the Czech of the Magyar past. Some have been satisfied to accept without research or question the kind of political science and European history that biased Magyars and Czechs tailored for general public consumption. There are also some who do not know, others who deny, ignore, or overlook the ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic and political identity or individuality of the Slovaks. Add to this also the regrettable circumstance that altogether too little authentic Slovak history is known to the world at large and that consequently a discriminating reader is sometimes at a loss to discriminate. Happily, recent decades have brought a number of excellent histories of Slovakia and reliable Slovak studies published in English. Information is now available to the honest seeker. For centuries, however, this nation had been almost anonymous in history; it was a country not granted recognition under its own name-literally nameless because it fflJ.t}l~ged by stronger powers. When the first tatha Baptist Bible College SLOVAKIA 13 wave of immigration brought thousands of European newcomers to our shores, the Italian was identified as one who came from Italy, the Irishman came from Ireland, the German from Germany, the Frenchman from France, but the Slovak, incongruously, from Austria-Hungary. Yet historically the Slovaks are a nation much older than are many people blessed with national independence today. The territory which they occupy was the Danubian cradle of ancient European civilization that spread westward into Germany. The 1930 archeological expedition that the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania sent into Czecho-Slovakia reported findings that substantiate "periods of culture ranging from the Neolithic Age of about 3000 B. C. to what is locally known as the 'Roman' period of the first century A. D." It is pertinent to the history of the land to recall that even before the dawn of the Christian era several nations had lived in the territory now occupied by Slovakia. Greek and Roman writers record the presence of Gauls and Celts among these inhabitants. Coins dating from the first century B. C., stamped with identification of the Roman Republic have been found in Bratislava, and there is a third century Greek map of the region with many Slavonic markings for mountains and rivers. In the vicissitudes of historic developments, warring Germanic tribes also settled in the Danubian territory. To the great aggravation of the Romans, they frequently raided the Roman province ,o f Pannonia established south of the Danube river. To deal with this problem, Rome secured military outposts on the northern bank of the Danube and by 179 A. D., after a number of bloody skirmishes, succeeded in breaking the power of hostile Germanic peoples. The troops of Marcus Aurelius then advanced deeply into Slovak territory even as far as Trencin on the Vah. To maintain order and to guard important approaches in the area, part of the troops established the garrison Laugaricio. To this day a commemorative inscription carved into the natural bluff supporting Trencin castle reads: "In memory of the victory of the Emperor's army which encamped at Laugaricio, 855 soldiers of the IL Legion. Made by Constantine, 14 SLOVAKIA Cammander of the II. Auxiliary Legion." Incidentally, this is the earliest relic of written records found on Slovak territory. During the incursion of the Roman monarchy forces into Danubian regions along the Hron river in 173, the army was threatened by a drought so acute that the lives of the soldiers were endangered. But among the Romans there were some Christians from Asia Minor who prayed for relief. The triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius in Rome immortalize the fact that in answer to their prayer a saving ra~ fell and the men did not perish. Incidentally, again, there is additional historic value in this record, for it is the earliest reference to the presence of Christianity in the Danube basin. Though the might of Rome was challenged by Germanic tribes, Emperors matched strength with them repeatedly, and by 374 Valentinian claimed undisputed sovereignty over the territory. But the climax of Roman power also presaged a change toward decline. By 375 the migration of nations began to release its force against the face of Europe, and the already deteriorating power of Rome slowly yielded ground. Tribes from Danubian regions pressed into richer Roman possessions in the south. As the Romans drew back, tribes vied with tribes for supremacy and cut across many lands before coming to rest in permanent settlements. At the same time new tribes began to appear, moving through the mountain passes in the lofty Carpathians. They were the Slovan people, the forebears of Slovak ancestors. Somewhere in the maelstrom of events and movements, Slovak groups and related western Slavonic tribes chose to occupy lands that extended across the central Danube basin, reaching from the Elbe river to the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and the rich plains of the Danube river valley. In the fifth and sixth centuries, however the fierce hordes of Turco-Tatar Avars plunged into the Danubian region and swarmed as far west as the Frankish kingdom. They forced a number of Slavonic tribes into their service on looting raids against the Germans to the west and upon Constantinople and Salonica in the east. The subjugated peoples fretted and chafed under this yoke and looked to rid themselves of SLOVAKIA 15 it even as they withdrew from Pannonia and re-settled north of the Danube. In 624 a Frankish merchant named Samo came to the region with rich merchandise and a large retinue.' His was a peaceful mission but his interests were thwarted by the marauding Avars. To secure his rights and to maintain a favorable economic situation, Samo initiated resistance to the invaders. He hoped to force the Avars out of Panonia, their key stronghold. His audacity and leadership attracted the support of most of the harried Slavonic tribes, and their united effort under Samo succeeded in routing the savage Avars. Exhilarated by victory, Samo and his allies set their power against the Germanic Franks and conquered them also. In the ensuing period of peace Samo united the tribes that had fought with him with other Danubian Slavs to the north and with Slovenes to south, establishing an empire of extensive territories on both banks of the Danube. It is the inhabitants of these lands that originally came to be designated as Slovieni or simply the Slavs. Some historians are inclined to consider this as the first historic state of Slovakia even though it declined after Samo's death; others look upon it as the forerunner of the realm known as Vel'k<i Morava (Great Moravia) which was created in the first half of the ninth century under Mojmir I, strengthened under Rastislav, and brought to a climax of glory under Svatopluk in the second half of the ninth century. This state was the first political unity in central Europe. The territories consolidated by Mojmir I are historically designated as Great Moravia in the official work De administrando Imperio (Concerning the Executive Management of a State) written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenneto s in 950. Yet it must be understood that this second Slavonic state in the heart of Europe was not an empire with clearly defined borders. The temper of the age did not confine itself to any strict division of territory but the reality of an empire was there, including present-day Slovakia and Moravia. Nor could this reality be overlooked, for Great Moravia enjoyed international status, maintaining relations with the Holy See and with neighboring empires. 16 SLOVAKIA While political history was thus evolving, cultural history was also in the making. Dr. Hrusovsky ascribes the earliest Christianizing influences in the Danubian regions to Irish missionaries and to Benedictine monks working out of the monasteries of Bavaria. About 833 Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg consecrated a church in Nitra, the principality of Pribina. This event testifies to the efforts of the German clergy to Christianize the Slavs and it is a historic landmark, for the church of St. Emeram was the first Christian church among western Slavs. This is by no means to suggest, however, that Christianity was generally accepted throughout the land. As a matter of fact, it had rather slow beginnings, for though the people were interested in Christian truth, they were distrustful of all things German even the worthy efforts of German monl :s . Moreover, they were not at home with the language of u-e Bavarian preachers. These circumstances greatly ham: ,ered early evangelizing along the Danube. When Rastislav became the ruler of Great Moravia, he sent special envoys to Pope Nicholas I in Rome, requesting missionaries who would preach to his people in their native tongue. In this era around 860, Rome was not able to satisfy such a need. Rastislav then made another attempt, this time sending a special mission to Emperor Michael III of Constantinople. His petition read: "Since our people have cast off paganism and follow Christian law, and we have no teacher to explain the Christian faith to us in our own tongue . . . send us, Emperor, such a bishop and teacher, because your country is recognized everywhere for its good laws." The Emperor was interested and he was able to help. He sent two brothers: Constantine, a court philosopher and linguist who later became Cyril by monastic name, and Methodius, an expert in civil law and government. Both had already proved themselves in apostolic work, and as natives of Salonica they spoke Slavonic fluently. The gifted brothers came to Rastislav's land in Great Moravia in 863, prepared to teach and preach. Constantine brought an alphabet that he had devised to give their work permanence among people who were still illiterate. It was the Glagolitic script ( today's Old Slavonic or Church Slavonic, a later derivative from this was termed Cyrillic.) SLOVAKIA 17 He also brought as many translations of the Scriptures as he had prepared, beginning with the Gospel of St. John. His translations at this time also included a Slavonic version of the Liturgy of St. Peter (from the Greek) and various liturgical books. These works are the foundation of Slovak literature, and it is inspiring that it should have its origin with the phrase "In the beginning was the Word ... " Since some of the inhabitants of Great Moravia were already Christians of the western rite, the new missionaries celebrated both the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, using the Slavonic language in both, and they oriented the Church of the Danubian lands toward Rome. Unfavorably disposed clergymen considered the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular a presumptuous and unorthodox innovation in central Europe and denounced the brothers in Rome. Pope Hadrian II, however, gave it express approbation after investigating the charge brought against Cyril and Methodius (867): "Receiving the Slavonic books, the Pope blessed them and placed them on the altar in the Basilica of St. Mary Major ... and forthwith the liturgy was sung from them." ( Vita Constantini, Chap. XVII, p. 95) After the death of Cyril in Rome, Pope Hadrian II wrote to the rulers Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kocel': "We have decided to send you Methodius ... translating and using the sacred books in your language in all ecclesiastical functions, in Holy Mass, i. e., the Liturgy, too, as well as in Baptism, as was initiated by Constantine, the Philosopher ... " (Vita Methodii, Chap. VII, Acta Acad. Velehrad. XVII. pp. 113116.) Pope John VII also approved the Slavonic liturgy in his bull Industriae Tuae : "We justly commend the Slavonic script, devised some time ago by Constantine, the Philosopher. And we direct that the doctrine of Christ be preached in that language. There is nothing contrary to the true faith and doctrine either in singing Holy Mass in that Slavonic tongue, or in reading in that language the Gospels and other texts of the Old and New Testament, provided they are correctly translated ... " (Monumenta Germanicae Historica, Epistolarum T. VII, arm. 880Friedrich, Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Regni Bohemiae, Vol. I, arm. 880.) In spite of difficulties and trials, the mission of the zealous brothers prospered and it is 18 SLOVAKIA to their labors that the Slovaks owe the glory of their faith as well as the foundations of their literature and great cultural strides. The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century, built as a power against the forces of the west ( as Samo's had been a buffer restraining the might of hordes from the east), was exposed to continuous attacks from the Germans. Late in the ninth century, however, another menace overtook the people of the Danube settlements. Fierce Magyars poured into the lower regions and became a formidable threat to all the inhabitants there. In 902 they turned upon Slovakia with insistent and ruthless attacks. Beset now by hostilities from west and east, and victim of a coalition of Magyars and Germans, Slovakia lost her glorious independence when Great Moravia fell to the Magyars in 907. The foregoing century of beneficent independence and cultural development had brough to the Slovaks intellectual influences from Salzburg, Regensburg, and Passau which mingled with Byzantine culture and with western learning to give the Slovaks a rich heritage whose greatest boast is deep-rooted Christianity. The era after 906 was marked by fierce contests between the Germans and the Magyars to establish dominance of the Danube lands. Though they were caught in the pressures of the rise and fall of these powers, the Slovaks managed to maintain their ethnic identity and even their hope for eventual autonomy. Formidable castles, which became their places of refuge from the vicissitudes of war, date from this period and are still interesting landmarks. Closer to our day several have become sites of archeological explorations. Fated in all the long centuries from the tenth to the twentieth to live in serfdom, scourged by wild Tatar and Mongolian hordes, ravaged by the later ferocity of Hussite wars, doomed to a thousand years under the crushing heel of Magyars, pawn of powerful overlords, how did these people ever survive? The bread of poverty and humiliation, and the cup of tears and sweat which was their portion seemed only to favor their survival. And with it all they did not become a bleak and bitter people. Very appropriately they choose Our Mother of Sorrows as their national patroness and sought strength through SLOVAKIA 19 her intercession. They graced their lowly homes and menial labors with song and wit and prayer. Richness of the spirit transcended their material misery. Patience, perseverance, and undying hope are their unfailing heritage. Theirs is the perennial grace of resurrection faith and pentecostal hope. These fruits have come to the Slovak nation even to the present day as a natural harvest of the spirit. Disadvantaged materially, economically, and politically, the Slovaks turned to cultivate what no man can take from another-the talents of the spirit. It is worthy of comment here that the poorest of their geographic districts-Orava -a land so thin and rocky that only small patches of its ground can be spaded into vegetable gardens to yield cabbage and potatoes as holiday fare-this pitifully deprived area has given the nation many of its intellectual giants-poets, teachers, leaders. Circumstances that denied education beyond one or two winters of formal schooling just for basic literacy skills, except for the privilege of seminary studies, gave the country great priests who understood and fulfilled their role as men of God and leaders of their people in all walks of life. They are a long line of glory, men like Anton Bernolak with his monumental six-volume pentalingual dictionary and his organizing genius to establish the first cultural society "Slovenske ucene tovarisstvo;" Hviezdoslav, the epic poet and brilliant translator of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Lermontov; Andrew Radlinsky with his compendium of Slovak liturgical prayers on one hand and his journalism to fan fires of patriotism on the other; F. V. Sasinek, the historian; Stephen Furdek who became an unequaled leader and the father of Slovak immigrants in America; Matthew Jank.ala who founded the American community of Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius; Milo Urban, an outstanding novelist of the twentieth century. Speaking of the Hungarian oppression as a thousand years under the Magyar heel may sound like the easy glossing over of a difficult situation. It was prolonged agony but stating the historic fact is not to imply that there were a thousand years of mute and irrational resignation, of unmanly acceptance of "things as they are." 20 SLOVAKIA Nothing could make ardent Slovaks forget the pride of Great Moravia. Nothing could make them lose hope that there would yet be freedom and the glory of distinguished leaders in a free land. There was resistance of varying types and degrees; there were repeated appeals for redress; there were petitions for official intervention on behalf of justice; the most spectacular of such movements being the National Uprising of 1848 led by Louis stur and his close collaborators Joseph Hurban and Michael Hodza. Europe remembers 1848 as a year of revolutions. Central Europe at this time developed an awareness of Pan-Slavism which more than nettled the Hungarian government. There were also Pan-Germanic movements. Minorities and subjugated groups were not only restless, they were impatient for the restoration of their dignity and freedom; they were vocal in their demands; they were poised for action. The patriot stur led his armed rebellion in September but it netted bloodshed and the cruelty of gallows reprisals for many. Yet there was honor and pride in the effort and amid the bitter disappointments of foiled plans there were some bright moments of renewed hope. It was World War I that dismembered Austria-Hungary and brought about the Czecho-Slovak state. Though its creation was the act of the victorious powers and not the choice of the Slovak people, it seemed that perhaps the hopes cherished over a thousand fallow years would yet be justified. Since 1918, unfortunately, there followed the thorny years of coming to an understanding with the Czechs, for right from the outset, President Thomas Masaryk high-handedly began to treat the Slovaks as an underprivileged colony to be assimilated and exploited rather than as a co-equal partner in government. Consequently the Slovaks faced another period (1918-1939) of tension and threat to national survival. Post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia became a dual state briefly. On March 14, 1939, after Hitler's decision to make Czechia and Moravia Protectorates of the Reich, the Slovak Parliament proclaimed the independence of Slovakia and established the Slovak autonomous republic under the presidency of Msgr. Joseph Tiso. The world at large had generally assumed that Slovakia, left to its SLOVAKIA 21 own assets and resources, would never survive independently, yet in a critical period of world history this nation gained the recognition of 27 countries and it proved that an independent Slovakia is viable and can fulfill its people's ideal of a prosperous and vigorous independent national life. With the support of Moscow, Benes shattered this dream after World War II. Slovakia was occupied by the Red army, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was restored against the will of the Slovak people on much the same inequitable principles as it had had before, and with practically the same old problems-and this over and above the burden of the communist system. The Slovaks cannot tolerate domination by the Czechs because these Czech brothers are too ready to undercut Slovak interests not only politically but economically as well. The most recent political development in Slovakia has been the liberalization program under Alexander Dubcek and the re-vamping of the political structures to effect autonomy for the Slovaks as well as for the Czechs under a new Czecho-Slovak (not Czechoslovak) constitution for a federal state involving two distinct nations. And this is only right. It would hardly occur to anyone who is well informed to confuse the Czechs with the Slovaks; neither are there any grounds for believing that the Slovaks can be taken for Czechs. In the light of historical documentation and by sociological norms these are two distinct nations, two distinct peoples with national histories of their own and distinct languages of their own with only some accidental similarities inasmuch as both are Slavic tongues. When Dubcek came to power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Czecho-Slovak Communist Party, he initiated a program not in line with the heavyhanded policies of his predecessor Novotny. He did not promote the repressive measures of Kremlin circles, for communist though he is, he realizes that Slovak people will never thrive under a system that negates the values of Christian tradition and integral European culture. Instead of tightening pressures, he proposed to "humanize" the communist system-to relax the party's grip on national 22 SLOVAKIA economy, to curb police power, to guarantee freedom of expression, to hear minority opinions in government, to rehabilitate political prisoners, to ease travel restrictions. These were some of his "January reforms" under which the country burgeoned. These are the measures that Moscow cannot countenance and demands must be retracted. It is against such a way of life that the Soviets have sent their tanks, matching guns against ideas. The world looks on as the Slovaks and the Czechs meet with only their bare hands this overwhelming material force from the Red East-an army of a half million gathered to retaliate against newspaper articles and basic human rights. Thousands of tanks have come, readied to reintroduce censorship among a people who disavow it. The free world is shocked and outraged by such bullying and brazen invasion of a people's liberty and innate right to self-determination. The inhumanity of it leaves onlookers unbelieving and stunned into inaction. Almost as if to salve their consciences, commentators have been heard to observe that these people have been through the oppression mill many times before. Yet this is no reason why another chapter of oppression should be added to their history. Their history? A cruel taunt made against these very people was: You have no history. Where are your great victories? What are your historical boasts? The mightiest answer that can be leveled to counter this charge is WE ARE; in essence our very existence is our history. A people that can preserve its national identity, never relinquish its right to a free government, and survive agonizing centuries of subjugation, deprivation, occupation, oppression, and deliberate plotting to bring about their decay and extermination hardly need more to document as history. The Slovak people do have proportionate exploits and achievements though they do not chronicle dynasties or world-celebrated potentates. Their greatest history reposes not in documented words but in people. It is not a tangible something that can be pinned within a frame like a butterfly specimen and labeled This is it, for the spirit that makes history defies analysis; it cannot be plotted; it cannot be dissected; it cannot be positioned under a microscopic lens ; it cannot be trapped before SLOVAKIA 23 an examining commission or a saber-rattling council; but it is there. History, after all, is not a made-to-order commodity. Nations and leaders of nations do not meet on assignment or by some preconceived arrangement "to make history." Exigencies of time and circumstance bring their historic moment and their challenge, and the texture of a nation's leadership and spirit is bound to be revealed by the response. Though the Slovaks lost political independence with the fall of Great Moravia in the tenth to the thirteeRth centuries, their civilization was not destroyed. They occupied their land for long centuries without interruption and endured all the catastrophes that overtook them. Even under the Magyars they managed to become a cultural unit in central Europe with a university at Bratislava as early as the fifteenth century and later a Catholic university at Trnava in the seventeenth century. They have a distinctive literature, culture, history, economic capability, sociological and ethnographic individuality-the constituents for full recognition as a free nation. Their all too brief years of autonomy under Tiso are proof of their ability to function and to prosper as a free nation. Subservience to any overlord is all the more galling to the Slovaks as a nation with a long historic past especially in this era of brotherhood and decolonization. In an International Year of Human Rights when aspiring states in Asia and Africa were happily granted recognition and freedom, it is-to say the least-incongruous that a nation with every right to be free and independent and progressive should be coerced into puppet status in order to gratify the Soviet bloc, with all the world as witness to this violence and degradation. The victims of this aggression are only too well aware of the futility of force to wrest their rights in the present situation. Among views they have expressed are these, released to the world in current issues of the newspaper Kulturny zivot: " ... it seems that for some time we will have to communicate as mutes. I believe that a cultural nation SLOVAKlA 24 under pressure will transmit ideas by gestures, barring other means." "Our fate and very existence are in foreign hands. Honor is the only thing we can and must preserve-honor in thought and in action: not to be satisfied with evil and not to compromise with it; not to give up ideals of humanism and freedom. We are not the only ones with a stake in this situation; the whole human race may depend on it." " .. . The external force is a fact and must be reckoned with, without illusions. People have learned to wear fur coats against the cold. Against armor they defend themselves with spiritual and cultural values ... " "Something happened that cannot be undone. History has dealt us a blow but ipso facto something new happened to history. Nothing is the same as it was a week ago. We have changed and so has the world around us. Something has happened that has no place in the last third of the twentieth century." These are the voices of some of the Slovak writers in Bratislava. They are young people but their thinking has outstripped their years. Poets too speak of this Pyrrhic victory of the Soviets. A sampling from the contemporary thoughts of A. Murin, living in Canada, forms a suitable conclusion for this rapid survey: A BLEEDING LAND The signs are that we shall yet long document the words of the bleeding land ... The grain harvest was just ripening and the scythe readied; sheer loveliness invited smiles; the toughened palm was already weighting the seed gold-glistening on the August field. Nature presaged no storm; only the heart registered the seething volcano and the thunderous drum of march-stomping warriors. SLOVAKIA 25 Anyone who could interpret the graphs of the alarm-surprised wildflowers on the mountainsides knew: this is Ghengis Khan splintering the circlet of love; knew it was he who would cut low the fruited ears with a nicked blade to make it hurt, just to make it hurt the more, to burn and sear in the forge of the August sun. Vainly do you ask the goldened ears, vainly you question the furnaced heavens, vainly you probe the meanderings of the cascading brook: Why did the song become a dead sound? Why is the kerneled blade not transformed into loaved bread? Why this fate, worse than abject bondage? Ho, brothers, this is a for a long time, a very we shall document the of the bleeding Slovak palpable certainty: long time, words land ... BIBLIOGRAPHY Bokes, Frantisek. Dejiny Slovenska a Slovakov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks) . Bratislava: Academia Scientiarum et Artium Slovaca, 1946. - - . Sl.ovenske pokusy o vyrovnanie s Mad'armi ( Slovak Attempts to Reach Agreement with the Magyars). Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1944. Bue, B. S. Slovak Nationalism. Middletown, Pa. : Slovak League of America, 1960. Butvin, Jozef. "Martin Hamuljak and Fundamental Problems of the Slovak National Revival." Studia Historica Slovaca III. Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1965, pp. 135-172. Capek, Thomas. Origins of the Czechoslovak State. New York: Revell Press, 1926. - - . The Slovaks of Hungary. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1906. Chaloupecky, V. Stare Slovensko (Ancient Slovakia). Bratislava, 1934. Culen, Konstantin. Roky slovenskych nadeji a sklamani (Years of Slovak Hopes and Frustrations). Trnava : -Ostredie slov. kat. studentstva, 1932. SLOVAKIA 26 !>urcansky, Ferdinand. Prcivo Slovcikov na samostatnost' vo svetle dokumentov-Biela Kniha (The White Book-The Right of the Slovaks to Independence in the Light of Official Documents). V. 1, Buenos Aires: Slovensky Oslobodzovaci Vybor, 1954. Glaser, Kurt. Czecho-Slovakia: A Critical History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1961. Grivec, Francis. Vitae Constantini et Methodii. Versio Latina, notis dissertationibusque de fontibus ac de theologia SS. Cyrill et Methodii illustrata: Acta Academiae Velehradensis XVII (1941) . Hrusovsky, Frantisek. Slovenske Dejiny (Slovak History). Turciansky Sv. Martin : Matica Sl-0venska, 1940. - - -. Slovensko v dejincich Strednej Eur6py. (Slovakia in the History of Central Europe) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. - - - . Slovenski vladciri (Slovak Rulers). Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1948. - - - . This is Slovakia. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1954. JanMk, Stefan. Brciny do dcivnoveku (Gateways to Antiquity) . Bratislava: Tatran, 1966. - - - . Slovensko v dobe uhorskeho feudalizmu ( Slovakia in the Era of Hungarian Feudalism). Bratiillava: <'.:eskoslovenske Zemedel- ske Muzeum, 1932. - - - . Stare osidlenie Slovensk.a (Ancient Settlement of Slovakia) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1938. Kirschbaum, Joseph. Slovakia: Nation at the Crossroads of Central Europe. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. York: Robert Speller, 1960. Lacko, Michael. Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Rome: Institute of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, 1963. Mikus, Joseph. Slovakia: A Political History 1918-1950. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1963. Oddo, Gilbert L. Slovakia and its People. New York: Robert Speller, 1960. Pauco, Jozef. Christian Slovakia under Communism. Valparaiso, Ind.: Slovak Catholic Federation of America, 1959. - - - . Pod zcistavou krest'anskej demokracie (Under the Banner of Christian Democracy). Middletown, Pa.: Slovak Christian Demo- crats, 1957. - - - . " Slovakia Viewed by American Historians," Most, Vol. I, No. 4, 1954. Polakovic, Stefan. K zcikladom Slovenskeho statu (Foundations of the Slovak State) . Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1939. Porphyrogennetos, Constantinus. De administrando lmperio. In: Migne P. G. CXIII, col. 158-422. New critical edition published by G. Moravcsik. SLOVAKIA 27 Ratkos, Peter. Pramene k dejinam Vel' kej Moravy (Prime Sources of the History of Great Moravia) . Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia Vied, 1964. Sasinek, Franko Vit'azoslav, Drzava Vel' komoravska (The Domain of Great Moravia). Ruzomberok: Karol Salva, 1896. Seton-Watson, R. W. Racial Problems in Hungary . London: Constable & Co. , Ltd., 1907. Sidor, Karol. Cernova, 1907-1937 (The cernova massacre and its aftermath) , Bratislava: Novinarsky a nakladatel'sky ucitel'sky spolok, 1937. - - -. Slovaci v zahranicnom odboji (Slovaks in the Resis tance Movement Abroad ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1929. Skultety, Jozef. Nehante l'ud moj! (Do Not Malign My People!) Turciansky Sv. Martin: Matica Slovenska, 1928. - - - . Sketches from Slovak History. Translated by 0 . D. Koreff, Mid- dletown, Pa.: Jednota, 1930. - - - . Slovenske memorandum r. 1861. Turciansky Sv. Martin: Knih- tlaciarsky ucastinarsky spolok, 1911. Smrzik, Stephen. The Glagolitic or Roman-Slavonic Liturgy. Rome : The Slovak Institute, 1959. Sprinc, Mikulas, ed. Slov enskci Republika, 1939-1949. Scranton, Pa.: Obrana, 1949. Stanislav, Jan. Les Slav es, Byzance et Rome . Paris, 1926. - - - . Risa Vel' komorav skci. (The Empire of Great Moravia) . Prague : Mazac, 1933. Yurchak, Peter. The Slov aks: Their History and Traditions . Whiting, Ind.: 1946. Zachar, L'udovit. Borba za narodnu slobodu (The Struggle for National Independence ). Bratislava: Jednota Press, 1931. - - - . Sv. Cyril a Metod na Devine (Sts. Cyril and Methodius at Devin) . Trnava: Spolok Sv. Vojtecha , 1928. Zubek, Theodoric J . The Church of Si lence i n Slovakia. Passaic, N. J .: Lach, 1956. THE SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA is dedicated to American Democracy, the American way of life, and encourages Americans of Slovak descent to be loyal and alert citizens of America; it urges and aids Slovak emigrants to become U . S. citizens by publishing appropriate manuals and brochures in Slovak and English.  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 Will the Phoenix Rise Again? Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 20 (No. 43), 1970 pp. 11-27 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970 name https://slovakia.wordsofpassage.net/files/original/772859d41df01ca562f5584835e85c55.pdf 4fe0ec0875bb7915b4b223683798da43 PDF Text Text SLOVAKlA 161 Matthew Jankola 1872-1916 SLOVAK-AMERICAN PRIEST, LEADER, EDUCATOR Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. An observance commemorating the life and accomplishments of Father Matthew Jankola in this centennial year of his birth has the advantages of distance and historic perspective. It provides a very timely opportunity for appraising this leader and his life's contribution with fair and realistic appreciation, with a degree of objective regard for his innate qualities and his unique achievements. Father Jankola's life span encompassed only forty-three years and his biographical data can be summarized very compactly. BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE The parents of Matthew Jankola were Matthew and Rosalie Medvecky Jankola. They lived very ·simply but happily in Trstena, a picturesque town in the economically disadvantaged Orava district of Slovakia, and their son Matthew spent much of his early life there. But Trstena was not Father Jankola's birthplace, for he was born away from home on July 2, 1872, while his parents were at seasonal work in the Stary Budin sector of Budapest, Hungary. After his elementary education in Trstena, the boy Matthew continued his schooling at gymnazia in Bardejov and Beckov. Later, on the recommendation and under the sponsorship of his maternal uncle, the Francisean Father Emerich Medvecky, he advanced to seminary studies with the Franciscans in Hlohovec and in Kremnica. At the same time, the school of life steadily trained him too. With ardor and utmost good will he gave his all in order to prepare for the priesthood with a religious order but the evils of oppression did not spare him even in the seminaries of Slovakia. In fact, they left their mark upon him by undermining his health though no degree of im- �162 SLOVAKIA posed suffering could shake his spirit. This apparently all-pervasive atmosphere of oppression was one of the determining factors that led him to seek a better way of life in the new world. It happened, then, that because of many types of extreme pressures in his homeland-political, economic, cultural-and because America had become a haven of refuge and security to many of his countrymen, he too ventured upon the long voyage across the Atlantic and arrived in the harbor of Baltimore on December 19, 1893. He was not in prime physical condition at this time, for strain and exhaustion had drained his reserves but his heart was filled with a determination that was always characteristic of him and with a buoyant hope that here honest work would bring honest returns, that repression did not came with him on his long and arduous trip. In his soul he cherished the vision that he could become a force for good in this new world while he would also be a support and help for his dear ones in Slovakia. And so he began a new chapter in the young manhood of his life. He had come to America as a talented and achieving student in his fourth year of theology. He was not encumbered with misgivings or uncertainties about his life's work or objectives. Without unnecessary delay he enrolled in St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore but after an interval of illness had interrupted his seminary program, he transferred to St . Bonaventure Seminary in Allegheny, New York, where Latin was the language of instruction. His proficiency in Latin made him feel very much at home here and in two semesters he was able to complete the courses that he needed for the final rounding out of his training for the priesthood. January 13, 1895 was the date Father Jankola's ordination. He was twenty-two and had lived half of his life. From this date on, he felt in his soul that he owed filial gratitude to three persons whom he regarded in the role of father: his natural father who was very dear to him; his u ncle Father Emerich Medvecky whose Franciscan charity and solicitude saw to his education and the nurturing of his priestly vocation; and Bishop William O'Hara of Scranton who received him in America and ordained him p riest. �SLOVAKIA 163 Shortly after his ordination he received his first priestly assignment: the pastorate of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston, Pennsylvania. And from this center he extended pastoral care to seven other towns where Slovak Catholic immigrants were settling. He was subsequently pastor of St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and of SS. Cyril and Methodius parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he died on May 5, 1916. This brief and superficially simple biographical sketch does not even suggest any of the fullness of his lifetime. It is rather the bare diagram of plotting points, each of which opened upon an individual richness of life . BACKGROUNDS The pivotal key in Father Jankola's life was his total commitment to the priesthood. The fruition of all his living was in the twenty years that followed upon his ordination. The social milieu in which he had decided upon a career of service as a priest of God rightfully had conditioned him into viewing dedication to the altar as no mere token position to be satisfied by perfunctorily discharged liturgical devotions and ceremonies-significant and beautiful as they may be. To him the office of priest meant a distinctive way of life binding the priest to serve wholeheartedly as mediator, leader, educator, philanthropist and sanctifier of his people in and for Christ. Much in the mind of Vatican II, he developed his formation and his philosophy of life in the ideal that the priest is above all for Christ and for the people. In all his subsequent endeavors this wa:s his guiding principle, his constant. Even as a growing boy and as an aware adolescent, he had lived with the realization that among his people the priest was the one individual who stood for leadership, uprightness and learning as well as for spiritual ministry, moral guidance and ethical inspiration. He was oriented to his regard for the priesthood because the ruling powers that had shackled Slovakia in many ways had also-except by rare exception- denied academic opportunities for Slovak boys and girls who aspired to professional or scientific careers. On this score, the authorities relented only to permit seminary training for the sake of the priest- �164 SLOVAKIA hood, and normal school courses in a limited way, in order to prepare some teachers for schools. The priest, then, had to be more than shepherd of souls in Slovakia. He had to be the leading light of his people in temporalities as well as in spirituality. He had to be .not only teacher and guide in virtue and goodness but also a perceptive and courageous defender of justice and the basic rights of man. This is the main reason why Slovak priests sometimes found themselves consciencebound to take a hard look even at the political atmosphere in which they and their people had to live. And seeing the realities of inequity, discrimination, cultural deprivation, oppression and spiritual bondage, they had the moral fortitude even publicly to attack these evils and defend their people and their country; they had the conviction that as the educated leaders of their people, they had to have the stamina to enter the forum of public affairs and there champion the cause of the wronged, the oppressed and the helpless whenever circumstances demanded their presence in the public arena. Various modes of oppression, overt as well as patent, often discouraged or demoralized the average citizen who was usually much preoccupied with the daily need to provide at least a living for his family. The God-given beauty of his natural surroundings often put a bit of poetry into a peasant's hard life; the lilt and loveliness of folk song and folk music warmed his heart, and the ar tistry of hand crafted work brought him some gratuitous satisfaction through creative expression but he needed the wholesomeness of opportunities to cultivate his intellectual talents and his inborn creative gifts freely and even as a lifetime career, as a professional; he needed assured liberty and justice, openness and a sense of security so that he could rise above sheer drudgery and allow his spirit to grow expansive. He needed to nourish his life of the spirit as well as the life of his body . He needed to satisfy his intellectual hunger in order to develope spiritually and to structure a sense of dignity in his life. All this the Slovak priest recognized in his parish, in his town or village, in his country. More was asked of him than is generally asked of the average priest, and he had t o be a man greater dimension that the average man. He �SLOVAKIA 165 had to be capable of tactful leadership, of sound capacities for guidance and direction, of clear vission and foresight ; resourceful as well as prayerful, peace-loving yet fearless in the face of defending God-given rights, forgiving yet relentless in fighting injustice. In him converged all the likeness of Christlike being and behavior and all the paradoxes of virtue flourishing in a sin-beset world. This is the kind of life that Matthew Jankola chose with mature and deliberate will. Most importantly, this is the kind of life that he lived. Fire and ardor were of his very nature; integrity, initiative and unclouded vision were his basic assets; God, nation and fellowmen-in that order-were his top priorities; and the grit to endure was the price that he was asked to pay in the discharge of his vocation. Living here as he did under pioneering conditions among immigrants who were truly strangers in a strange land, he was imbued with characteristic missionary concern for both the material and the spiritual welfare of those around him and of those for whom he had made himself responsible. He was aware that the socio-economic circumstances which bore upon the immigrant Slovak laborer could affect him very adversely and for that reason he did not spare himself in awakening and revitalizing deep self-respect and dignity in the man who was burdened with inhuman hours and labors and even humiliation in the dank pits of coal mines, at the raging forges of steel mills, at railroad building and multiplicity of menial jobs of every description. Work itself is reasonably recognized as honorable but sometimes the conditions under which a man is compelled to work can conspire to brutalize him. And man must not spend all his working hours in just expending the strength of his muscles or he may become gross. FIRST PASTORATE It is worth noting that Bishop O'Hara appointecl. Father Jankola pastor of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston very shortly after his ordination. He knew how urgent the need was for this parish to have a pastor and he recognized in the newly ordained Father Jankola gifts of mind and spirit that recommended him, young as h e was, for a responsible office even without seasoned ap- �166 SLOVAKIA prenticeship in parish work. Pioneering often calls for practically instant response to duty. Father Jankola never hesitated in meeting the demands of duty and Bishop O'Hara had every reason to be convinced that his trust in this pastor was well placed. With complete dedication, an unusual capacity for work and keen administrative talent, the new priest assumed the new tasks committed to him. With apostolic zeal he made it a point of his prime priestly service to reach out among the scattered Slovak Catholics of wide regions. He did not circumscribe his labors and his interests to that one Pittston parish only. He felt, rather, that all the Slovaks displaced in America were his immediate concern, and his specific responsibility to the Pittston parish of St. John the Baptist included the Slovak Catholics of seven adjoining communities commonly referred to as "places" or "plejzy." They included Sturmerville, West Pittston, Wyoming, Port Griffith, Smithville, Duryea and Pittston Junction. At this time he also traveled to the Binghamton, New York, area to serve the spiritual needs of Slovaks settling there. From the very beginning these, so to say, transplanted and still rootless people who were largely engaged in railroad building and in the shoe industry, were content to use the church facilities that were very kindly offered them by St. Patrick's parish but in 1902 Father Jankola helped them to organize their own parish under the patronal title of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Important as this was, it was enough. He next did his utmost in order to find a reasonable priest to take charge of this parish or at least to offer temporary ministry to the Binghamton Slovak community. On countless occasions when no one else was available, he himself came to provide them with Sunday services, to administer the sacraments, to advise and guide them and to inspire and encourage them to cultivate their spiritual life, much like a missionary compelled to ride h is circuit in order to bring God to man and man to God. During this pastorship in Pittston, Father Jankola also ministered to the Slovaks of Wilkes-Barre and Swoyeville ( which was called Maltby in his day) and with his sound direction and practical acumen, he helped them to build their churches. There were over eight thousand Slovaks in Wyoming Valley region around Wilkes-Barre at this time �SLOVAKIA 167 and there was a steady flow of increase into this hard coal region as ship after ship brought more Slovak immigrants to American shores. From his parish base in Pittston Father Jankola indefatigably toiled among them, deeply concerned that the burdens and troubles of providing for material needs and livelihood should not crowd out of their labor-preoccupied lives the eternal truths that God bore them all in his love and that as they spent themselves on behalf of material well-being, they keep in mind and also provide for the life of the spirit and for undying values. In the early history of Slovak Catholics in the diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where there was a large concentration of Slovak immigrants, we find the record of these ten Slovak parishes which were established in the late nineteenth century: 1883 St. Joseph's in Hazleton 1886 St. Stephen's in Plymouth 1888 St. Joseph's in Nanticoke 1889 Holy Ghost in Olyphant 1893 St. John Nepomucene in Freeland 1894 St. John the Baptist in Pittston 1895 Holy Trinity in Maltby (later called Swoyerville ) 1895 Sacred Heart in Wilkes-Barre 1895 Holy Family in Scranton 1896 St. Michael's in Jessup Ten Roman Catholic parishes like ten significant reasons to make the heart rejoice! But then the stark realization that there were only eight Roman Catholic priests available for these parishes at this time. Two self-sacrificing priests in this area were obviously called upon to do the work of four. One of these was Fr. Jankola who looked after the parishes in Pittston and in Maltby; the other one was his friend Father Stas who took care of Olyphant and Jessup. PIONEERING PROBLEMS Overextended as these priests were, they realized that it was actually impossible to reach out to all the Slovak immigrants because they lived in such widely scattered places-some here and there in typically settled areas, others in sparse settlements and still others even in very �168 SLOVAKIA remote and unlikely pockets. And they did need the solicitous care of conscientious priets. Many newcomers mistakenly assumed a new "liberty" in America-the liberty to drink too freely, to look upon church-going as a practice better suited to the old country than to the new, to neglect the sacraments with easy abandon and live a loose life. In defense of such attitudes, they all too readily ralied on such specious observations as: "America is different." "I have a parish church at home in Europe; I'll receive the sacraments there." "I work hard all week; Sunday is my day of rest. No one should take my rest from me and tell me to go to Mass ." "Now i want to live. Later when I'm dying I'll send for a priest." Persisting in such attitudes, they would have succumbed to a generally unprincipled or amoral life. Surely they did need someone to bring them effective spiritual guidance and the conviction that freedom in America is not license to abandon religious and moral obligations. Father Jankola looked to the root of these problems. He understood that greater earnings and ready cash in America spelled greater self-reliance which sometimes tended to generate that degree of involvement with material goods that became detrimental to sound spiritually. Easier living here often brought with it a distaste for self-discipline and a laxity about receiving the sacraments. Above all, however, he saw that not a few men deliberately stayed away from church if they did not understand the word of God preached to them in a language that they did not know. This neglect of religious duty was only aggravated by an easy forgetfulness of home training and ready abandonment of many good practices learned at home and advocated in one's parish church in a distant native village or town. Unless measures were taken to offset these unfavorable trends, many otherwise well-meaning but unguided immigrants could stray far from the really good life and from devotion to God. Consequently, Father Jankola did his utmost in the discharge of his ministry and he accomplished very much good but the more he did, the more he saw still waiting to be done. On all sides he faced the need for more priests. Repeatedly he had to hear requests for priestly service, direction and help, and sorrowfully he �SLOVAKIA 169 realized that he was not able to satisfy many of them. Again we have the reality that this was a missionary situation and there were not enough missionaries to serve Christ's cause among the Slovaks in it. In his efforts to resolve this problem, Father Jankola made appeals of his own. On very many occasions he wrote to his homeland, urging Slovak priests and seminarians to offer their help in America. He ·s aw that priests, who could not serve effectively abroad because of hampering factors there, would find here far more suitable conditions and climate as well as an extensive field for their zeal and dedication. Very likely, too, he was prompted to encourage other priests and seminarians to come to America from their Slovak lands because he himself had been similarly invited and encouraged by Father Furdek. Now he felt persuaded that as Father Furdek had to some degree influenced the shaping of his own decision to come to America, he too should try to draw others to serve Christ and his Church here where priests were so sorely needed. Both he and Father Furdek often described the situation and made their appeal not only in personal correspondence but also in various publications abroad to which they contributed. On his visits to relatives in Slovakia, Father Jankola never missed the opportunity of making personal contacts on behalf of interesting likely prospects to bring their priestly talents to apostolic work in America. Naturally, some of this effort went fruitless but some of it did yield returns. It is known that he was instrumental in encouraging these eight priests to come to SlovakAmerican parishes: Rev. Joseph Murgas, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska, Rev. Francis Skutil, Rev. Anthony Berhely, Rev. Joseph Martincek, Rev. Emerich Gottschall, Rev. Ferdinand Prikazky and Rev. Anthony Filkorn. Four clerical students likewise took to heart his urging and on completing their theological courses devoted their efforts to Slovak parishes in America. They were Rev. Andrew Jurica, Rev. John Sobota, Rev. John Porubsky and Rev. John Gaspercik. By his personal effort Father Jankola provided pastors for ten Slovak parishes; viz., in Torrington, Connecticut, Pana, Illinois, and these eight in Pennsylvania: Edwardsville, Tarentum, Mt. Carmel, Monessen, Plymouth, Wilkes-Barre, Barnesboro, Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh) . �170 SLOVAKIA MISSION TO ROME After visiting Slovakia in 1901 and witnessing the unrelieved plight of Slovak Catholics there, Father Jankola went to Rome. The leading priests of his homeland had authorized him to act as their representative before the Holy Father and in reality he was qualified to speak on behalf of the Slovak Catholics of two continents. He brought to Rome, for presentation to the Holy Father, a three-volume collection of writings produced by outstanding Slovak scholars and a Latin brief or memorandum with which to acquaint Pope Leo XIII with the deeply regrettable plight of Slovak Catholics living under Hungarian rule and unable to make their own appeal for redress and relief. The most grievous wrong was that the Slovak language was totally proscribed among Slovak people. This restriction affected not only their everyday lives in social and business interaction but it also encroached upon their religious way of life. Even in church they were subjected to Magyar services only, even to hearing the reading of the Scriptures and the preaching of homilies and sermons in Magyar only although they did not know that language. Church schools, catechetical classes and all courses of Christian Doctrine and religious instruction, along with all other form of schooling, were ordered to use only Magyar as the language of instruction. This ruling which the Slovak populace first encountered with a sense of unbelief gradually made them more and more restive. In time, a people who had traditionally conducted themselves with exemplary respect and ideal regard for the priesthood were becoming not only resistance-prone toward their pastors who were under government control but even hostile and openly rebellious against Magyar and pro-Magyar pastors and against the Magyar hierarchy. They resented the government's interference in their worship of God and in a domain where government has no rightful authority. Since it was useless or impossible to try to negotiate this state of affairs with public officials, Rome seemed to offer the only tribunal of appeal. The document which Father Jankola brought on his visit to the Eternal City made an honest, open and respectful representation of these facts for the Holy Father's consideration. It was �SLOVAKIA 171 signed by Slovak priests who had witnessed and endured what the Slovak people suffered even in their conscience and it expressed some of their fears for the future of the Church under such circumstances. On coming to Rome Father Jankola spent some time with a young Slovak cleric, the brilliant John Porubsky, who was then studying there and who also served in the apothecary of Pope Leo XIII. John Porubsky was well acquainted with a number of Church officials in diplomatic positions and with matters of protocol and effective procedures in official circles. After he had discussed the main objective of Father Jankola in Rome, he consulted with Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa who was then Assistant Secretary of State and who later became Pope Benedict XV. Cardinal della Chiesa reviewed the memorandum carefully and decided that it warranted further referral. He took it to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, who was much affected by the serious nature and the further implications of the reported situation. After a personal interview with Father Jankola who confirmed the facts of the memorandum from his personal witness in his homeland, he arranged for both Father Jankola and John Porubsky to see the Holy Father in a private audience. Father Jankola's meeting with Pope Leo XIII lasted two hours. Both of the Slovak representatives spoke with the Holy Father in fluent Latin and the Holy Father was so deeply moved by their report and their citing of specifics that tears of sympathy showed the intensity of his response and his concern for his suffering children. Some measures of alleviation were the outcome of this appeal to Rome, for the hierachy of Austria-Hungary was instructed to introduce reforms allowing the Slovak minority to pray and sing in Slovak and to use their native language in church and at all liturgical and worship services. There was a second spring of spiritual fervor when the meadowlands and mountainsides as well as the churches again resounded with Slovak hymns and Slovak prayers at Mass, at pilgrimages and at popular devotions. It is generally agreed that this occasion on which Father Jankola called attention to the repression which the Slovaks endured even in spiritual matters put before the thinking of ecclesiastical officials the desirability of �172 SLOVAKIA providing Slovak bishops for the Slovak people, of establishing a Slovak hierarchy that would be subject to no local authority but directly to Rome. Such a decision did not reach immediate fruition but the climate was finally favorable for this step after the First Czecho-Slova k Republic was founded in 1918. It was late in 1920 that Rome formally established a Slovak hierarchy by appointing Bishop John Vojtassak to the see of Spis Bishop Marian Blaha to the see of Banska Bystrica Bishop Charles Kmetko to the see of Nitra. They were consecrated by the Papal Nuncio on February 13, 1921. FURTHER APOSTOLIC EFFORT From Rome Father Jankola returned to his missionary and parish work. With renewer ardor he took up his labors among those to whom he fondly referred as "transplanted linden trees." With an eye to the present, he satisfied first needs first, exhorting the faithful to a truly Christian life, promoting faith and prayerfulness , reprimanding lapses, instructing the young and the not-so-young, preaching with the spoken word and the written word, and living the life that he preached. With an eye to the future, he encouraged worthy lay leadership, adjustment to the American way of life and vocations to the priesthood and religious life . Father Jankola was a realist as well as an idealist. As he toiled to build the kingdom of God spiritually in the hearts of many, he also looked after material building for this kingdom. This is attested by the fact that his zeal led him to build a total of five churches, two schools and a rectory: a church in Pittston, Wilkes-Barre and Maltby; a church and a school in Hazleton; a church a school and a rectory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is astounding that in the twenty years of his priesthood he could accomplish so much both for the Church and for his nation. In his ardor to work for lasting values, Father Jankola not only promoted sound spirituality and provisions for fruitful parish life, he also encouraged vocations to the pri~sthood and religious life, spent him.self in the cause of church-orient ed schools, envisioned and realized a congregation of Sisters to teach and care for the children of immigrants and perform works of mercy in the Church, �SLOVAKIA 173 contributed many articles to Slovak newspapers and periodicals, sponsored and aided the publication of Slovak texts for religious instruction and language arts, and greatheartedly proposed the naming of a Slovak bishop in the United States. He felt that Father Furdek deserved the rank of bishop and that in his elevation all Slovak Catholics in this country would benefit inasmuch as they would have an official leader whose first concern would be for all levels of Church organization among American Slovaks as well as for the needs of the young, the training of seminarians, Catholic schools and schooling under the direction of qualified Slovak or Slovak-American Sisters. PARISH SCHOOLS The subject of a Catholic school system among Slovak immigrants was one of the major preoccupations of Father Jankola's life. In his second pastoral assignment he came to St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, one of the two earliest American Slovak parishes, established in 1885. (The other is St. Stephen's parish in Streator, Illinois, founded in the same year.) He was the fourth pastor of St. Joseph's which already had a combination church-school building as well as a rectory and a parish cemetery. Since these physical arrangements were cared for, he turned his energy mainly to the spiritual and cultural advancement of his parishioners. With deft organizational gifts he established confraternities, spiritual societies and sodalities, providing opportunities for all age levels in the parish to participate in at last one Catholic Action group. A program of catechetical instruction was already functioning in the parish but Father Jankola felt that the time was right for introducing a fully expanded elementary curriculum in at least the earliest grades of the parish school. Miss Catherine O'Donnell was engaged as a full-time teacher for the subjects that were to be taught in English and Mr. Andrew Ondek, the parish organist, who had been conducting catechetical classes, was retained as teacher-incharge of the school and instructor in religion, Slovak and singing. Father Jankola spent much time in the school, observing, supervising, noting the progress of the pupils and the methods of instruction. Very often he himself conducted a class. This innovation of Father Jankola stirred up some �174 SLOVAK'iA feeling against him. Until this time is was the prerogative of the organist--and solely his-to be in charge of all the instruction of children in a parish school. By hiring a teacher in his experimental full-scale school, Father Jankola seemed to be jeopardizing the teacher-status of the organist. On this score misunderstandings developed all too readily, and factions formed to support one opinion and oppose the other, depending on points of view taken and loyalties involved. This matter was a painful issue for quite some time but Father Jankola steadily and gently tried to disprove the unfounded fears that had arisen and in spite of these apprehensions, he became increasingly aware of the necessity to provide for the adequate education of youth and the training of children under Christian auspices. Because of this indefatigable labors on behalf of Catholic schools, Father Jankola has often been looked upon as the apostle of the parish school among Slovaks in America. Both his admirers and his critics knew very truly that the matter of parish schools was his dearest concern-the apple of his eye, so to say. One of his favorite observations was : "Religious conviction takes first place and patriotism second; the church comes firs t and right after it, the school." He did his unwavering best to win pastors to the cause of opening and maintaining parochial schools, of convincing the faithful of the vital need for Catholic schools for their children and most importantly , he dedicated himself to the task of providing competent teachers and encouraging promising candidates to enter the teaching profession. Father Jankola rightly saw this whole area of education for the young as the fundamental need of the day. As often as he tried to deal with it, he realized that the problem only bore upon his conscience and his professional thinking with mounting insistence. For over twelve years he wrote on this subject, presenting it to his reading public in various aspects and doing his best to find a practical way to put it into operation. Even as early as 1899, when he was a young priest just four years ordained, he spoke of it very earnestly with some of the priests who were closest to him in the Scranton diocese; viz., Rev. Andrew Pavco, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska and Rev. Joseph Murgas. �SLOVAKIA 175 Basically, there was no difficulty in gaining a general appreciation for the Catholic school system, but the whole concept of operating Slovak Catholic schools in America had to be framed within the American way of maintaining church schools. In their homeland, the Slovaks had grown accustomed to living in a parish wholly subsidized by a patron. This meant that under patronal sponsorship all operating expenses were met by the individual, the family or the civic body that was legally titled as the patron. In America all church operations, including the pastor's salary, would have to be borne by the members of the parish. Given a school situation, besides, the struggling newcomers to America would have to assume responsibility for all its costs, including salaries for teachers. The prospect of such obligation seemed quite impossible. Yet to Father Jankola this obligation itself was not the first and foremost duty of leaders and parents; the first duty really was to provide adequate education for the young with the understanding that the adults would have to learn how to support the school as well as the church according to American practice. Definitely there was much educating of various kinds to be done, formally and informally, but Father Jankola did not shrink in the face of it all. The genius of leadership in him dictated the work to be done and the good to be accomplished. Along with these thoughts, Father Jankola could not help comparing the cultural deprivation of immigrant parents with the opportunities that America could make available to their children. He was not blind to the fact that given an education, Slovak children could better themselves in this land of opportunity on which he looked as a cultural El Dorado, a spiritual New Canaan. Above all, however, he was convinced that Slovaks in America would have to begin thinking of themselves as Americans of Slovak origin and meet all their responsibilities as such. His constant reminder to his parishioners and to all where it would apply was: "If we are to live in America, we must live the American way of life. We must learn to adjust." And he made it abundantly clear that the blessings which America held for all were not exclusively material blessings; he greatly extolled the democratic principles and the gift of true liberty which are the hallmarks of true Americanism. �176 SLOVAKIA ADULT EDUCATION In this connection of adopting concepts of true Americanism, Father Jankola also tried to provide some compensations for adult immigrants, some of whom had had only two or three winters of schooling in their childhood, some of whom had had even less. Under his iniciative, adult education classes were introduced, concentrating on basics first of all-reading and writing. It was an exhilarating experience for an unschooled laborer earnestly applying himself to an unfamiliar task suddenly to pluck his neighbor's sleeve and to shout with the heady joy of achievement: "Look! I wrote my name! I can really write my name now! This is my name! Now I won't have to make a cross instead of my name anymore!" This was a first step but it was not enough. After basics followed classes in American history and in civil government with a view toward applying for citizenship and becoming naturalized. Citizenship would mean suffrage and a real sense of belonging, a participation in the community and the country of their adoption. EDUCATION AL SURVEY After his 1899 conference with priests closest to him in the Scranton diocese, Father Jankola was convinced that it was no longer possible to defer steps for the establishment of Slovak parish schools on the elementary level. For this reason he devoted much time to a close study of the American system of education which he frankly admired. He felt that he needed this kind of information in order to guide him in developing his own thinking. He felt, too, that he needed substantial statistical data as groundwork and for this p-µrpose he undertook a comprehensive survey of existing parish facilities for the education of Slovak Catholic children. In 1900 he published a report of his findings in the Jednota Kalend<ir, revealing that a) there were very few standard parish schools which he could classify as "first class schools" b) several parishes had provided for special classes on Saturdays in order to supplement the children's public school courses with instruction in religion and language arts �SLOVAKIA 177 c) the commendable though inadequate efforts of many parish organists were generally handicapped by overcrowding in classrooms as well as by merging a very broad range of mental and chronological ages into one composite group sometimes numbering up to two hundred pupils This survey concluded with an earnest exhortation that pastors spare no effort in order to establish schools comparable to the best that the American school system offers and that sound measures be taken to provide certified teachers. He knew, of course, that not all parishes were in a position to undertake a full school program but he trusted that a steady and well-reasoned campaign on behalf of parish schools would eventually be fruitful. But the building of schools would not of itself solve the problem of education in a parish school. Once the schools were built, they would have to be stuffed and he knew that there would be great difficulty in procuring desirable teachers. His survey indicated that in the schools rated as "first class," such as that in Wilkes-Barre (the only one of its kind in the Scranton diocese), as well as those in Johnstown, Shamokin, St. Ladislaus and St. Martin in Cleveland, and in Streator, Illinois were all conducted with the help of religious teachers-Sisters. He commended the Irish and German immigrants for their well-functioning schools, all directed by Sisters, and he very distinctly pointed out the fact that the Slovak people in America needed Slovak Sisters to teach in their parish schools. Man of clear vision that he was, he saw beyond that statement. His very words are: "Consequently, we need Sisters. Let us bring up our own Slovak Sisters! It is they who will preserve our faith and our nation. Reverend Fathers, and you Slovak parents, you who have in your parishes young ladies who are diligent, zealous, devout and suitable for the religious life, do feel responsible for making it possible for them to achieve this state of life. This will be a gift of the utmost value both to God and the nation; this will be a most noble offering. It is Slovak Sisters, teaching Sisters, who alone can alleviate this present educational crisis among us; �178 SLOVAKIA it is they who can save us from religious and national ruin. If we wish to live in America, we must live as Americans. This same principle was valid even in Rome. There is no other way of survival. I repeat: my brothers, Slovaks, let us establish parish schools, let us bring up our own Slovak teaching-Sisters, and God's help will support us!" As he urged priests and parents to encourage likely candidates to enter the religious life at this time, he did not mention any specific community, for he had none in mind. His survey did report that Ursulines and Sisters of St. Joseph were teaching in the Slovak schools of Cleveland, that Streator had Franciscan Sisters, and that there was " an English Sister" in the Olyphant school (Very likely a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or a Sister of Mercy). At this point, however, the core of the problem was simply to promote vocations. It was much as if he were saying that God will not be outdone in generosity ; that if only enough vocations could be cultivated, God could be trusted to provide the agents and the agencies for the work of Christian education among Slovak immigrants. He did not know that his own faith would be put to sore testing. He did not know the ultimate design of Providence but he trusted with an unshaken confidence and he worked on with unmitigated zeal . EXPLORING TEACHER RESOURCES At the same time that Father Jankola ardently promoted the cause of Slovak Catholic parish schools, he began to make serious inquiries at various American motherhouses and provincial houses, hoping to find a community whose membership might include at least some Sisters of Slovak or Slavic origin for staffing prospective Slovak schools in America and introducing into them American principles of education along with a wholesome Christian philosophy of life. Once he would know where Sisters were available, a sound program for Christian education could be launched with full vigor and the Slovak people would adjust to the American way of supporting their own schools. He did not foresee at all how difficult it would be to procure Sisters. At least four major superiors of religious communities answered his inquiries with the revealing �SLOVAKIA 179 news that even at that time it was extremely difficult for them to provide enough teachers for the schools already under their care. There was a normal increase in the population rate and as immigration figures rose, so did school enrollments increase and create a demand for expanded teaching forces. As a result of this situation, religious superiors felt that they would not be able to accept any new schools in the foreseeable future. This was a totally unwelcome but obviously prudent decision which they had to make. Disappointed beyond all expectation but still undaunted, Father Jankola next turned his appeal to European institutes. In all good faith he hoped that the old world would be able to compensate for the insufficiencies of the new. With prayerful anticipation he wrote to the Holy Cross Sisters in Moravia. He did not present to them any intimidating proposal. Very modestly he explored the possibility of obtaining a small number of Sisters, even three or four, to come to America, establish a foundation and train Slovak girls here for the religious life. He was assured that in time there would be enough applications for a flourishing self-sufficient community to develop on American soil, supported by the Slovak-American clergy and laity. Apparently there was much correspondence on this matter but promising as the outlook was at the outset, its prospects eventually dimmed and finally the issue was closed without satisfactory results. With great distress Father Jankola wrote in the Jednota Kalenddr of 1902, "For three years I have been trying to obtain Sisters from Europe, but my efforts have been in vain. Everything seems to be against us." These lines are an expression of that recurring disappointment that was to be his cross in this project, the testing of his spirit, and the price of an ideal which demanded sacrifice and suffering. Frustrated in his efforts to secure help from an already established community of Sisters, yet sufficiently disciplined not to surrender readily in the face of difficulty and repeateq disappointment, Father Jankola continued to pray, to confer with others and to plan. Since existing communities could spare him no members for the parish schools that he was promoting, the only avenue open to �180 SLOVAKIA him seemed to be to find prospective condidates of his own and to present them for training in an American sisterhood. He hoped that after their numbers increased and they had prepared themselves adequately, they might be allowed to branch off into an independent province within a mother congregation and continue their apostolate in Slovak parish schools. This suggested a very long range program but the eventual benefits would surely justify the patient waiting. All delays and price aside, one purpose of Father Jankola's efforts was to provide Sisters for the much needed task of teaching in Slovak parish schools. This was the crucial issue and the demanding challenge was where to procure them . COURAGE SUPPORTS HOPE In the spring of 1903, Father Jankola invited Slovak priests who were interested in the parish school project to meet for consultation at the Vendig Hotel in Philadelphia. He took this occasion to lay before them all his experiences in working for Slovak parish schools to this time: his hopes and disappointments, his renewed efforts and his present plan which would call for candidates from local parishes. The assembled pastors listened with evident interest. They were aware of the need to work with the young and they admired the American Catholic school system. Some endorsed the proposal and were willing to cooperate with Father Jankola. Unfortunately, there were others too who looked upon this new suggestion of his as too idealistic and extreme a venture, perhaps something out of a quixotic world and not suited to the times, not amenable to a practical approach. They did not hesitate to indicate emphatically that he could not count on them for support in such a project and they had nothing else to offer. This adverse reaction from leaders of people who lived with the realities of life in America was a blow to Father Jankola's expectations. But it did not destroy his vision or diminish that dogged persistence about him which would not let the matter rest untried. At least he knew now on whom he could count for advice and support and he had learned where it would be vain to look for help and understanding. He shored up his shattered elan and renewed his faith in the work before him. Resolved to test this plan and to have events prove �SLOVAKlA 181 the validity of this approach and anxious to test whether or not such an effort was of God, Father Jankola presented his proposal to several religious oommunities in his immediate area. It is likely that he now founded his hopes on either the Mallinckrodt Sisters of Charity or on the Sisters of Mercy. He had had opportunities to observe the work of both communities on a local level because they taught in parishes near his own. He admired their spirit and evidence of dedication and he ardently hoped that he might see their influence diffused among the Slovak people, but from both communities he received an unfavorable reply. It meant just so much more disappointment and so much more need for fresh courage. EARLY PROMISE Again and again Father Jankola renewed his search for a mother community that would accept his candidates (in due time) and train them for Slovak parish schools. He even decided to appeal to the charity of a rather distant order in America, the Czech Benedictine Sisters in Chicago, Illinos. When the mail brought him a reply, it was with utmost gratitude that he read that these Sisters would b e willing to be of assistance to him. With profound relief he trusted that at last this was going to mean the realization of his prospects. With this good news to report, Father Jankola held another conference with the priests who supported his plan. At these deliberations practical measures were proposed and four specific steps were agreed upon. The first of these was the decision to accept the offer of the Benedictine Sisters and to send three aspirants to Chicago. The others were in the nature of active endorsement of Father Jankola's plan, involving the promise or agreement a ) to announce Father Jankola's plans and prospects from their pulpits b ) to preach on the subject of vocations c ) to solicit offerings to support the undertaking This last provision was embodied in a fund called St. Anthony's Treasury. The patronage of St. Anthony was chosen because this Franciscan saint beautifully exemplifies that Christian charity that provides for the needs of the poor. Now at last, although no one could foresee what the �182 SLOVAKIA future held, there seemed to be some glimmer of success at last. On the following Sunday Father Jankola preached an inspiring sermon on vocations and after the parochial mass he found an applicant in his office. Before long there were two more candidates from St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton as well as two from Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre. Now at last, hope was moving toward reality. In the fall of 1903 the first three aspirants from Hazleton were sent to the Benedictines in Chicago and the soul of Father Jankola rejoiced that the great work was launched at last while his spirit trusted that it would thrive . HOPE DEFERRED Unfortunately this joy was short-lived and this hope soon wilted. After a few short weeks Father Jankola was notified that the Superiors felt it was advisable to withdraw his candidates because they found it difficult to adjust to religious life with them. The blow fell at the very moment when two additional aspirants sat in the Wilkes-Barre railroad station holding tickets for Chicago as they waited to board the next train. Just before the train pulled into the station, their plans were abruptly changed and they returned to their homes. This was a crushing report that reached Father Jankola from Chicago. He could hardly bring himself to accept it. His first reaction was to blame the young girls for want of endurance. His own training in austerity made it difficult for him to condone their failure and apparent weakness in the face of hardship where he would have expected an almost stoic courage and strength. Gradually he was brought to realize, however, that they did not lack generosity and good will, but they were wholly unprepared for trials severe even for seasoned religious; moreover, they were still very young. Home-loving and cared-for as they had been, they were subjected to an almost traumatic and total separation from home and an absolute change from their family environment. Chicago then seemed half a world away from Hazleton. Even normal adjustment would have been necessarily gradual, but they were at once challenged with the untempered rigors of Benedictine monasticism in a community where poverty was so extreme in those �SLOVAKIA 183 pioneering days that only a tried and proven spirit would have been able to endure it without difficulty. When the unhappy candidates returned from Chicago, they were not sent back to their homes or subjected to reproach and embarrassment. Instead, they were befriended and confided to the care of Father Pavco in Pittston until further development could be planned and arranged. Father Pavco then visited Father Jankola to confer with him about the situation. He found him shaken and extremely tried by this new disappointment. NEW HOPE In his sympathetic efforts to comfort his friend, Father Pavco called Father Jankola's attention to the "Blue Sisters" of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who conducted St. John the Evangelist School in Pittston just across the street from his own church and rectory. As he spoke, Father Pavco became more and more enthusiastic about the spirit and attitudes of these Sisters, and finally he suggested that Father Jankola consult with their Reverend Mother at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. As a glowing climax he remarked, "I understand that her name is Mother Mary Cyril. Our common patron may help here; let us try in the name of God." Discouraged though he was by the latest setback to his hopes and beset by numerous other problems besides. Father Jankola agreed with Father Pavco that it would be advisable to try again; but he approached the new possibility with a measure of caution added to his natural reserve. On his first visit to Mother Cyril he conferred with her only on the prospect of enrolling the daughter of one of his parishioners at her boarding school. He did not mention the real burden that lay on his heart like a cross . Before long, however, Father Jankola made another appointment with Mother Cyril. On his initial visit he had found her so gracious that he was encouraged to present his key problem to her on this second visit. Again he found her ideally understanding. This does not mean that she at once gave him any definite assurance but she received him with such Christlike sympathy and such evidence of maternal regard for the needs of young girls that he con- �184 SLOVAKIA sidered the consultation worthwhile, to say the least, and returned home with great admiration for her, confidence in her judgment and renewed hope for the all-but-lost undertaking. Providence ordained that Mother Cyril should be the answer to Father Jankola's prayers. With the consent of her Council she accepted his candidates and trained them with unexampled care and solicitude within the shelter of her own religious family. In fact, they were so close to her own Sisters that for some time it was not even clear whether they would eventually become an independent community or whether they were to be an element added to hers. TOWARD FRUITION When she first received the young girls at Mount St. Mary's in 1903, Mother Cyril did not immediately place them under monastic novitiate discipline but rather kept them in the boarding academy as students who were to be formed into candidates for the religious life by gradual measures. They were permitted to spend the school vacation at home and on such occasions they often became an inspiration to others and attracted new vocations. These students were maintained at Mount St. Mary's through funds from St. Anthony's Treasury which was supported by the mites of hard-working and generous people and the offerings for votive candles in Slovak churches. From November 21, 1903, when they first came to the Mount, their status was that of students. On January 6, 1906, three of them became postulants. In March of the same year Mother Cyril informed Father Jankola that his group would not be identified with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This implied that they were to form their own community. Father Jankola accepted this decision and suggested the name "Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius" as a possible designation for the prospective Slovak community. On July 26, 1906, the first members were clothed in a distinctive black habit, Bishop Hoban presiding at the reception ceremony. The fruit of arduous work and confident prayer was beginning to mature but its maturing exacted a further price. Father Jankola paid the greater part of it by bearing not only the normal burden of concern but also painful �SLOVAKIA 185 misunderstandings and unreasonable demands from parish sources. He even withdrew somewhat from the project after it was safely launched, willing to deny himself the satisfaction that should have been the reward of a work brought to successful fruition after many bitter and disillusioning trials. Much of his sorrow on this score was caused by more or less well-meaning individuals who hounded him and persecuted him severely because they saw in the promise of a teaching community only the ousting of organists from teaching posts in the parish schools. They believed that this would inevitably follow upon the success of Father Jankola's project. Blinded in their narrow reasoning, they would not face facts reasonably or accept the reality which indicated only too clearly that their parish schools in America were fast outgrowing the capacities of their organists reserve and that they had no other teachers with or without adequate training to conduct schools according to American standards. The Sisters were expected to relieve an existing need, not to create a new difficulty. Organists would not necessarily have to give up all their classes. It was one of those struggles which often arise when the old order of life must yield to the newer way and cannot do so gracefully. Added to this, however, there was also a painfully critical attitude making itself within clerical ranks. Several priests still doubted the timeliness and the wisdom of Father Jankola's efforts. At first they merely refused to cooperate, later they voiced objections and even spoke of other plans of their own. In spite of his stoic exterior and his disciplined habits of conduct, Father Jankola~s soul and sensibilities were deeply refined and sensitive. It hurt him inexpressibly to be ranked as a visionary when with all his soul he bent his energies to practical matters and used very realistic means to attain vitally urgent results. He suffered keenly because of all the conflicts brewing in his Hazleton parish and when there seemed to be no other solution, he decided to leave the scene of so much bitterness and open hostility, at least until the storm should spend itself. This parish had grown very dear to him. When its original wooden church burned to the ground in 1905, he worked indefatigably to raise funds for a new structure �186 SLOVAK.IA of natural stone. Within two years he collected twelve thousand dollars, a lordly sum in a day of low wages and small incomes in the midst of a struggling community of miners and common laborers. He had the largeness of vision and the natural capacity to plan a church of unique beauty and to execute his plans in spacious proportions, artistic in design and as inspiring as a prayer. St. Joseph's in Hazleton is a worthy memorial to his priestly service there and to the spirit of Slovak pioneers in the area. TRANSFER TO BRIDGEPORT In the fall of 1907 Father Jankola took a leave of absence from the Scranton diocese and was received with joy by the people of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who were then organizing the parish of SS. Cyril and Methodius. He wrote to Mother Cyril, "I thought I would make a solitary living here, like a hermit, after much trouble, trial and injustice. But my work is not yet done . . . I have to continue to take care of the future religious institution that I have started with God's help and St. Anthony's intercession." He would not be a derelict to duty no matter what it cost him in personal pain. He would stand by his ideals and convictions. Alth0ugh Father Jankola expected eventually to return to Hazleton his missionary zeal so engrossed him in the organization of parishes in the New England region that he finally transferred to the Hartford diocese. Besides his pastoral work in St. Cyril's, he also undertook the spiritual care of Slovaks in Webster, Massachusett s, and made missionary trips to Stamford, Torrington, New Britain and surrounding settlements in Connecticut. He was untiring pastor and missionary in new surroundings again. He kept in touch with Mother Cyril through correspondence. With her he assigned the Sisters to their firs t teaching mission at Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre while disclosing to her the demands being made on him. "We have only three Slovak Sisters-how can we send them to four parishes?" he wrote her in 1908. Yet in his concern for the cherished project, he maintained an unselfishness that commands administratio n as always leaning toward the common good. When the first Sisters were to be sent on a teaching mission, he made the disinterested recommenda tion to assign them either to Wilkes- �SLOVAKIA 187 Barre or to Lansford although he would have been justified in directing them to either of the equally large parishes of his own endeavors-Hazleton or Bridgeport. FIRST AMERICAN-SLOVAK SISTERS In August 1909, Bishop Hoban brought from Rome the Holy See's decree of approval for the new community. On September 1, 1909, the first Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius made public profession of vows and the community emerged as a new family in the Church. Before the close of Mother Cyril's term of office, they were ready to open a motherhouse of their own. For ten years their formation had been under the immediate guidance of Mother Cyril at Mount St. Mary's. At last the tender seed which had been long hidden in the darkness of Father Jankola's secret hopes and prayers, long prepared through seasons of doubt and storm and the intermittent sunshine of hope and promise, often exposed to tears and blessings, now sprang in good soil and, tended with paternal care and maternal understanding, was ready to yield glory to God through a harvest of service among the Slovak people. As some of the Sisters undertook teaching in the parish schools, additional recruits were being prepared as novices and postulants in the novitiate or as students at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. After twelve years from the time of their entry into Mount St. Mary's the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius became a wholly independent community. This status was attained in 1915 after their first General Chapter elected a Mother General and a Council for internal government. Father Jankola was happy indeed to see the Sisters making progress. He continued to be interested in their welfare but denied himself the satisfaction of overseeing or directing their development. From all sides he was harassed by demands for teachers but once the stability of the Community was established, he allowed it to mature on its own and to learn to shoulder responsibility independently. PASTORSHIP IN BRIDGEPORT In Bridgeport Father Jankola continued his work, which demanded tireless energy, prudent planning and great fortitude. He was equal to the challenge. His parishione11s found him serious and purposeful, dilligent and �188 SLOVAK.IA circumspect, devout and fatherly. With him first things inexorably came first. Religion and spiritual interests held priority over all other considerations but close in second place were patriotism as well as the arts and social graces, and finally a balanced concern for temporalities. Under hls direction the parish was firmly established and within a year it had six active societies as well as an excellent choir, a dramatic club and an evening school for adult education. These evening classes became very popular and profitable. They lasted from eight to ten o'clock and in time they offered mathematics and English taught by Mr. Michael Senko on Monday; Slovak by Father Jankola on Tuesday; community singing by Mr. George Lukac on Thursday, and dramatics by Mr. Joseph Michalek on Sunday. Additional subjects were included later to enable parishioners to prepare for naturalization. For the children there were daily catechetical classes which Father Jankola himself conducted after the pupils were dismissed from public school. Within five years Father Jankola managed to have the parish clear a debt of over sixteen thousand dollars. The church which he then built for seventy thousand dollars is a magnificent cruciform structure of white brick with a seating capacity of one thousand. It was the fifth church which he planned and erected, and with its inspiring splendor it is the crown of his building effort. A severely simple frame rectory was all that he permitted for his own needs. To make provisions for a school he built a plain four-room structure planned to double for a parish hall . It, too, was severely simple and those who loved it did not mind sometimes referring to it as "Noah's Ark." His Sisters came to take charge of this school in 1910 and it must have been with intense yet complex emotion that he at last saw the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius at work teaching in his own school. Within the parish itself Father Jankola fanned a great flame of spiritual activity. The Confraternity of the Holy Rosary was canonically established and it flourished amid these people who exulted, "We have brought Kosice to America," for the rosary was a traditional family devotion among them, awakening for them fond memories of pilgrimages to the beloved Marian shrine in the Slovak city of Kosice. A deeper spirituality was cultivated among those �SLOVA.K:IA 189 who joined the Third Order of St. Francis and the Altar Society. A canonically founded Sodality and the Holy Name Society held Christian ideals before the eyes of the young. It is remarkable that Father Jankola invariably attended the meetings of all these societies and each time left some lesson or ponderable thought with the members to inspire or to enlighten them. Through the choir and the dramatic guild he aimed to make art the handmaid of religion. Church music, folk singing, and classic compositions all had their place and were rendered with feeling and skill under the direction of Mr. George Lukac. Father Jankola had recognized musical talent in him when he was yet a schoolboy and sent him to St. Procopius College in Lisle, Illinois, to develop his talent. Then he offered him the position of organist at St. Cyril's. Born of mutual regard, a strong bond of devotion developed between the two. Drama under Father Jankola's guidance included a wide variety of presentations from monologues and skits through interludes and plays to grand productions like " St. Elizabeth," "St. Genevieve," and "Fabiola." Each one was staged before a packed house usually in a spacious hall rented for the occasion and it lent the entire community the aspects of festivity and a parish holiday. For major plays Father Jankola took the trouble to rent costumes and hire a make-up crew from the theatrical centers of New York City, and he saw to it that the staging was a satisfying piece of dramatic art. It is no wonder that his parishioners idolized him. On all occasions he was an inspiration and edification to them. He may have appeared forbiddingly stern and exacting, but they knew that his heart was warm and fatherly. The priest in him was always at their service, hearing confessions every day of the week even on Sundays, answering every call as soon as it came though he was without benefit of an assistant, ready to advise, admonish, comfort, help or serve in whatever the need might be. It was generally recognized and appreciated that he did the work of three priests. Despite all the demands made on him, his parish was in enviable order and he managed a tremendous amount of work for the general public. Scholarly and cultural interests were his hobby. It is interesting that �190 SLOVAKIA shortly before his death he began the study of Hebrew under a private tutor. THE WRITER One stands in admiration of the consuming energy with which he must have worked, for apart from all these accomplishments there is the steady stream of articles, stories, reports and instructions that came from his pen. He was a recognized leader in Slovak national life also, for only six years after coming to this country, he was elected supreme president of the Jednota organization (1900) . (The First Catholic Slovak Union-a benevolent society with nationwide membership.) From 1904 to 1908 he was a member of the Jednota judiciary council. In 1910 he was editor of the "Jednota" weekly as well as of its annual or almanac . In 1908 and again after Furdek's death, he was chosen spiritual director of the Jednota. He likewise promoted the interests of the "Katolicky Sokol," contributed many articles to its news organ and served one term as spiritual director of this athletic and fraternal organization. He warmly endorsed the children's paper "Priatel' Dietok," which was sponsored by the Sokol. He encouraged pastors, parents, and teachers to support it, and highly complimented the pupils of his school when their contributions appeared on its pages. THE LEADER Among the Slovak priests, especially in the eastern part of the country, Father Jankola always enjoyed a degree of prestige. He was generally esteemed their leader. It was he who first banded them together in 1903 for the purpose of discussing common problems like education and the training of future priests and Sisters. It was he who promoted an organization of priests in the eastern states just a year before his death. He was identified with many national drives and movements; he signed the Code of American Slovak Journalists in 1897; he initiated the National Fund (also in 1897) to promote national interests and to sponsor worthy projects. He undertook the founding of a men's Slovak Benedictine priorate and a men's Slovak Franciscan province in the United States. By 1910 he urged that steps be taken to recommend �SLOVAKIA 191 the appointment of a Slovak bishop in this country and suggested that Father Furdek be named the candidate since he was "the first, the most learned, the most respected, and the best loved Slovak priest in America." In 1916 he initiated a Peter's Pence drive among the Slovaks in America. These are some of the major achievements he accumulated before death closed the door of life upon him at the age of forty-three. And he aspired to more. He even dared hope to transplant his Sisters to Europe, "First opening a house in Velehrad, Moravia, where St. Methodius is buried," as he visualized his dream. In his greatness of vision he had hoped that they might "be the instrument in God's hand for the conversion of Slav schismatics to Rome, where St. Cyril died." These are some of the hopes of which he once wrote to Mother Cyril. UNTIMELY DEATH But death stilled his ardent hopes and healed his wounds. Added to all the trials borne so courageously there descended upon him yet the cruelty of a most painful hoax. Spent as he was with unstinted labor and exertion, it took the agony of something like this to crush his very last energies. Manfully he tried to bury the hurt but it worked its havoc and undermined his strength. On Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916, he was stricken as he preached at High Mass and he died quietly on May 5, mourned by thousands and appreciated even more in death than he was in life. After the funeral services at the church of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Father Jankola was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut. In connection with their Golden Jubilee observances in 1959, however, the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius arranged to have their founder's remains transferred to Danville where they are interred in the Community cemetery at Villa Sacred Heart. CONCLUSION It has been said with truth that Father Jankola was to the spiritual life what Father Furdek was to the national life of the Slovak people in America. To the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius he is the gardener to whom God entrusted the seed of their congregation, charging him to plant it, to water it with his �192 SLOVAKlA tears and sufferings, to warm it with his undying love. At the moment the seed sprouted and its first promising shoots appeared, at that moment in a Profession Ceremony, he said joyfully and humbly, "You are my joy, you are my crown, you are my glory." BIBLIOGRAPHY Archival materials at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius and in Jankola Library, Danville, Pennsylvania. These include: a) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola b) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola's sisters, Louisa and Inna c) documents d) several books of rare parish records entrusted to the Sisters Furdek, Stefan, "Z Ameriky." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo. I. Rufomberok, Osvald, 1893. Gregorovic, Sister M. Consuela, SS.C.M., Contributions of Reverend Matthew Jankola to Slovak Catholic Education in the United States. Modification of thesis submitted to the Catho.Jic University of America, 1944. DanviLle, Pennsylvania, Golden Jubilee Publication of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1958-1959. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske rehole v Amerike. Cleveland, Slovensky ustav, 1955. Slovenske dejiny. 4th ed. Turciansky Svaty Martin, Matica Slovenska, 1940. Jankola, Matus, "crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo, III. Ruzomberok, Osvald , 1900. Jednota (Weekly newspaper) . Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 19011916 passim. Jednota Kalendar. (annual ). Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota. 19001931 passim. Medvecky, Karol A., Cirkevne pomery katolickych Slovakov v niekdajsom Uhorsku, Ruzomberok, Nakl. vlast., 1920. Pauco, Jozef, Matus Jan.kola, knaz a narodovec. Danville, Pennsylvania, Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Slovenska rehol'a Sestier sv. Cyrila a Metoda. Slovensky spolok sv. Anny vo Wyoming V.alley, Pa. 1957. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Cleveland, Ohio, I.K.S.J. , 1965. Slovenski priekopnici. Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 1972. Petra~ek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Danville, Pennsylvania , Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Scotus Viator (Seton Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary, London , Archibald Constable, 1908. Spolok sv. Vojtecha, Katolicke Slovensko. Trnava, SSV, 1933. Spirko, Jozef, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretel'om na vyvin cirkevnych dejin Slovenska. 2 vol. Turc. Sv. Martin, Neografia, 1943. � SLOVAKlA 161 Matthew Jankola 1872-1916 SLOVAK-AMERICAN PRIEST, LEADER, EDUCATOR Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. An observance commemorating the life and accomplishments of Father Matthew Jankola in this centennial year of his birth has the advantages of distance and historic perspective. It provides a very timely opportunity for appraising this leader and his life's contribution with fair and realistic appreciation, with a degree of objective regard for his innate qualities and his unique achievements. Father Jankola's life span encompassed only forty-three years and his biographical data can be summarized very compactly. BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE The parents of Matthew Jankola were Matthew and Rosalie Medvecky Jankola. They lived very ·simply but happily in Trstena, a picturesque town in the economically disadvantaged Orava district of Slovakia, and their son Matthew spent much of his early life there. But Trstena was not Father Jankola's birthplace, for he was born away from home on July 2, 1872, while his parents were at seasonal work in the Stary Budin sector of Budapest, Hungary. After his elementary education in Trstena, the boy Matthew continued his schooling at gymnazia in Bardejov and Beckov. Later, on the recommendation and under the sponsorship of his maternal uncle, the Francisean Father Emerich Medvecky, he advanced to seminary studies with the Franciscans in Hlohovec and in Kremnica. At the same time, the school of life steadily trained him too. With ardor and utmost good will he gave his all in order to prepare for the priesthood with a religious order but the evils of oppression did not spare him even in the seminaries of Slovakia. In fact, they left their mark upon him by undermining his health though no degree of im- �162 SLOVAKIA posed suffering could shake his spirit. This apparently all-pervasive atmosphere of oppression was one of the determining factors that led him to seek a better way of life in the new world. It happened, then, that because of many types of extreme pressures in his homeland-political, economic, cultural-and because America had become a haven of refuge and security to many of his countrymen, he too ventured upon the long voyage across the Atlantic and arrived in the harbor of Baltimore on December 19, 1893. He was not in prime physical condition at this time, for strain and exhaustion had drained his reserves but his heart was filled with a determination that was always characteristic of him and with a buoyant hope that here honest work would bring honest returns, that repression did not came with him on his long and arduous trip. In his soul he cherished the vision that he could become a force for good in this new world while he would also be a support and help for his dear ones in Slovakia. And so he began a new chapter in the young manhood of his life. He had come to America as a talented and achieving student in his fourth year of theology. He was not encumbered with misgivings or uncertainties about his life's work or objectives. Without unnecessary delay he enrolled in St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore but after an interval of illness had interrupted his seminary program, he transferred to St . Bonaventure Seminary in Allegheny, New York, where Latin was the language of instruction. His proficiency in Latin made him feel very much at home here and in two semesters he was able to complete the courses that he needed for the final rounding out of his training for the priesthood. January 13, 1895 was the date Father Jankola's ordination. He was twenty-two and had lived half of his life. From this date on, he felt in his soul that he owed filial gratitude to three persons whom he regarded in the role of father: his natural father who was very dear to him; his u ncle Father Emerich Medvecky whose Franciscan charity and solicitude saw to his education and the nurturing of his priestly vocation; and Bishop William O'Hara of Scranton who received him in America and ordained him p riest. �SLOVAKIA 163 Shortly after his ordination he received his first priestly assignment: the pastorate of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston, Pennsylvania. And from this center he extended pastoral care to seven other towns where Slovak Catholic immigrants were settling. He was subsequently pastor of St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and of SS. Cyril and Methodius parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he died on May 5, 1916. This brief and superficially simple biographical sketch does not even suggest any of the fullness of his lifetime. It is rather the bare diagram of plotting points, each of which opened upon an individual richness of life . BACKGROUNDS The pivotal key in Father Jankola's life was his total commitment to the priesthood. The fruition of all his living was in the twenty years that followed upon his ordination. The social milieu in which he had decided upon a career of service as a priest of God rightfully had conditioned him into viewing dedication to the altar as no mere token position to be satisfied by perfunctorily discharged liturgical devotions and ceremonies-significant and beautiful as they may be. To him the office of priest meant a distinctive way of life binding the priest to serve wholeheartedly as mediator, leader, educator, philanthropist and sanctifier of his people in and for Christ. Much in the mind of Vatican II, he developed his formation and his philosophy of life in the ideal that the priest is above all for Christ and for the people. In all his subsequent endeavors this wa:s his guiding principle, his constant. Even as a growing boy and as an aware adolescent, he had lived with the realization that among his people the priest was the one individual who stood for leadership, uprightness and learning as well as for spiritual ministry, moral guidance and ethical inspiration. He was oriented to his regard for the priesthood because the ruling powers that had shackled Slovakia in many ways had also-except by rare exception- denied academic opportunities for Slovak boys and girls who aspired to professional or scientific careers. On this score, the authorities relented only to permit seminary training for the sake of the priest- �164 SLOVAKIA hood, and normal school courses in a limited way, in order to prepare some teachers for schools. The priest, then, had to be more than shepherd of souls in Slovakia. He had to be the leading light of his people in temporalities as well as in spirituality. He had to be .not only teacher and guide in virtue and goodness but also a perceptive and courageous defender of justice and the basic rights of man. This is the main reason why Slovak priests sometimes found themselves consciencebound to take a hard look even at the political atmosphere in which they and their people had to live. And seeing the realities of inequity, discrimination, cultural deprivation, oppression and spiritual bondage, they had the moral fortitude even publicly to attack these evils and defend their people and their country; they had the conviction that as the educated leaders of their people, they had to have the stamina to enter the forum of public affairs and there champion the cause of the wronged, the oppressed and the helpless whenever circumstances demanded their presence in the public arena. Various modes of oppression, overt as well as patent, often discouraged or demoralized the average citizen who was usually much preoccupied with the daily need to provide at least a living for his family. The God-given beauty of his natural surroundings often put a bit of poetry into a peasant's hard life; the lilt and loveliness of folk song and folk music warmed his heart, and the ar tistry of hand crafted work brought him some gratuitous satisfaction through creative expression but he needed the wholesomeness of opportunities to cultivate his intellectual talents and his inborn creative gifts freely and even as a lifetime career, as a professional; he needed assured liberty and justice, openness and a sense of security so that he could rise above sheer drudgery and allow his spirit to grow expansive. He needed to nourish his life of the spirit as well as the life of his body . He needed to satisfy his intellectual hunger in order to develope spiritually and to structure a sense of dignity in his life. All this the Slovak priest recognized in his parish, in his town or village, in his country. More was asked of him than is generally asked of the average priest, and he had t o be a man greater dimension that the average man. He �SLOVAKIA 165 had to be capable of tactful leadership, of sound capacities for guidance and direction, of clear vission and foresight ; resourceful as well as prayerful, peace-loving yet fearless in the face of defending God-given rights, forgiving yet relentless in fighting injustice. In him converged all the likeness of Christlike being and behavior and all the paradoxes of virtue flourishing in a sin-beset world. This is the kind of life that Matthew Jankola chose with mature and deliberate will. Most importantly, this is the kind of life that he lived. Fire and ardor were of his very nature; integrity, initiative and unclouded vision were his basic assets; God, nation and fellowmen-in that order-were his top priorities; and the grit to endure was the price that he was asked to pay in the discharge of his vocation. Living here as he did under pioneering conditions among immigrants who were truly strangers in a strange land, he was imbued with characteristic missionary concern for both the material and the spiritual welfare of those around him and of those for whom he had made himself responsible. He was aware that the socio-economic circumstances which bore upon the immigrant Slovak laborer could affect him very adversely and for that reason he did not spare himself in awakening and revitalizing deep self-respect and dignity in the man who was burdened with inhuman hours and labors and even humiliation in the dank pits of coal mines, at the raging forges of steel mills, at railroad building and multiplicity of menial jobs of every description. Work itself is reasonably recognized as honorable but sometimes the conditions under which a man is compelled to work can conspire to brutalize him. And man must not spend all his working hours in just expending the strength of his muscles or he may become gross. FIRST PASTORATE It is worth noting that Bishop O'Hara appointecl. Father Jankola pastor of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston very shortly after his ordination. He knew how urgent the need was for this parish to have a pastor and he recognized in the newly ordained Father Jankola gifts of mind and spirit that recommended him, young as h e was, for a responsible office even without seasoned ap- �166 SLOVAKIA prenticeship in parish work. Pioneering often calls for practically instant response to duty. Father Jankola never hesitated in meeting the demands of duty and Bishop O'Hara had every reason to be convinced that his trust in this pastor was well placed. With complete dedication, an unusual capacity for work and keen administrative talent, the new priest assumed the new tasks committed to him. With apostolic zeal he made it a point of his prime priestly service to reach out among the scattered Slovak Catholics of wide regions. He did not circumscribe his labors and his interests to that one Pittston parish only. He felt, rather, that all the Slovaks displaced in America were his immediate concern, and his specific responsibility to the Pittston parish of St. John the Baptist included the Slovak Catholics of seven adjoining communities commonly referred to as "places" or "plejzy." They included Sturmerville, West Pittston, Wyoming, Port Griffith, Smithville, Duryea and Pittston Junction. At this time he also traveled to the Binghamton, New York, area to serve the spiritual needs of Slovaks settling there. From the very beginning these, so to say, transplanted and still rootless people who were largely engaged in railroad building and in the shoe industry, were content to use the church facilities that were very kindly offered them by St. Patrick's parish but in 1902 Father Jankola helped them to organize their own parish under the patronal title of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Important as this was, it was enough. He next did his utmost in order to find a reasonable priest to take charge of this parish or at least to offer temporary ministry to the Binghamton Slovak community. On countless occasions when no one else was available, he himself came to provide them with Sunday services, to administer the sacraments, to advise and guide them and to inspire and encourage them to cultivate their spiritual life, much like a missionary compelled to ride h is circuit in order to bring God to man and man to God. During this pastorship in Pittston, Father Jankola also ministered to the Slovaks of Wilkes-Barre and Swoyeville ( which was called Maltby in his day) and with his sound direction and practical acumen, he helped them to build their churches. There were over eight thousand Slovaks in Wyoming Valley region around Wilkes-Barre at this time �SLOVAKIA 167 and there was a steady flow of increase into this hard coal region as ship after ship brought more Slovak immigrants to American shores. From his parish base in Pittston Father Jankola indefatigably toiled among them, deeply concerned that the burdens and troubles of providing for material needs and livelihood should not crowd out of their labor-preoccupied lives the eternal truths that God bore them all in his love and that as they spent themselves on behalf of material well-being, they keep in mind and also provide for the life of the spirit and for undying values. In the early history of Slovak Catholics in the diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where there was a large concentration of Slovak immigrants, we find the record of these ten Slovak parishes which were established in the late nineteenth century: 1883 St. Joseph's in Hazleton 1886 St. Stephen's in Plymouth 1888 St. Joseph's in Nanticoke 1889 Holy Ghost in Olyphant 1893 St. John Nepomucene in Freeland 1894 St. John the Baptist in Pittston 1895 Holy Trinity in Maltby (later called Swoyerville ) 1895 Sacred Heart in Wilkes-Barre 1895 Holy Family in Scranton 1896 St. Michael's in Jessup Ten Roman Catholic parishes like ten significant reasons to make the heart rejoice! But then the stark realization that there were only eight Roman Catholic priests available for these parishes at this time. Two self-sacrificing priests in this area were obviously called upon to do the work of four. One of these was Fr. Jankola who looked after the parishes in Pittston and in Maltby; the other one was his friend Father Stas who took care of Olyphant and Jessup. PIONEERING PROBLEMS Overextended as these priests were, they realized that it was actually impossible to reach out to all the Slovak immigrants because they lived in such widely scattered places-some here and there in typically settled areas, others in sparse settlements and still others even in very �168 SLOVAKIA remote and unlikely pockets. And they did need the solicitous care of conscientious priets. Many newcomers mistakenly assumed a new "liberty" in America-the liberty to drink too freely, to look upon church-going as a practice better suited to the old country than to the new, to neglect the sacraments with easy abandon and live a loose life. In defense of such attitudes, they all too readily ralied on such specious observations as: "America is different." "I have a parish church at home in Europe; I'll receive the sacraments there." "I work hard all week; Sunday is my day of rest. No one should take my rest from me and tell me to go to Mass ." "Now i want to live. Later when I'm dying I'll send for a priest." Persisting in such attitudes, they would have succumbed to a generally unprincipled or amoral life. Surely they did need someone to bring them effective spiritual guidance and the conviction that freedom in America is not license to abandon religious and moral obligations. Father Jankola looked to the root of these problems. He understood that greater earnings and ready cash in America spelled greater self-reliance which sometimes tended to generate that degree of involvement with material goods that became detrimental to sound spiritually. Easier living here often brought with it a distaste for self-discipline and a laxity about receiving the sacraments. Above all, however, he saw that not a few men deliberately stayed away from church if they did not understand the word of God preached to them in a language that they did not know. This neglect of religious duty was only aggravated by an easy forgetfulness of home training and ready abandonment of many good practices learned at home and advocated in one's parish church in a distant native village or town. Unless measures were taken to offset these unfavorable trends, many otherwise well-meaning but unguided immigrants could stray far from the really good life and from devotion to God. Consequently, Father Jankola did his utmost in the discharge of his ministry and he accomplished very much good but the more he did, the more he saw still waiting to be done. On all sides he faced the need for more priests. Repeatedly he had to hear requests for priestly service, direction and help, and sorrowfully he �SLOVAKIA 169 realized that he was not able to satisfy many of them. Again we have the reality that this was a missionary situation and there were not enough missionaries to serve Christ's cause among the Slovaks in it. In his efforts to resolve this problem, Father Jankola made appeals of his own. On very many occasions he wrote to his homeland, urging Slovak priests and seminarians to offer their help in America. He ·s aw that priests, who could not serve effectively abroad because of hampering factors there, would find here far more suitable conditions and climate as well as an extensive field for their zeal and dedication. Very likely, too, he was prompted to encourage other priests and seminarians to come to America from their Slovak lands because he himself had been similarly invited and encouraged by Father Furdek. Now he felt persuaded that as Father Furdek had to some degree influenced the shaping of his own decision to come to America, he too should try to draw others to serve Christ and his Church here where priests were so sorely needed. Both he and Father Furdek often described the situation and made their appeal not only in personal correspondence but also in various publications abroad to which they contributed. On his visits to relatives in Slovakia, Father Jankola never missed the opportunity of making personal contacts on behalf of interesting likely prospects to bring their priestly talents to apostolic work in America. Naturally, some of this effort went fruitless but some of it did yield returns. It is known that he was instrumental in encouraging these eight priests to come to SlovakAmerican parishes: Rev. Joseph Murgas, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska, Rev. Francis Skutil, Rev. Anthony Berhely, Rev. Joseph Martincek, Rev. Emerich Gottschall, Rev. Ferdinand Prikazky and Rev. Anthony Filkorn. Four clerical students likewise took to heart his urging and on completing their theological courses devoted their efforts to Slovak parishes in America. They were Rev. Andrew Jurica, Rev. John Sobota, Rev. John Porubsky and Rev. John Gaspercik. By his personal effort Father Jankola provided pastors for ten Slovak parishes; viz., in Torrington, Connecticut, Pana, Illinois, and these eight in Pennsylvania: Edwardsville, Tarentum, Mt. Carmel, Monessen, Plymouth, Wilkes-Barre, Barnesboro, Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh) . �170 SLOVAKIA MISSION TO ROME After visiting Slovakia in 1901 and witnessing the unrelieved plight of Slovak Catholics there, Father Jankola went to Rome. The leading priests of his homeland had authorized him to act as their representative before the Holy Father and in reality he was qualified to speak on behalf of the Slovak Catholics of two continents. He brought to Rome, for presentation to the Holy Father, a three-volume collection of writings produced by outstanding Slovak scholars and a Latin brief or memorandum with which to acquaint Pope Leo XIII with the deeply regrettable plight of Slovak Catholics living under Hungarian rule and unable to make their own appeal for redress and relief. The most grievous wrong was that the Slovak language was totally proscribed among Slovak people. This restriction affected not only their everyday lives in social and business interaction but it also encroached upon their religious way of life. Even in church they were subjected to Magyar services only, even to hearing the reading of the Scriptures and the preaching of homilies and sermons in Magyar only although they did not know that language. Church schools, catechetical classes and all courses of Christian Doctrine and religious instruction, along with all other form of schooling, were ordered to use only Magyar as the language of instruction. This ruling which the Slovak populace first encountered with a sense of unbelief gradually made them more and more restive. In time, a people who had traditionally conducted themselves with exemplary respect and ideal regard for the priesthood were becoming not only resistance-prone toward their pastors who were under government control but even hostile and openly rebellious against Magyar and pro-Magyar pastors and against the Magyar hierarchy. They resented the government's interference in their worship of God and in a domain where government has no rightful authority. Since it was useless or impossible to try to negotiate this state of affairs with public officials, Rome seemed to offer the only tribunal of appeal. The document which Father Jankola brought on his visit to the Eternal City made an honest, open and respectful representation of these facts for the Holy Father's consideration. It was �SLOVAKIA 171 signed by Slovak priests who had witnessed and endured what the Slovak people suffered even in their conscience and it expressed some of their fears for the future of the Church under such circumstances. On coming to Rome Father Jankola spent some time with a young Slovak cleric, the brilliant John Porubsky, who was then studying there and who also served in the apothecary of Pope Leo XIII. John Porubsky was well acquainted with a number of Church officials in diplomatic positions and with matters of protocol and effective procedures in official circles. After he had discussed the main objective of Father Jankola in Rome, he consulted with Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa who was then Assistant Secretary of State and who later became Pope Benedict XV. Cardinal della Chiesa reviewed the memorandum carefully and decided that it warranted further referral. He took it to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, who was much affected by the serious nature and the further implications of the reported situation. After a personal interview with Father Jankola who confirmed the facts of the memorandum from his personal witness in his homeland, he arranged for both Father Jankola and John Porubsky to see the Holy Father in a private audience. Father Jankola's meeting with Pope Leo XIII lasted two hours. Both of the Slovak representatives spoke with the Holy Father in fluent Latin and the Holy Father was so deeply moved by their report and their citing of specifics that tears of sympathy showed the intensity of his response and his concern for his suffering children. Some measures of alleviation were the outcome of this appeal to Rome, for the hierachy of Austria-Hungary was instructed to introduce reforms allowing the Slovak minority to pray and sing in Slovak and to use their native language in church and at all liturgical and worship services. There was a second spring of spiritual fervor when the meadowlands and mountainsides as well as the churches again resounded with Slovak hymns and Slovak prayers at Mass, at pilgrimages and at popular devotions. It is generally agreed that this occasion on which Father Jankola called attention to the repression which the Slovaks endured even in spiritual matters put before the thinking of ecclesiastical officials the desirability of �172 SLOVAKIA providing Slovak bishops for the Slovak people, of establishing a Slovak hierarchy that would be subject to no local authority but directly to Rome. Such a decision did not reach immediate fruition but the climate was finally favorable for this step after the First Czecho-Slova k Republic was founded in 1918. It was late in 1920 that Rome formally established a Slovak hierarchy by appointing Bishop John Vojtassak to the see of Spis Bishop Marian Blaha to the see of Banska Bystrica Bishop Charles Kmetko to the see of Nitra. They were consecrated by the Papal Nuncio on February 13, 1921. FURTHER APOSTOLIC EFFORT From Rome Father Jankola returned to his missionary and parish work. With renewer ardor he took up his labors among those to whom he fondly referred as "transplanted linden trees." With an eye to the present, he satisfied first needs first, exhorting the faithful to a truly Christian life, promoting faith and prayerfulness , reprimanding lapses, instructing the young and the not-so-young, preaching with the spoken word and the written word, and living the life that he preached. With an eye to the future, he encouraged worthy lay leadership, adjustment to the American way of life and vocations to the priesthood and religious life . Father Jankola was a realist as well as an idealist. As he toiled to build the kingdom of God spiritually in the hearts of many, he also looked after material building for this kingdom. This is attested by the fact that his zeal led him to build a total of five churches, two schools and a rectory: a church in Pittston, Wilkes-Barre and Maltby; a church and a school in Hazleton; a church a school and a rectory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is astounding that in the twenty years of his priesthood he could accomplish so much both for the Church and for his nation. In his ardor to work for lasting values, Father Jankola not only promoted sound spirituality and provisions for fruitful parish life, he also encouraged vocations to the pri~sthood and religious life, spent him.self in the cause of church-orient ed schools, envisioned and realized a congregation of Sisters to teach and care for the children of immigrants and perform works of mercy in the Church, �SLOVAKIA 173 contributed many articles to Slovak newspapers and periodicals, sponsored and aided the publication of Slovak texts for religious instruction and language arts, and greatheartedly proposed the naming of a Slovak bishop in the United States. He felt that Father Furdek deserved the rank of bishop and that in his elevation all Slovak Catholics in this country would benefit inasmuch as they would have an official leader whose first concern would be for all levels of Church organization among American Slovaks as well as for the needs of the young, the training of seminarians, Catholic schools and schooling under the direction of qualified Slovak or Slovak-American Sisters. PARISH SCHOOLS The subject of a Catholic school system among Slovak immigrants was one of the major preoccupations of Father Jankola's life. In his second pastoral assignment he came to St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, one of the two earliest American Slovak parishes, established in 1885. (The other is St. Stephen's parish in Streator, Illinois, founded in the same year.) He was the fourth pastor of St. Joseph's which already had a combination church-school building as well as a rectory and a parish cemetery. Since these physical arrangements were cared for, he turned his energy mainly to the spiritual and cultural advancement of his parishioners. With deft organizational gifts he established confraternities, spiritual societies and sodalities, providing opportunities for all age levels in the parish to participate in at last one Catholic Action group. A program of catechetical instruction was already functioning in the parish but Father Jankola felt that the time was right for introducing a fully expanded elementary curriculum in at least the earliest grades of the parish school. Miss Catherine O'Donnell was engaged as a full-time teacher for the subjects that were to be taught in English and Mr. Andrew Ondek, the parish organist, who had been conducting catechetical classes, was retained as teacher-incharge of the school and instructor in religion, Slovak and singing. Father Jankola spent much time in the school, observing, supervising, noting the progress of the pupils and the methods of instruction. Very often he himself conducted a class. This innovation of Father Jankola stirred up some �174 SLOVAK'iA feeling against him. Until this time is was the prerogative of the organist--and solely his-to be in charge of all the instruction of children in a parish school. By hiring a teacher in his experimental full-scale school, Father Jankola seemed to be jeopardizing the teacher-status of the organist. On this score misunderstandings developed all too readily, and factions formed to support one opinion and oppose the other, depending on points of view taken and loyalties involved. This matter was a painful issue for quite some time but Father Jankola steadily and gently tried to disprove the unfounded fears that had arisen and in spite of these apprehensions, he became increasingly aware of the necessity to provide for the adequate education of youth and the training of children under Christian auspices. Because of this indefatigable labors on behalf of Catholic schools, Father Jankola has often been looked upon as the apostle of the parish school among Slovaks in America. Both his admirers and his critics knew very truly that the matter of parish schools was his dearest concern-the apple of his eye, so to say. One of his favorite observations was : "Religious conviction takes first place and patriotism second; the church comes firs t and right after it, the school." He did his unwavering best to win pastors to the cause of opening and maintaining parochial schools, of convincing the faithful of the vital need for Catholic schools for their children and most importantly , he dedicated himself to the task of providing competent teachers and encouraging promising candidates to enter the teaching profession. Father Jankola rightly saw this whole area of education for the young as the fundamental need of the day. As often as he tried to deal with it, he realized that the problem only bore upon his conscience and his professional thinking with mounting insistence. For over twelve years he wrote on this subject, presenting it to his reading public in various aspects and doing his best to find a practical way to put it into operation. Even as early as 1899, when he was a young priest just four years ordained, he spoke of it very earnestly with some of the priests who were closest to him in the Scranton diocese; viz., Rev. Andrew Pavco, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska and Rev. Joseph Murgas. �SLOVAKIA 175 Basically, there was no difficulty in gaining a general appreciation for the Catholic school system, but the whole concept of operating Slovak Catholic schools in America had to be framed within the American way of maintaining church schools. In their homeland, the Slovaks had grown accustomed to living in a parish wholly subsidized by a patron. This meant that under patronal sponsorship all operating expenses were met by the individual, the family or the civic body that was legally titled as the patron. In America all church operations, including the pastor's salary, would have to be borne by the members of the parish. Given a school situation, besides, the struggling newcomers to America would have to assume responsibility for all its costs, including salaries for teachers. The prospect of such obligation seemed quite impossible. Yet to Father Jankola this obligation itself was not the first and foremost duty of leaders and parents; the first duty really was to provide adequate education for the young with the understanding that the adults would have to learn how to support the school as well as the church according to American practice. Definitely there was much educating of various kinds to be done, formally and informally, but Father Jankola did not shrink in the face of it all. The genius of leadership in him dictated the work to be done and the good to be accomplished. Along with these thoughts, Father Jankola could not help comparing the cultural deprivation of immigrant parents with the opportunities that America could make available to their children. He was not blind to the fact that given an education, Slovak children could better themselves in this land of opportunity on which he looked as a cultural El Dorado, a spiritual New Canaan. Above all, however, he was convinced that Slovaks in America would have to begin thinking of themselves as Americans of Slovak origin and meet all their responsibilities as such. His constant reminder to his parishioners and to all where it would apply was: "If we are to live in America, we must live the American way of life. We must learn to adjust." And he made it abundantly clear that the blessings which America held for all were not exclusively material blessings; he greatly extolled the democratic principles and the gift of true liberty which are the hallmarks of true Americanism. �176 SLOVAKIA ADULT EDUCATION In this connection of adopting concepts of true Americanism, Father Jankola also tried to provide some compensations for adult immigrants, some of whom had had only two or three winters of schooling in their childhood, some of whom had had even less. Under his iniciative, adult education classes were introduced, concentrating on basics first of all-reading and writing. It was an exhilarating experience for an unschooled laborer earnestly applying himself to an unfamiliar task suddenly to pluck his neighbor's sleeve and to shout with the heady joy of achievement: "Look! I wrote my name! I can really write my name now! This is my name! Now I won't have to make a cross instead of my name anymore!" This was a first step but it was not enough. After basics followed classes in American history and in civil government with a view toward applying for citizenship and becoming naturalized. Citizenship would mean suffrage and a real sense of belonging, a participation in the community and the country of their adoption. EDUCATION AL SURVEY After his 1899 conference with priests closest to him in the Scranton diocese, Father Jankola was convinced that it was no longer possible to defer steps for the establishment of Slovak parish schools on the elementary level. For this reason he devoted much time to a close study of the American system of education which he frankly admired. He felt that he needed this kind of information in order to guide him in developing his own thinking. He felt, too, that he needed substantial statistical data as groundwork and for this p-µrpose he undertook a comprehensive survey of existing parish facilities for the education of Slovak Catholic children. In 1900 he published a report of his findings in the Jednota Kalend<ir, revealing that a) there were very few standard parish schools which he could classify as "first class schools" b) several parishes had provided for special classes on Saturdays in order to supplement the children's public school courses with instruction in religion and language arts �SLOVAKIA 177 c) the commendable though inadequate efforts of many parish organists were generally handicapped by overcrowding in classrooms as well as by merging a very broad range of mental and chronological ages into one composite group sometimes numbering up to two hundred pupils This survey concluded with an earnest exhortation that pastors spare no effort in order to establish schools comparable to the best that the American school system offers and that sound measures be taken to provide certified teachers. He knew, of course, that not all parishes were in a position to undertake a full school program but he trusted that a steady and well-reasoned campaign on behalf of parish schools would eventually be fruitful. But the building of schools would not of itself solve the problem of education in a parish school. Once the schools were built, they would have to be stuffed and he knew that there would be great difficulty in procuring desirable teachers. His survey indicated that in the schools rated as "first class," such as that in Wilkes-Barre (the only one of its kind in the Scranton diocese), as well as those in Johnstown, Shamokin, St. Ladislaus and St. Martin in Cleveland, and in Streator, Illinois were all conducted with the help of religious teachers-Sisters. He commended the Irish and German immigrants for their well-functioning schools, all directed by Sisters, and he very distinctly pointed out the fact that the Slovak people in America needed Slovak Sisters to teach in their parish schools. Man of clear vision that he was, he saw beyond that statement. His very words are: "Consequently, we need Sisters. Let us bring up our own Slovak Sisters! It is they who will preserve our faith and our nation. Reverend Fathers, and you Slovak parents, you who have in your parishes young ladies who are diligent, zealous, devout and suitable for the religious life, do feel responsible for making it possible for them to achieve this state of life. This will be a gift of the utmost value both to God and the nation; this will be a most noble offering. It is Slovak Sisters, teaching Sisters, who alone can alleviate this present educational crisis among us; �178 SLOVAKIA it is they who can save us from religious and national ruin. If we wish to live in America, we must live as Americans. This same principle was valid even in Rome. There is no other way of survival. I repeat: my brothers, Slovaks, let us establish parish schools, let us bring up our own Slovak teaching-Sisters, and God's help will support us!" As he urged priests and parents to encourage likely candidates to enter the religious life at this time, he did not mention any specific community, for he had none in mind. His survey did report that Ursulines and Sisters of St. Joseph were teaching in the Slovak schools of Cleveland, that Streator had Franciscan Sisters, and that there was " an English Sister" in the Olyphant school (Very likely a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or a Sister of Mercy). At this point, however, the core of the problem was simply to promote vocations. It was much as if he were saying that God will not be outdone in generosity ; that if only enough vocations could be cultivated, God could be trusted to provide the agents and the agencies for the work of Christian education among Slovak immigrants. He did not know that his own faith would be put to sore testing. He did not know the ultimate design of Providence but he trusted with an unshaken confidence and he worked on with unmitigated zeal . EXPLORING TEACHER RESOURCES At the same time that Father Jankola ardently promoted the cause of Slovak Catholic parish schools, he began to make serious inquiries at various American motherhouses and provincial houses, hoping to find a community whose membership might include at least some Sisters of Slovak or Slavic origin for staffing prospective Slovak schools in America and introducing into them American principles of education along with a wholesome Christian philosophy of life. Once he would know where Sisters were available, a sound program for Christian education could be launched with full vigor and the Slovak people would adjust to the American way of supporting their own schools. He did not foresee at all how difficult it would be to procure Sisters. At least four major superiors of religious communities answered his inquiries with the revealing �SLOVAKIA 179 news that even at that time it was extremely difficult for them to provide enough teachers for the schools already under their care. There was a normal increase in the population rate and as immigration figures rose, so did school enrollments increase and create a demand for expanded teaching forces. As a result of this situation, religious superiors felt that they would not be able to accept any new schools in the foreseeable future. This was a totally unwelcome but obviously prudent decision which they had to make. Disappointed beyond all expectation but still undaunted, Father Jankola next turned his appeal to European institutes. In all good faith he hoped that the old world would be able to compensate for the insufficiencies of the new. With prayerful anticipation he wrote to the Holy Cross Sisters in Moravia. He did not present to them any intimidating proposal. Very modestly he explored the possibility of obtaining a small number of Sisters, even three or four, to come to America, establish a foundation and train Slovak girls here for the religious life. He was assured that in time there would be enough applications for a flourishing self-sufficient community to develop on American soil, supported by the Slovak-American clergy and laity. Apparently there was much correspondence on this matter but promising as the outlook was at the outset, its prospects eventually dimmed and finally the issue was closed without satisfactory results. With great distress Father Jankola wrote in the Jednota Kalenddr of 1902, "For three years I have been trying to obtain Sisters from Europe, but my efforts have been in vain. Everything seems to be against us." These lines are an expression of that recurring disappointment that was to be his cross in this project, the testing of his spirit, and the price of an ideal which demanded sacrifice and suffering. Frustrated in his efforts to secure help from an already established community of Sisters, yet sufficiently disciplined not to surrender readily in the face of difficulty and repeateq disappointment, Father Jankola continued to pray, to confer with others and to plan. Since existing communities could spare him no members for the parish schools that he was promoting, the only avenue open to �180 SLOVAKIA him seemed to be to find prospective condidates of his own and to present them for training in an American sisterhood. He hoped that after their numbers increased and they had prepared themselves adequately, they might be allowed to branch off into an independent province within a mother congregation and continue their apostolate in Slovak parish schools. This suggested a very long range program but the eventual benefits would surely justify the patient waiting. All delays and price aside, one purpose of Father Jankola's efforts was to provide Sisters for the much needed task of teaching in Slovak parish schools. This was the crucial issue and the demanding challenge was where to procure them . COURAGE SUPPORTS HOPE In the spring of 1903, Father Jankola invited Slovak priests who were interested in the parish school project to meet for consultation at the Vendig Hotel in Philadelphia. He took this occasion to lay before them all his experiences in working for Slovak parish schools to this time: his hopes and disappointments, his renewed efforts and his present plan which would call for candidates from local parishes. The assembled pastors listened with evident interest. They were aware of the need to work with the young and they admired the American Catholic school system. Some endorsed the proposal and were willing to cooperate with Father Jankola. Unfortunately, there were others too who looked upon this new suggestion of his as too idealistic and extreme a venture, perhaps something out of a quixotic world and not suited to the times, not amenable to a practical approach. They did not hesitate to indicate emphatically that he could not count on them for support in such a project and they had nothing else to offer. This adverse reaction from leaders of people who lived with the realities of life in America was a blow to Father Jankola's expectations. But it did not destroy his vision or diminish that dogged persistence about him which would not let the matter rest untried. At least he knew now on whom he could count for advice and support and he had learned where it would be vain to look for help and understanding. He shored up his shattered elan and renewed his faith in the work before him. Resolved to test this plan and to have events prove �SLOVAKlA 181 the validity of this approach and anxious to test whether or not such an effort was of God, Father Jankola presented his proposal to several religious oommunities in his immediate area. It is likely that he now founded his hopes on either the Mallinckrodt Sisters of Charity or on the Sisters of Mercy. He had had opportunities to observe the work of both communities on a local level because they taught in parishes near his own. He admired their spirit and evidence of dedication and he ardently hoped that he might see their influence diffused among the Slovak people, but from both communities he received an unfavorable reply. It meant just so much more disappointment and so much more need for fresh courage. EARLY PROMISE Again and again Father Jankola renewed his search for a mother community that would accept his candidates (in due time) and train them for Slovak parish schools. He even decided to appeal to the charity of a rather distant order in America, the Czech Benedictine Sisters in Chicago, Illinos. When the mail brought him a reply, it was with utmost gratitude that he read that these Sisters would b e willing to be of assistance to him. With profound relief he trusted that at last this was going to mean the realization of his prospects. With this good news to report, Father Jankola held another conference with the priests who supported his plan. At these deliberations practical measures were proposed and four specific steps were agreed upon. The first of these was the decision to accept the offer of the Benedictine Sisters and to send three aspirants to Chicago. The others were in the nature of active endorsement of Father Jankola's plan, involving the promise or agreement a ) to announce Father Jankola's plans and prospects from their pulpits b ) to preach on the subject of vocations c ) to solicit offerings to support the undertaking This last provision was embodied in a fund called St. Anthony's Treasury. The patronage of St. Anthony was chosen because this Franciscan saint beautifully exemplifies that Christian charity that provides for the needs of the poor. Now at last, although no one could foresee what the �182 SLOVAKIA future held, there seemed to be some glimmer of success at last. On the following Sunday Father Jankola preached an inspiring sermon on vocations and after the parochial mass he found an applicant in his office. Before long there were two more candidates from St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton as well as two from Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre. Now at last, hope was moving toward reality. In the fall of 1903 the first three aspirants from Hazleton were sent to the Benedictines in Chicago and the soul of Father Jankola rejoiced that the great work was launched at last while his spirit trusted that it would thrive . HOPE DEFERRED Unfortunately this joy was short-lived and this hope soon wilted. After a few short weeks Father Jankola was notified that the Superiors felt it was advisable to withdraw his candidates because they found it difficult to adjust to religious life with them. The blow fell at the very moment when two additional aspirants sat in the Wilkes-Barre railroad station holding tickets for Chicago as they waited to board the next train. Just before the train pulled into the station, their plans were abruptly changed and they returned to their homes. This was a crushing report that reached Father Jankola from Chicago. He could hardly bring himself to accept it. His first reaction was to blame the young girls for want of endurance. His own training in austerity made it difficult for him to condone their failure and apparent weakness in the face of hardship where he would have expected an almost stoic courage and strength. Gradually he was brought to realize, however, that they did not lack generosity and good will, but they were wholly unprepared for trials severe even for seasoned religious; moreover, they were still very young. Home-loving and cared-for as they had been, they were subjected to an almost traumatic and total separation from home and an absolute change from their family environment. Chicago then seemed half a world away from Hazleton. Even normal adjustment would have been necessarily gradual, but they were at once challenged with the untempered rigors of Benedictine monasticism in a community where poverty was so extreme in those �SLOVAKIA 183 pioneering days that only a tried and proven spirit would have been able to endure it without difficulty. When the unhappy candidates returned from Chicago, they were not sent back to their homes or subjected to reproach and embarrassment. Instead, they were befriended and confided to the care of Father Pavco in Pittston until further development could be planned and arranged. Father Pavco then visited Father Jankola to confer with him about the situation. He found him shaken and extremely tried by this new disappointment. NEW HOPE In his sympathetic efforts to comfort his friend, Father Pavco called Father Jankola's attention to the "Blue Sisters" of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who conducted St. John the Evangelist School in Pittston just across the street from his own church and rectory. As he spoke, Father Pavco became more and more enthusiastic about the spirit and attitudes of these Sisters, and finally he suggested that Father Jankola consult with their Reverend Mother at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. As a glowing climax he remarked, "I understand that her name is Mother Mary Cyril. Our common patron may help here; let us try in the name of God." Discouraged though he was by the latest setback to his hopes and beset by numerous other problems besides. Father Jankola agreed with Father Pavco that it would be advisable to try again; but he approached the new possibility with a measure of caution added to his natural reserve. On his first visit to Mother Cyril he conferred with her only on the prospect of enrolling the daughter of one of his parishioners at her boarding school. He did not mention the real burden that lay on his heart like a cross . Before long, however, Father Jankola made another appointment with Mother Cyril. On his initial visit he had found her so gracious that he was encouraged to present his key problem to her on this second visit. Again he found her ideally understanding. This does not mean that she at once gave him any definite assurance but she received him with such Christlike sympathy and such evidence of maternal regard for the needs of young girls that he con- �184 SLOVAKIA sidered the consultation worthwhile, to say the least, and returned home with great admiration for her, confidence in her judgment and renewed hope for the all-but-lost undertaking. Providence ordained that Mother Cyril should be the answer to Father Jankola's prayers. With the consent of her Council she accepted his candidates and trained them with unexampled care and solicitude within the shelter of her own religious family. In fact, they were so close to her own Sisters that for some time it was not even clear whether they would eventually become an independent community or whether they were to be an element added to hers. TOWARD FRUITION When she first received the young girls at Mount St. Mary's in 1903, Mother Cyril did not immediately place them under monastic novitiate discipline but rather kept them in the boarding academy as students who were to be formed into candidates for the religious life by gradual measures. They were permitted to spend the school vacation at home and on such occasions they often became an inspiration to others and attracted new vocations. These students were maintained at Mount St. Mary's through funds from St. Anthony's Treasury which was supported by the mites of hard-working and generous people and the offerings for votive candles in Slovak churches. From November 21, 1903, when they first came to the Mount, their status was that of students. On January 6, 1906, three of them became postulants. In March of the same year Mother Cyril informed Father Jankola that his group would not be identified with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This implied that they were to form their own community. Father Jankola accepted this decision and suggested the name "Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius" as a possible designation for the prospective Slovak community. On July 26, 1906, the first members were clothed in a distinctive black habit, Bishop Hoban presiding at the reception ceremony. The fruit of arduous work and confident prayer was beginning to mature but its maturing exacted a further price. Father Jankola paid the greater part of it by bearing not only the normal burden of concern but also painful �SLOVAKIA 185 misunderstandings and unreasonable demands from parish sources. He even withdrew somewhat from the project after it was safely launched, willing to deny himself the satisfaction that should have been the reward of a work brought to successful fruition after many bitter and disillusioning trials. Much of his sorrow on this score was caused by more or less well-meaning individuals who hounded him and persecuted him severely because they saw in the promise of a teaching community only the ousting of organists from teaching posts in the parish schools. They believed that this would inevitably follow upon the success of Father Jankola's project. Blinded in their narrow reasoning, they would not face facts reasonably or accept the reality which indicated only too clearly that their parish schools in America were fast outgrowing the capacities of their organists reserve and that they had no other teachers with or without adequate training to conduct schools according to American standards. The Sisters were expected to relieve an existing need, not to create a new difficulty. Organists would not necessarily have to give up all their classes. It was one of those struggles which often arise when the old order of life must yield to the newer way and cannot do so gracefully. Added to this, however, there was also a painfully critical attitude making itself within clerical ranks. Several priests still doubted the timeliness and the wisdom of Father Jankola's efforts. At first they merely refused to cooperate, later they voiced objections and even spoke of other plans of their own. In spite of his stoic exterior and his disciplined habits of conduct, Father Jankola~s soul and sensibilities were deeply refined and sensitive. It hurt him inexpressibly to be ranked as a visionary when with all his soul he bent his energies to practical matters and used very realistic means to attain vitally urgent results. He suffered keenly because of all the conflicts brewing in his Hazleton parish and when there seemed to be no other solution, he decided to leave the scene of so much bitterness and open hostility, at least until the storm should spend itself. This parish had grown very dear to him. When its original wooden church burned to the ground in 1905, he worked indefatigably to raise funds for a new structure �186 SLOVAK.IA of natural stone. Within two years he collected twelve thousand dollars, a lordly sum in a day of low wages and small incomes in the midst of a struggling community of miners and common laborers. He had the largeness of vision and the natural capacity to plan a church of unique beauty and to execute his plans in spacious proportions, artistic in design and as inspiring as a prayer. St. Joseph's in Hazleton is a worthy memorial to his priestly service there and to the spirit of Slovak pioneers in the area. TRANSFER TO BRIDGEPORT In the fall of 1907 Father Jankola took a leave of absence from the Scranton diocese and was received with joy by the people of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who were then organizing the parish of SS. Cyril and Methodius. He wrote to Mother Cyril, "I thought I would make a solitary living here, like a hermit, after much trouble, trial and injustice. But my work is not yet done . . . I have to continue to take care of the future religious institution that I have started with God's help and St. Anthony's intercession." He would not be a derelict to duty no matter what it cost him in personal pain. He would stand by his ideals and convictions. Alth0ugh Father Jankola expected eventually to return to Hazleton his missionary zeal so engrossed him in the organization of parishes in the New England region that he finally transferred to the Hartford diocese. Besides his pastoral work in St. Cyril's, he also undertook the spiritual care of Slovaks in Webster, Massachusett s, and made missionary trips to Stamford, Torrington, New Britain and surrounding settlements in Connecticut. He was untiring pastor and missionary in new surroundings again. He kept in touch with Mother Cyril through correspondence. With her he assigned the Sisters to their firs t teaching mission at Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre while disclosing to her the demands being made on him. "We have only three Slovak Sisters-how can we send them to four parishes?" he wrote her in 1908. Yet in his concern for the cherished project, he maintained an unselfishness that commands administratio n as always leaning toward the common good. When the first Sisters were to be sent on a teaching mission, he made the disinterested recommenda tion to assign them either to Wilkes- �SLOVAKIA 187 Barre or to Lansford although he would have been justified in directing them to either of the equally large parishes of his own endeavors-Hazleton or Bridgeport. FIRST AMERICAN-SLOVAK SISTERS In August 1909, Bishop Hoban brought from Rome the Holy See's decree of approval for the new community. On September 1, 1909, the first Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius made public profession of vows and the community emerged as a new family in the Church. Before the close of Mother Cyril's term of office, they were ready to open a motherhouse of their own. For ten years their formation had been under the immediate guidance of Mother Cyril at Mount St. Mary's. At last the tender seed which had been long hidden in the darkness of Father Jankola's secret hopes and prayers, long prepared through seasons of doubt and storm and the intermittent sunshine of hope and promise, often exposed to tears and blessings, now sprang in good soil and, tended with paternal care and maternal understanding, was ready to yield glory to God through a harvest of service among the Slovak people. As some of the Sisters undertook teaching in the parish schools, additional recruits were being prepared as novices and postulants in the novitiate or as students at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. After twelve years from the time of their entry into Mount St. Mary's the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius became a wholly independent community. This status was attained in 1915 after their first General Chapter elected a Mother General and a Council for internal government. Father Jankola was happy indeed to see the Sisters making progress. He continued to be interested in their welfare but denied himself the satisfaction of overseeing or directing their development. From all sides he was harassed by demands for teachers but once the stability of the Community was established, he allowed it to mature on its own and to learn to shoulder responsibility independently. PASTORSHIP IN BRIDGEPORT In Bridgeport Father Jankola continued his work, which demanded tireless energy, prudent planning and great fortitude. He was equal to the challenge. His parishione11s found him serious and purposeful, dilligent and �188 SLOVAK.IA circumspect, devout and fatherly. With him first things inexorably came first. Religion and spiritual interests held priority over all other considerations but close in second place were patriotism as well as the arts and social graces, and finally a balanced concern for temporalities. Under hls direction the parish was firmly established and within a year it had six active societies as well as an excellent choir, a dramatic club and an evening school for adult education. These evening classes became very popular and profitable. They lasted from eight to ten o'clock and in time they offered mathematics and English taught by Mr. Michael Senko on Monday; Slovak by Father Jankola on Tuesday; community singing by Mr. George Lukac on Thursday, and dramatics by Mr. Joseph Michalek on Sunday. Additional subjects were included later to enable parishioners to prepare for naturalization. For the children there were daily catechetical classes which Father Jankola himself conducted after the pupils were dismissed from public school. Within five years Father Jankola managed to have the parish clear a debt of over sixteen thousand dollars. The church which he then built for seventy thousand dollars is a magnificent cruciform structure of white brick with a seating capacity of one thousand. It was the fifth church which he planned and erected, and with its inspiring splendor it is the crown of his building effort. A severely simple frame rectory was all that he permitted for his own needs. To make provisions for a school he built a plain four-room structure planned to double for a parish hall . It, too, was severely simple and those who loved it did not mind sometimes referring to it as "Noah's Ark." His Sisters came to take charge of this school in 1910 and it must have been with intense yet complex emotion that he at last saw the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius at work teaching in his own school. Within the parish itself Father Jankola fanned a great flame of spiritual activity. The Confraternity of the Holy Rosary was canonically established and it flourished amid these people who exulted, "We have brought Kosice to America," for the rosary was a traditional family devotion among them, awakening for them fond memories of pilgrimages to the beloved Marian shrine in the Slovak city of Kosice. A deeper spirituality was cultivated among those �SLOVA.K:IA 189 who joined the Third Order of St. Francis and the Altar Society. A canonically founded Sodality and the Holy Name Society held Christian ideals before the eyes of the young. It is remarkable that Father Jankola invariably attended the meetings of all these societies and each time left some lesson or ponderable thought with the members to inspire or to enlighten them. Through the choir and the dramatic guild he aimed to make art the handmaid of religion. Church music, folk singing, and classic compositions all had their place and were rendered with feeling and skill under the direction of Mr. George Lukac. Father Jankola had recognized musical talent in him when he was yet a schoolboy and sent him to St. Procopius College in Lisle, Illinois, to develop his talent. Then he offered him the position of organist at St. Cyril's. Born of mutual regard, a strong bond of devotion developed between the two. Drama under Father Jankola's guidance included a wide variety of presentations from monologues and skits through interludes and plays to grand productions like " St. Elizabeth," "St. Genevieve," and "Fabiola." Each one was staged before a packed house usually in a spacious hall rented for the occasion and it lent the entire community the aspects of festivity and a parish holiday. For major plays Father Jankola took the trouble to rent costumes and hire a make-up crew from the theatrical centers of New York City, and he saw to it that the staging was a satisfying piece of dramatic art. It is no wonder that his parishioners idolized him. On all occasions he was an inspiration and edification to them. He may have appeared forbiddingly stern and exacting, but they knew that his heart was warm and fatherly. The priest in him was always at their service, hearing confessions every day of the week even on Sundays, answering every call as soon as it came though he was without benefit of an assistant, ready to advise, admonish, comfort, help or serve in whatever the need might be. It was generally recognized and appreciated that he did the work of three priests. Despite all the demands made on him, his parish was in enviable order and he managed a tremendous amount of work for the general public. Scholarly and cultural interests were his hobby. It is interesting that �190 SLOVAKIA shortly before his death he began the study of Hebrew under a private tutor. THE WRITER One stands in admiration of the consuming energy with which he must have worked, for apart from all these accomplishments there is the steady stream of articles, stories, reports and instructions that came from his pen. He was a recognized leader in Slovak national life also, for only six years after coming to this country, he was elected supreme president of the Jednota organization (1900) . (The First Catholic Slovak Union-a benevolent society with nationwide membership.) From 1904 to 1908 he was a member of the Jednota judiciary council. In 1910 he was editor of the "Jednota" weekly as well as of its annual or almanac . In 1908 and again after Furdek's death, he was chosen spiritual director of the Jednota. He likewise promoted the interests of the "Katolicky Sokol," contributed many articles to its news organ and served one term as spiritual director of this athletic and fraternal organization. He warmly endorsed the children's paper "Priatel' Dietok," which was sponsored by the Sokol. He encouraged pastors, parents, and teachers to support it, and highly complimented the pupils of his school when their contributions appeared on its pages. THE LEADER Among the Slovak priests, especially in the eastern part of the country, Father Jankola always enjoyed a degree of prestige. He was generally esteemed their leader. It was he who first banded them together in 1903 for the purpose of discussing common problems like education and the training of future priests and Sisters. It was he who promoted an organization of priests in the eastern states just a year before his death. He was identified with many national drives and movements; he signed the Code of American Slovak Journalists in 1897; he initiated the National Fund (also in 1897) to promote national interests and to sponsor worthy projects. He undertook the founding of a men's Slovak Benedictine priorate and a men's Slovak Franciscan province in the United States. By 1910 he urged that steps be taken to recommend �SLOVAKIA 191 the appointment of a Slovak bishop in this country and suggested that Father Furdek be named the candidate since he was "the first, the most learned, the most respected, and the best loved Slovak priest in America." In 1916 he initiated a Peter's Pence drive among the Slovaks in America. These are some of the major achievements he accumulated before death closed the door of life upon him at the age of forty-three. And he aspired to more. He even dared hope to transplant his Sisters to Europe, "First opening a house in Velehrad, Moravia, where St. Methodius is buried," as he visualized his dream. In his greatness of vision he had hoped that they might "be the instrument in God's hand for the conversion of Slav schismatics to Rome, where St. Cyril died." These are some of the hopes of which he once wrote to Mother Cyril. UNTIMELY DEATH But death stilled his ardent hopes and healed his wounds. Added to all the trials borne so courageously there descended upon him yet the cruelty of a most painful hoax. Spent as he was with unstinted labor and exertion, it took the agony of something like this to crush his very last energies. Manfully he tried to bury the hurt but it worked its havoc and undermined his strength. On Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916, he was stricken as he preached at High Mass and he died quietly on May 5, mourned by thousands and appreciated even more in death than he was in life. After the funeral services at the church of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Father Jankola was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut. In connection with their Golden Jubilee observances in 1959, however, the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius arranged to have their founder's remains transferred to Danville where they are interred in the Community cemetery at Villa Sacred Heart. CONCLUSION It has been said with truth that Father Jankola was to the spiritual life what Father Furdek was to the national life of the Slovak people in America. To the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius he is the gardener to whom God entrusted the seed of their congregation, charging him to plant it, to water it with his �192 SLOVAKlA tears and sufferings, to warm it with his undying love. At the moment the seed sprouted and its first promising shoots appeared, at that moment in a Profession Ceremony, he said joyfully and humbly, "You are my joy, you are my crown, you are my glory." BIBLIOGRAPHY Archival materials at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius and in Jankola Library, Danville, Pennsylvania. These include: a) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola b) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola's sisters, Louisa and Inna c) documents d) several books of rare parish records entrusted to the Sisters Furdek, Stefan, "Z Ameriky." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo. I. Rufomberok, Osvald, 1893. Gregorovic, Sister M. Consuela, SS.C.M., Contributions of Reverend Matthew Jankola to Slovak Catholic Education in the United States. Modification of thesis submitted to the Catho.Jic University of America, 1944. DanviLle, Pennsylvania, Golden Jubilee Publication of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1958-1959. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske rehole v Amerike. Cleveland, Slovensky ustav, 1955. Slovenske dejiny. 4th ed. Turciansky Svaty Martin, Matica Slovenska, 1940. Jankola, Matus, "crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo, III. Ruzomberok, Osvald , 1900. Jednota (Weekly newspaper) . Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 19011916 passim. Jednota Kalendar. (annual ). Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota. 19001931 passim. Medvecky, Karol A., Cirkevne pomery katolickych Slovakov v niekdajsom Uhorsku, Ruzomberok, Nakl. vlast., 1920. Pauco, Jozef, Matus Jan.kola, knaz a narodovec. Danville, Pennsylvania, Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Slovenska rehol'a Sestier sv. Cyrila a Metoda. Slovensky spolok sv. Anny vo Wyoming V.alley, Pa. 1957. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Cleveland, Ohio, I.K.S.J. , 1965. Slovenski priekopnici. Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 1972. Petra~ek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Danville, Pennsylvania , Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Scotus Viator (Seton Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary, London , Archibald Constable, 1908. Spolok sv. Vojtecha, Katolicke Slovensko. Trnava, SSV, 1933. Spirko, Jozef, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretel'om na vyvin cirkevnych dejin Slovenska. 2 vol. Turc. Sv. Martin, Neografia, 1943. � 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 1972, Vol. 22 Description An account of the resource Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972. 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 1972 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 SLOVAKlA 161 Matthew Jankola 1872-1916 SLOVAK-AMERICAN PRIEST, LEADER, EDUCATOR Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. An observance commemorating the life and accomplishments of Father Matthew Jankola in this centennial year of his birth has the advantages of distance and historic perspective. It provides a very timely opportunity for appraising this leader and his life's contribution with fair and realistic appreciation, with a degree of objective regard for his innate qualities and his unique achievements. Father Jankola's life span encompassed only forty-three years and his biographical data can be summarized very compactly. BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE The parents of Matthew Jankola were Matthew and Rosalie Medvecky Jankola. They lived very ·simply but happily in Trstena, a picturesque town in the economically disadvantaged Orava district of Slovakia, and their son Matthew spent much of his early life there. But Trstena was not Father Jankola's birthplace, for he was born away from home on July 2, 1872, while his parents were at seasonal work in the Stary Budin sector of Budapest, Hungary. After his elementary education in Trstena, the boy Matthew continued his schooling at gymnazia in Bardejov and Beckov. Later, on the recommendation and under the sponsorship of his maternal uncle, the Francisean Father Emerich Medvecky, he advanced to seminary studies with the Franciscans in Hlohovec and in Kremnica. At the same time, the school of life steadily trained him too. With ardor and utmost good will he gave his all in order to prepare for the priesthood with a religious order but the evils of oppression did not spare him even in the seminaries of Slovakia. In fact, they left their mark upon him by undermining his health though no degree of im- 162 SLOVAKIA posed suffering could shake his spirit. This apparently all-pervasive atmosphere of oppression was one of the determining factors that led him to seek a better way of life in the new world. It happened, then, that because of many types of extreme pressures in his homeland-political, economic, cultural-and because America had become a haven of refuge and security to many of his countrymen, he too ventured upon the long voyage across the Atlantic and arrived in the harbor of Baltimore on December 19, 1893. He was not in prime physical condition at this time, for strain and exhaustion had drained his reserves but his heart was filled with a determination that was always characteristic of him and with a buoyant hope that here honest work would bring honest returns, that repression did not came with him on his long and arduous trip. In his soul he cherished the vision that he could become a force for good in this new world while he would also be a support and help for his dear ones in Slovakia. And so he began a new chapter in the young manhood of his life. He had come to America as a talented and achieving student in his fourth year of theology. He was not encumbered with misgivings or uncertainties about his life's work or objectives. Without unnecessary delay he enrolled in St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore but after an interval of illness had interrupted his seminary program, he transferred to St . Bonaventure Seminary in Allegheny, New York, where Latin was the language of instruction. His proficiency in Latin made him feel very much at home here and in two semesters he was able to complete the courses that he needed for the final rounding out of his training for the priesthood. January 13, 1895 was the date Father Jankola's ordination. He was twenty-two and had lived half of his life. From this date on, he felt in his soul that he owed filial gratitude to three persons whom he regarded in the role of father: his natural father who was very dear to him; his u ncle Father Emerich Medvecky whose Franciscan charity and solicitude saw to his education and the nurturing of his priestly vocation; and Bishop William O'Hara of Scranton who received him in America and ordained him p riest. SLOVAKIA 163 Shortly after his ordination he received his first priestly assignment: the pastorate of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston, Pennsylvania. And from this center he extended pastoral care to seven other towns where Slovak Catholic immigrants were settling. He was subsequently pastor of St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and of SS. Cyril and Methodius parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he died on May 5, 1916. This brief and superficially simple biographical sketch does not even suggest any of the fullness of his lifetime. It is rather the bare diagram of plotting points, each of which opened upon an individual richness of life . BACKGROUNDS The pivotal key in Father Jankola's life was his total commitment to the priesthood. The fruition of all his living was in the twenty years that followed upon his ordination. The social milieu in which he had decided upon a career of service as a priest of God rightfully had conditioned him into viewing dedication to the altar as no mere token position to be satisfied by perfunctorily discharged liturgical devotions and ceremonies-significant and beautiful as they may be. To him the office of priest meant a distinctive way of life binding the priest to serve wholeheartedly as mediator, leader, educator, philanthropist and sanctifier of his people in and for Christ. Much in the mind of Vatican II, he developed his formation and his philosophy of life in the ideal that the priest is above all for Christ and for the people. In all his subsequent endeavors this wa:s his guiding principle, his constant. Even as a growing boy and as an aware adolescent, he had lived with the realization that among his people the priest was the one individual who stood for leadership, uprightness and learning as well as for spiritual ministry, moral guidance and ethical inspiration. He was oriented to his regard for the priesthood because the ruling powers that had shackled Slovakia in many ways had also-except by rare exception- denied academic opportunities for Slovak boys and girls who aspired to professional or scientific careers. On this score, the authorities relented only to permit seminary training for the sake of the priest- 164 SLOVAKIA hood, and normal school courses in a limited way, in order to prepare some teachers for schools. The priest, then, had to be more than shepherd of souls in Slovakia. He had to be the leading light of his people in temporalities as well as in spirituality. He had to be .not only teacher and guide in virtue and goodness but also a perceptive and courageous defender of justice and the basic rights of man. This is the main reason why Slovak priests sometimes found themselves consciencebound to take a hard look even at the political atmosphere in which they and their people had to live. And seeing the realities of inequity, discrimination, cultural deprivation, oppression and spiritual bondage, they had the moral fortitude even publicly to attack these evils and defend their people and their country; they had the conviction that as the educated leaders of their people, they had to have the stamina to enter the forum of public affairs and there champion the cause of the wronged, the oppressed and the helpless whenever circumstances demanded their presence in the public arena. Various modes of oppression, overt as well as patent, often discouraged or demoralized the average citizen who was usually much preoccupied with the daily need to provide at least a living for his family. The God-given beauty of his natural surroundings often put a bit of poetry into a peasant's hard life; the lilt and loveliness of folk song and folk music warmed his heart, and the ar tistry of hand crafted work brought him some gratuitous satisfaction through creative expression but he needed the wholesomeness of opportunities to cultivate his intellectual talents and his inborn creative gifts freely and even as a lifetime career, as a professional; he needed assured liberty and justice, openness and a sense of security so that he could rise above sheer drudgery and allow his spirit to grow expansive. He needed to nourish his life of the spirit as well as the life of his body . He needed to satisfy his intellectual hunger in order to develope spiritually and to structure a sense of dignity in his life. All this the Slovak priest recognized in his parish, in his town or village, in his country. More was asked of him than is generally asked of the average priest, and he had t o be a man greater dimension that the average man. He SLOVAKIA 165 had to be capable of tactful leadership, of sound capacities for guidance and direction, of clear vission and foresight ; resourceful as well as prayerful, peace-loving yet fearless in the face of defending God-given rights, forgiving yet relentless in fighting injustice. In him converged all the likeness of Christlike being and behavior and all the paradoxes of virtue flourishing in a sin-beset world. This is the kind of life that Matthew Jankola chose with mature and deliberate will. Most importantly, this is the kind of life that he lived. Fire and ardor were of his very nature; integrity, initiative and unclouded vision were his basic assets; God, nation and fellowmen-in that order-were his top priorities; and the grit to endure was the price that he was asked to pay in the discharge of his vocation. Living here as he did under pioneering conditions among immigrants who were truly strangers in a strange land, he was imbued with characteristic missionary concern for both the material and the spiritual welfare of those around him and of those for whom he had made himself responsible. He was aware that the socio-economic circumstances which bore upon the immigrant Slovak laborer could affect him very adversely and for that reason he did not spare himself in awakening and revitalizing deep self-respect and dignity in the man who was burdened with inhuman hours and labors and even humiliation in the dank pits of coal mines, at the raging forges of steel mills, at railroad building and multiplicity of menial jobs of every description. Work itself is reasonably recognized as honorable but sometimes the conditions under which a man is compelled to work can conspire to brutalize him. And man must not spend all his working hours in just expending the strength of his muscles or he may become gross. FIRST PASTORATE It is worth noting that Bishop O'Hara appointecl. Father Jankola pastor of St. John the Baptist parish in Pittston very shortly after his ordination. He knew how urgent the need was for this parish to have a pastor and he recognized in the newly ordained Father Jankola gifts of mind and spirit that recommended him, young as h e was, for a responsible office even without seasoned ap- 166 SLOVAKIA prenticeship in parish work. Pioneering often calls for practically instant response to duty. Father Jankola never hesitated in meeting the demands of duty and Bishop O'Hara had every reason to be convinced that his trust in this pastor was well placed. With complete dedication, an unusual capacity for work and keen administrative talent, the new priest assumed the new tasks committed to him. With apostolic zeal he made it a point of his prime priestly service to reach out among the scattered Slovak Catholics of wide regions. He did not circumscribe his labors and his interests to that one Pittston parish only. He felt, rather, that all the Slovaks displaced in America were his immediate concern, and his specific responsibility to the Pittston parish of St. John the Baptist included the Slovak Catholics of seven adjoining communities commonly referred to as "places" or "plejzy." They included Sturmerville, West Pittston, Wyoming, Port Griffith, Smithville, Duryea and Pittston Junction. At this time he also traveled to the Binghamton, New York, area to serve the spiritual needs of Slovaks settling there. From the very beginning these, so to say, transplanted and still rootless people who were largely engaged in railroad building and in the shoe industry, were content to use the church facilities that were very kindly offered them by St. Patrick's parish but in 1902 Father Jankola helped them to organize their own parish under the patronal title of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Important as this was, it was enough. He next did his utmost in order to find a reasonable priest to take charge of this parish or at least to offer temporary ministry to the Binghamton Slovak community. On countless occasions when no one else was available, he himself came to provide them with Sunday services, to administer the sacraments, to advise and guide them and to inspire and encourage them to cultivate their spiritual life, much like a missionary compelled to ride h is circuit in order to bring God to man and man to God. During this pastorship in Pittston, Father Jankola also ministered to the Slovaks of Wilkes-Barre and Swoyeville ( which was called Maltby in his day) and with his sound direction and practical acumen, he helped them to build their churches. There were over eight thousand Slovaks in Wyoming Valley region around Wilkes-Barre at this time SLOVAKIA 167 and there was a steady flow of increase into this hard coal region as ship after ship brought more Slovak immigrants to American shores. From his parish base in Pittston Father Jankola indefatigably toiled among them, deeply concerned that the burdens and troubles of providing for material needs and livelihood should not crowd out of their labor-preoccupied lives the eternal truths that God bore them all in his love and that as they spent themselves on behalf of material well-being, they keep in mind and also provide for the life of the spirit and for undying values. In the early history of Slovak Catholics in the diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where there was a large concentration of Slovak immigrants, we find the record of these ten Slovak parishes which were established in the late nineteenth century: 1883 St. Joseph's in Hazleton 1886 St. Stephen's in Plymouth 1888 St. Joseph's in Nanticoke 1889 Holy Ghost in Olyphant 1893 St. John Nepomucene in Freeland 1894 St. John the Baptist in Pittston 1895 Holy Trinity in Maltby (later called Swoyerville ) 1895 Sacred Heart in Wilkes-Barre 1895 Holy Family in Scranton 1896 St. Michael's in Jessup Ten Roman Catholic parishes like ten significant reasons to make the heart rejoice! But then the stark realization that there were only eight Roman Catholic priests available for these parishes at this time. Two self-sacrificing priests in this area were obviously called upon to do the work of four. One of these was Fr. Jankola who looked after the parishes in Pittston and in Maltby; the other one was his friend Father Stas who took care of Olyphant and Jessup. PIONEERING PROBLEMS Overextended as these priests were, they realized that it was actually impossible to reach out to all the Slovak immigrants because they lived in such widely scattered places-some here and there in typically settled areas, others in sparse settlements and still others even in very 168 SLOVAKIA remote and unlikely pockets. And they did need the solicitous care of conscientious priets. Many newcomers mistakenly assumed a new "liberty" in America-the liberty to drink too freely, to look upon church-going as a practice better suited to the old country than to the new, to neglect the sacraments with easy abandon and live a loose life. In defense of such attitudes, they all too readily ralied on such specious observations as: "America is different." "I have a parish church at home in Europe; I'll receive the sacraments there." "I work hard all week; Sunday is my day of rest. No one should take my rest from me and tell me to go to Mass ." "Now i want to live. Later when I'm dying I'll send for a priest." Persisting in such attitudes, they would have succumbed to a generally unprincipled or amoral life. Surely they did need someone to bring them effective spiritual guidance and the conviction that freedom in America is not license to abandon religious and moral obligations. Father Jankola looked to the root of these problems. He understood that greater earnings and ready cash in America spelled greater self-reliance which sometimes tended to generate that degree of involvement with material goods that became detrimental to sound spiritually. Easier living here often brought with it a distaste for self-discipline and a laxity about receiving the sacraments. Above all, however, he saw that not a few men deliberately stayed away from church if they did not understand the word of God preached to them in a language that they did not know. This neglect of religious duty was only aggravated by an easy forgetfulness of home training and ready abandonment of many good practices learned at home and advocated in one's parish church in a distant native village or town. Unless measures were taken to offset these unfavorable trends, many otherwise well-meaning but unguided immigrants could stray far from the really good life and from devotion to God. Consequently, Father Jankola did his utmost in the discharge of his ministry and he accomplished very much good but the more he did, the more he saw still waiting to be done. On all sides he faced the need for more priests. Repeatedly he had to hear requests for priestly service, direction and help, and sorrowfully he SLOVAKIA 169 realized that he was not able to satisfy many of them. Again we have the reality that this was a missionary situation and there were not enough missionaries to serve Christ's cause among the Slovaks in it. In his efforts to resolve this problem, Father Jankola made appeals of his own. On very many occasions he wrote to his homeland, urging Slovak priests and seminarians to offer their help in America. He ·s aw that priests, who could not serve effectively abroad because of hampering factors there, would find here far more suitable conditions and climate as well as an extensive field for their zeal and dedication. Very likely, too, he was prompted to encourage other priests and seminarians to come to America from their Slovak lands because he himself had been similarly invited and encouraged by Father Furdek. Now he felt persuaded that as Father Furdek had to some degree influenced the shaping of his own decision to come to America, he too should try to draw others to serve Christ and his Church here where priests were so sorely needed. Both he and Father Furdek often described the situation and made their appeal not only in personal correspondence but also in various publications abroad to which they contributed. On his visits to relatives in Slovakia, Father Jankola never missed the opportunity of making personal contacts on behalf of interesting likely prospects to bring their priestly talents to apostolic work in America. Naturally, some of this effort went fruitless but some of it did yield returns. It is known that he was instrumental in encouraging these eight priests to come to SlovakAmerican parishes: Rev. Joseph Murgas, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska, Rev. Francis Skutil, Rev. Anthony Berhely, Rev. Joseph Martincek, Rev. Emerich Gottschall, Rev. Ferdinand Prikazky and Rev. Anthony Filkorn. Four clerical students likewise took to heart his urging and on completing their theological courses devoted their efforts to Slovak parishes in America. They were Rev. Andrew Jurica, Rev. John Sobota, Rev. John Porubsky and Rev. John Gaspercik. By his personal effort Father Jankola provided pastors for ten Slovak parishes; viz., in Torrington, Connecticut, Pana, Illinois, and these eight in Pennsylvania: Edwardsville, Tarentum, Mt. Carmel, Monessen, Plymouth, Wilkes-Barre, Barnesboro, Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh) . 170 SLOVAKIA MISSION TO ROME After visiting Slovakia in 1901 and witnessing the unrelieved plight of Slovak Catholics there, Father Jankola went to Rome. The leading priests of his homeland had authorized him to act as their representative before the Holy Father and in reality he was qualified to speak on behalf of the Slovak Catholics of two continents. He brought to Rome, for presentation to the Holy Father, a three-volume collection of writings produced by outstanding Slovak scholars and a Latin brief or memorandum with which to acquaint Pope Leo XIII with the deeply regrettable plight of Slovak Catholics living under Hungarian rule and unable to make their own appeal for redress and relief. The most grievous wrong was that the Slovak language was totally proscribed among Slovak people. This restriction affected not only their everyday lives in social and business interaction but it also encroached upon their religious way of life. Even in church they were subjected to Magyar services only, even to hearing the reading of the Scriptures and the preaching of homilies and sermons in Magyar only although they did not know that language. Church schools, catechetical classes and all courses of Christian Doctrine and religious instruction, along with all other form of schooling, were ordered to use only Magyar as the language of instruction. This ruling which the Slovak populace first encountered with a sense of unbelief gradually made them more and more restive. In time, a people who had traditionally conducted themselves with exemplary respect and ideal regard for the priesthood were becoming not only resistance-prone toward their pastors who were under government control but even hostile and openly rebellious against Magyar and pro-Magyar pastors and against the Magyar hierarchy. They resented the government's interference in their worship of God and in a domain where government has no rightful authority. Since it was useless or impossible to try to negotiate this state of affairs with public officials, Rome seemed to offer the only tribunal of appeal. The document which Father Jankola brought on his visit to the Eternal City made an honest, open and respectful representation of these facts for the Holy Father's consideration. It was SLOVAKIA 171 signed by Slovak priests who had witnessed and endured what the Slovak people suffered even in their conscience and it expressed some of their fears for the future of the Church under such circumstances. On coming to Rome Father Jankola spent some time with a young Slovak cleric, the brilliant John Porubsky, who was then studying there and who also served in the apothecary of Pope Leo XIII. John Porubsky was well acquainted with a number of Church officials in diplomatic positions and with matters of protocol and effective procedures in official circles. After he had discussed the main objective of Father Jankola in Rome, he consulted with Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa who was then Assistant Secretary of State and who later became Pope Benedict XV. Cardinal della Chiesa reviewed the memorandum carefully and decided that it warranted further referral. He took it to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, who was much affected by the serious nature and the further implications of the reported situation. After a personal interview with Father Jankola who confirmed the facts of the memorandum from his personal witness in his homeland, he arranged for both Father Jankola and John Porubsky to see the Holy Father in a private audience. Father Jankola's meeting with Pope Leo XIII lasted two hours. Both of the Slovak representatives spoke with the Holy Father in fluent Latin and the Holy Father was so deeply moved by their report and their citing of specifics that tears of sympathy showed the intensity of his response and his concern for his suffering children. Some measures of alleviation were the outcome of this appeal to Rome, for the hierachy of Austria-Hungary was instructed to introduce reforms allowing the Slovak minority to pray and sing in Slovak and to use their native language in church and at all liturgical and worship services. There was a second spring of spiritual fervor when the meadowlands and mountainsides as well as the churches again resounded with Slovak hymns and Slovak prayers at Mass, at pilgrimages and at popular devotions. It is generally agreed that this occasion on which Father Jankola called attention to the repression which the Slovaks endured even in spiritual matters put before the thinking of ecclesiastical officials the desirability of 172 SLOVAKIA providing Slovak bishops for the Slovak people, of establishing a Slovak hierarchy that would be subject to no local authority but directly to Rome. Such a decision did not reach immediate fruition but the climate was finally favorable for this step after the First Czecho-Slova k Republic was founded in 1918. It was late in 1920 that Rome formally established a Slovak hierarchy by appointing Bishop John Vojtassak to the see of Spis Bishop Marian Blaha to the see of Banska Bystrica Bishop Charles Kmetko to the see of Nitra. They were consecrated by the Papal Nuncio on February 13, 1921. FURTHER APOSTOLIC EFFORT From Rome Father Jankola returned to his missionary and parish work. With renewer ardor he took up his labors among those to whom he fondly referred as "transplanted linden trees." With an eye to the present, he satisfied first needs first, exhorting the faithful to a truly Christian life, promoting faith and prayerfulness , reprimanding lapses, instructing the young and the not-so-young, preaching with the spoken word and the written word, and living the life that he preached. With an eye to the future, he encouraged worthy lay leadership, adjustment to the American way of life and vocations to the priesthood and religious life . Father Jankola was a realist as well as an idealist. As he toiled to build the kingdom of God spiritually in the hearts of many, he also looked after material building for this kingdom. This is attested by the fact that his zeal led him to build a total of five churches, two schools and a rectory: a church in Pittston, Wilkes-Barre and Maltby; a church and a school in Hazleton; a church a school and a rectory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is astounding that in the twenty years of his priesthood he could accomplish so much both for the Church and for his nation. In his ardor to work for lasting values, Father Jankola not only promoted sound spirituality and provisions for fruitful parish life, he also encouraged vocations to the pri~sthood and religious life, spent him.self in the cause of church-orient ed schools, envisioned and realized a congregation of Sisters to teach and care for the children of immigrants and perform works of mercy in the Church, SLOVAKIA 173 contributed many articles to Slovak newspapers and periodicals, sponsored and aided the publication of Slovak texts for religious instruction and language arts, and greatheartedly proposed the naming of a Slovak bishop in the United States. He felt that Father Furdek deserved the rank of bishop and that in his elevation all Slovak Catholics in this country would benefit inasmuch as they would have an official leader whose first concern would be for all levels of Church organization among American Slovaks as well as for the needs of the young, the training of seminarians, Catholic schools and schooling under the direction of qualified Slovak or Slovak-American Sisters. PARISH SCHOOLS The subject of a Catholic school system among Slovak immigrants was one of the major preoccupations of Father Jankola's life. In his second pastoral assignment he came to St. Joseph's in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, one of the two earliest American Slovak parishes, established in 1885. (The other is St. Stephen's parish in Streator, Illinois, founded in the same year.) He was the fourth pastor of St. Joseph's which already had a combination church-school building as well as a rectory and a parish cemetery. Since these physical arrangements were cared for, he turned his energy mainly to the spiritual and cultural advancement of his parishioners. With deft organizational gifts he established confraternities, spiritual societies and sodalities, providing opportunities for all age levels in the parish to participate in at last one Catholic Action group. A program of catechetical instruction was already functioning in the parish but Father Jankola felt that the time was right for introducing a fully expanded elementary curriculum in at least the earliest grades of the parish school. Miss Catherine O'Donnell was engaged as a full-time teacher for the subjects that were to be taught in English and Mr. Andrew Ondek, the parish organist, who had been conducting catechetical classes, was retained as teacher-incharge of the school and instructor in religion, Slovak and singing. Father Jankola spent much time in the school, observing, supervising, noting the progress of the pupils and the methods of instruction. Very often he himself conducted a class. This innovation of Father Jankola stirred up some 174 SLOVAK'iA feeling against him. Until this time is was the prerogative of the organist--and solely his-to be in charge of all the instruction of children in a parish school. By hiring a teacher in his experimental full-scale school, Father Jankola seemed to be jeopardizing the teacher-status of the organist. On this score misunderstandings developed all too readily, and factions formed to support one opinion and oppose the other, depending on points of view taken and loyalties involved. This matter was a painful issue for quite some time but Father Jankola steadily and gently tried to disprove the unfounded fears that had arisen and in spite of these apprehensions, he became increasingly aware of the necessity to provide for the adequate education of youth and the training of children under Christian auspices. Because of this indefatigable labors on behalf of Catholic schools, Father Jankola has often been looked upon as the apostle of the parish school among Slovaks in America. Both his admirers and his critics knew very truly that the matter of parish schools was his dearest concern-the apple of his eye, so to say. One of his favorite observations was : "Religious conviction takes first place and patriotism second; the church comes firs t and right after it, the school." He did his unwavering best to win pastors to the cause of opening and maintaining parochial schools, of convincing the faithful of the vital need for Catholic schools for their children and most importantly , he dedicated himself to the task of providing competent teachers and encouraging promising candidates to enter the teaching profession. Father Jankola rightly saw this whole area of education for the young as the fundamental need of the day. As often as he tried to deal with it, he realized that the problem only bore upon his conscience and his professional thinking with mounting insistence. For over twelve years he wrote on this subject, presenting it to his reading public in various aspects and doing his best to find a practical way to put it into operation. Even as early as 1899, when he was a young priest just four years ordained, he spoke of it very earnestly with some of the priests who were closest to him in the Scranton diocese; viz., Rev. Andrew Pavco, Rev. Dr. Alexander Dianiska and Rev. Joseph Murgas. SLOVAKIA 175 Basically, there was no difficulty in gaining a general appreciation for the Catholic school system, but the whole concept of operating Slovak Catholic schools in America had to be framed within the American way of maintaining church schools. In their homeland, the Slovaks had grown accustomed to living in a parish wholly subsidized by a patron. This meant that under patronal sponsorship all operating expenses were met by the individual, the family or the civic body that was legally titled as the patron. In America all church operations, including the pastor's salary, would have to be borne by the members of the parish. Given a school situation, besides, the struggling newcomers to America would have to assume responsibility for all its costs, including salaries for teachers. The prospect of such obligation seemed quite impossible. Yet to Father Jankola this obligation itself was not the first and foremost duty of leaders and parents; the first duty really was to provide adequate education for the young with the understanding that the adults would have to learn how to support the school as well as the church according to American practice. Definitely there was much educating of various kinds to be done, formally and informally, but Father Jankola did not shrink in the face of it all. The genius of leadership in him dictated the work to be done and the good to be accomplished. Along with these thoughts, Father Jankola could not help comparing the cultural deprivation of immigrant parents with the opportunities that America could make available to their children. He was not blind to the fact that given an education, Slovak children could better themselves in this land of opportunity on which he looked as a cultural El Dorado, a spiritual New Canaan. Above all, however, he was convinced that Slovaks in America would have to begin thinking of themselves as Americans of Slovak origin and meet all their responsibilities as such. His constant reminder to his parishioners and to all where it would apply was: "If we are to live in America, we must live the American way of life. We must learn to adjust." And he made it abundantly clear that the blessings which America held for all were not exclusively material blessings; he greatly extolled the democratic principles and the gift of true liberty which are the hallmarks of true Americanism. 176 SLOVAKIA ADULT EDUCATION In this connection of adopting concepts of true Americanism, Father Jankola also tried to provide some compensations for adult immigrants, some of whom had had only two or three winters of schooling in their childhood, some of whom had had even less. Under his iniciative, adult education classes were introduced, concentrating on basics first of all-reading and writing. It was an exhilarating experience for an unschooled laborer earnestly applying himself to an unfamiliar task suddenly to pluck his neighbor's sleeve and to shout with the heady joy of achievement: "Look! I wrote my name! I can really write my name now! This is my name! Now I won't have to make a cross instead of my name anymore!" This was a first step but it was not enough. After basics followed classes in American history and in civil government with a view toward applying for citizenship and becoming naturalized. Citizenship would mean suffrage and a real sense of belonging, a participation in the community and the country of their adoption. EDUCATION AL SURVEY After his 1899 conference with priests closest to him in the Scranton diocese, Father Jankola was convinced that it was no longer possible to defer steps for the establishment of Slovak parish schools on the elementary level. For this reason he devoted much time to a close study of the American system of education which he frankly admired. He felt that he needed this kind of information in order to guide him in developing his own thinking. He felt, too, that he needed substantial statistical data as groundwork and for this p-µrpose he undertook a comprehensive survey of existing parish facilities for the education of Slovak Catholic children. In 1900 he published a report of his findings in the Jednota Kalend<ir, revealing that a) there were very few standard parish schools which he could classify as "first class schools" b) several parishes had provided for special classes on Saturdays in order to supplement the children's public school courses with instruction in religion and language arts SLOVAKIA 177 c) the commendable though inadequate efforts of many parish organists were generally handicapped by overcrowding in classrooms as well as by merging a very broad range of mental and chronological ages into one composite group sometimes numbering up to two hundred pupils This survey concluded with an earnest exhortation that pastors spare no effort in order to establish schools comparable to the best that the American school system offers and that sound measures be taken to provide certified teachers. He knew, of course, that not all parishes were in a position to undertake a full school program but he trusted that a steady and well-reasoned campaign on behalf of parish schools would eventually be fruitful. But the building of schools would not of itself solve the problem of education in a parish school. Once the schools were built, they would have to be stuffed and he knew that there would be great difficulty in procuring desirable teachers. His survey indicated that in the schools rated as "first class," such as that in Wilkes-Barre (the only one of its kind in the Scranton diocese), as well as those in Johnstown, Shamokin, St. Ladislaus and St. Martin in Cleveland, and in Streator, Illinois were all conducted with the help of religious teachers-Sisters. He commended the Irish and German immigrants for their well-functioning schools, all directed by Sisters, and he very distinctly pointed out the fact that the Slovak people in America needed Slovak Sisters to teach in their parish schools. Man of clear vision that he was, he saw beyond that statement. His very words are: "Consequently, we need Sisters. Let us bring up our own Slovak Sisters! It is they who will preserve our faith and our nation. Reverend Fathers, and you Slovak parents, you who have in your parishes young ladies who are diligent, zealous, devout and suitable for the religious life, do feel responsible for making it possible for them to achieve this state of life. This will be a gift of the utmost value both to God and the nation; this will be a most noble offering. It is Slovak Sisters, teaching Sisters, who alone can alleviate this present educational crisis among us; 178 SLOVAKIA it is they who can save us from religious and national ruin. If we wish to live in America, we must live as Americans. This same principle was valid even in Rome. There is no other way of survival. I repeat: my brothers, Slovaks, let us establish parish schools, let us bring up our own Slovak teaching-Sisters, and God's help will support us!" As he urged priests and parents to encourage likely candidates to enter the religious life at this time, he did not mention any specific community, for he had none in mind. His survey did report that Ursulines and Sisters of St. Joseph were teaching in the Slovak schools of Cleveland, that Streator had Franciscan Sisters, and that there was " an English Sister" in the Olyphant school (Very likely a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary or a Sister of Mercy). At this point, however, the core of the problem was simply to promote vocations. It was much as if he were saying that God will not be outdone in generosity ; that if only enough vocations could be cultivated, God could be trusted to provide the agents and the agencies for the work of Christian education among Slovak immigrants. He did not know that his own faith would be put to sore testing. He did not know the ultimate design of Providence but he trusted with an unshaken confidence and he worked on with unmitigated zeal . EXPLORING TEACHER RESOURCES At the same time that Father Jankola ardently promoted the cause of Slovak Catholic parish schools, he began to make serious inquiries at various American motherhouses and provincial houses, hoping to find a community whose membership might include at least some Sisters of Slovak or Slavic origin for staffing prospective Slovak schools in America and introducing into them American principles of education along with a wholesome Christian philosophy of life. Once he would know where Sisters were available, a sound program for Christian education could be launched with full vigor and the Slovak people would adjust to the American way of supporting their own schools. He did not foresee at all how difficult it would be to procure Sisters. At least four major superiors of religious communities answered his inquiries with the revealing SLOVAKIA 179 news that even at that time it was extremely difficult for them to provide enough teachers for the schools already under their care. There was a normal increase in the population rate and as immigration figures rose, so did school enrollments increase and create a demand for expanded teaching forces. As a result of this situation, religious superiors felt that they would not be able to accept any new schools in the foreseeable future. This was a totally unwelcome but obviously prudent decision which they had to make. Disappointed beyond all expectation but still undaunted, Father Jankola next turned his appeal to European institutes. In all good faith he hoped that the old world would be able to compensate for the insufficiencies of the new. With prayerful anticipation he wrote to the Holy Cross Sisters in Moravia. He did not present to them any intimidating proposal. Very modestly he explored the possibility of obtaining a small number of Sisters, even three or four, to come to America, establish a foundation and train Slovak girls here for the religious life. He was assured that in time there would be enough applications for a flourishing self-sufficient community to develop on American soil, supported by the Slovak-American clergy and laity. Apparently there was much correspondence on this matter but promising as the outlook was at the outset, its prospects eventually dimmed and finally the issue was closed without satisfactory results. With great distress Father Jankola wrote in the Jednota Kalenddr of 1902, "For three years I have been trying to obtain Sisters from Europe, but my efforts have been in vain. Everything seems to be against us." These lines are an expression of that recurring disappointment that was to be his cross in this project, the testing of his spirit, and the price of an ideal which demanded sacrifice and suffering. Frustrated in his efforts to secure help from an already established community of Sisters, yet sufficiently disciplined not to surrender readily in the face of difficulty and repeateq disappointment, Father Jankola continued to pray, to confer with others and to plan. Since existing communities could spare him no members for the parish schools that he was promoting, the only avenue open to 180 SLOVAKIA him seemed to be to find prospective condidates of his own and to present them for training in an American sisterhood. He hoped that after their numbers increased and they had prepared themselves adequately, they might be allowed to branch off into an independent province within a mother congregation and continue their apostolate in Slovak parish schools. This suggested a very long range program but the eventual benefits would surely justify the patient waiting. All delays and price aside, one purpose of Father Jankola's efforts was to provide Sisters for the much needed task of teaching in Slovak parish schools. This was the crucial issue and the demanding challenge was where to procure them . COURAGE SUPPORTS HOPE In the spring of 1903, Father Jankola invited Slovak priests who were interested in the parish school project to meet for consultation at the Vendig Hotel in Philadelphia. He took this occasion to lay before them all his experiences in working for Slovak parish schools to this time: his hopes and disappointments, his renewed efforts and his present plan which would call for candidates from local parishes. The assembled pastors listened with evident interest. They were aware of the need to work with the young and they admired the American Catholic school system. Some endorsed the proposal and were willing to cooperate with Father Jankola. Unfortunately, there were others too who looked upon this new suggestion of his as too idealistic and extreme a venture, perhaps something out of a quixotic world and not suited to the times, not amenable to a practical approach. They did not hesitate to indicate emphatically that he could not count on them for support in such a project and they had nothing else to offer. This adverse reaction from leaders of people who lived with the realities of life in America was a blow to Father Jankola's expectations. But it did not destroy his vision or diminish that dogged persistence about him which would not let the matter rest untried. At least he knew now on whom he could count for advice and support and he had learned where it would be vain to look for help and understanding. He shored up his shattered elan and renewed his faith in the work before him. Resolved to test this plan and to have events prove SLOVAKlA 181 the validity of this approach and anxious to test whether or not such an effort was of God, Father Jankola presented his proposal to several religious oommunities in his immediate area. It is likely that he now founded his hopes on either the Mallinckrodt Sisters of Charity or on the Sisters of Mercy. He had had opportunities to observe the work of both communities on a local level because they taught in parishes near his own. He admired their spirit and evidence of dedication and he ardently hoped that he might see their influence diffused among the Slovak people, but from both communities he received an unfavorable reply. It meant just so much more disappointment and so much more need for fresh courage. EARLY PROMISE Again and again Father Jankola renewed his search for a mother community that would accept his candidates (in due time) and train them for Slovak parish schools. He even decided to appeal to the charity of a rather distant order in America, the Czech Benedictine Sisters in Chicago, Illinos. When the mail brought him a reply, it was with utmost gratitude that he read that these Sisters would b e willing to be of assistance to him. With profound relief he trusted that at last this was going to mean the realization of his prospects. With this good news to report, Father Jankola held another conference with the priests who supported his plan. At these deliberations practical measures were proposed and four specific steps were agreed upon. The first of these was the decision to accept the offer of the Benedictine Sisters and to send three aspirants to Chicago. The others were in the nature of active endorsement of Father Jankola's plan, involving the promise or agreement a ) to announce Father Jankola's plans and prospects from their pulpits b ) to preach on the subject of vocations c ) to solicit offerings to support the undertaking This last provision was embodied in a fund called St. Anthony's Treasury. The patronage of St. Anthony was chosen because this Franciscan saint beautifully exemplifies that Christian charity that provides for the needs of the poor. Now at last, although no one could foresee what the 182 SLOVAKIA future held, there seemed to be some glimmer of success at last. On the following Sunday Father Jankola preached an inspiring sermon on vocations and after the parochial mass he found an applicant in his office. Before long there were two more candidates from St. Joseph's parish in Hazleton as well as two from Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre. Now at last, hope was moving toward reality. In the fall of 1903 the first three aspirants from Hazleton were sent to the Benedictines in Chicago and the soul of Father Jankola rejoiced that the great work was launched at last while his spirit trusted that it would thrive . HOPE DEFERRED Unfortunately this joy was short-lived and this hope soon wilted. After a few short weeks Father Jankola was notified that the Superiors felt it was advisable to withdraw his candidates because they found it difficult to adjust to religious life with them. The blow fell at the very moment when two additional aspirants sat in the Wilkes-Barre railroad station holding tickets for Chicago as they waited to board the next train. Just before the train pulled into the station, their plans were abruptly changed and they returned to their homes. This was a crushing report that reached Father Jankola from Chicago. He could hardly bring himself to accept it. His first reaction was to blame the young girls for want of endurance. His own training in austerity made it difficult for him to condone their failure and apparent weakness in the face of hardship where he would have expected an almost stoic courage and strength. Gradually he was brought to realize, however, that they did not lack generosity and good will, but they were wholly unprepared for trials severe even for seasoned religious; moreover, they were still very young. Home-loving and cared-for as they had been, they were subjected to an almost traumatic and total separation from home and an absolute change from their family environment. Chicago then seemed half a world away from Hazleton. Even normal adjustment would have been necessarily gradual, but they were at once challenged with the untempered rigors of Benedictine monasticism in a community where poverty was so extreme in those SLOVAKIA 183 pioneering days that only a tried and proven spirit would have been able to endure it without difficulty. When the unhappy candidates returned from Chicago, they were not sent back to their homes or subjected to reproach and embarrassment. Instead, they were befriended and confided to the care of Father Pavco in Pittston until further development could be planned and arranged. Father Pavco then visited Father Jankola to confer with him about the situation. He found him shaken and extremely tried by this new disappointment. NEW HOPE In his sympathetic efforts to comfort his friend, Father Pavco called Father Jankola's attention to the "Blue Sisters" of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who conducted St. John the Evangelist School in Pittston just across the street from his own church and rectory. As he spoke, Father Pavco became more and more enthusiastic about the spirit and attitudes of these Sisters, and finally he suggested that Father Jankola consult with their Reverend Mother at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. As a glowing climax he remarked, "I understand that her name is Mother Mary Cyril. Our common patron may help here; let us try in the name of God." Discouraged though he was by the latest setback to his hopes and beset by numerous other problems besides. Father Jankola agreed with Father Pavco that it would be advisable to try again; but he approached the new possibility with a measure of caution added to his natural reserve. On his first visit to Mother Cyril he conferred with her only on the prospect of enrolling the daughter of one of his parishioners at her boarding school. He did not mention the real burden that lay on his heart like a cross . Before long, however, Father Jankola made another appointment with Mother Cyril. On his initial visit he had found her so gracious that he was encouraged to present his key problem to her on this second visit. Again he found her ideally understanding. This does not mean that she at once gave him any definite assurance but she received him with such Christlike sympathy and such evidence of maternal regard for the needs of young girls that he con- 184 SLOVAKIA sidered the consultation worthwhile, to say the least, and returned home with great admiration for her, confidence in her judgment and renewed hope for the all-but-lost undertaking. Providence ordained that Mother Cyril should be the answer to Father Jankola's prayers. With the consent of her Council she accepted his candidates and trained them with unexampled care and solicitude within the shelter of her own religious family. In fact, they were so close to her own Sisters that for some time it was not even clear whether they would eventually become an independent community or whether they were to be an element added to hers. TOWARD FRUITION When she first received the young girls at Mount St. Mary's in 1903, Mother Cyril did not immediately place them under monastic novitiate discipline but rather kept them in the boarding academy as students who were to be formed into candidates for the religious life by gradual measures. They were permitted to spend the school vacation at home and on such occasions they often became an inspiration to others and attracted new vocations. These students were maintained at Mount St. Mary's through funds from St. Anthony's Treasury which was supported by the mites of hard-working and generous people and the offerings for votive candles in Slovak churches. From November 21, 1903, when they first came to the Mount, their status was that of students. On January 6, 1906, three of them became postulants. In March of the same year Mother Cyril informed Father Jankola that his group would not be identified with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This implied that they were to form their own community. Father Jankola accepted this decision and suggested the name "Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius" as a possible designation for the prospective Slovak community. On July 26, 1906, the first members were clothed in a distinctive black habit, Bishop Hoban presiding at the reception ceremony. The fruit of arduous work and confident prayer was beginning to mature but its maturing exacted a further price. Father Jankola paid the greater part of it by bearing not only the normal burden of concern but also painful SLOVAKIA 185 misunderstandings and unreasonable demands from parish sources. He even withdrew somewhat from the project after it was safely launched, willing to deny himself the satisfaction that should have been the reward of a work brought to successful fruition after many bitter and disillusioning trials. Much of his sorrow on this score was caused by more or less well-meaning individuals who hounded him and persecuted him severely because they saw in the promise of a teaching community only the ousting of organists from teaching posts in the parish schools. They believed that this would inevitably follow upon the success of Father Jankola's project. Blinded in their narrow reasoning, they would not face facts reasonably or accept the reality which indicated only too clearly that their parish schools in America were fast outgrowing the capacities of their organists reserve and that they had no other teachers with or without adequate training to conduct schools according to American standards. The Sisters were expected to relieve an existing need, not to create a new difficulty. Organists would not necessarily have to give up all their classes. It was one of those struggles which often arise when the old order of life must yield to the newer way and cannot do so gracefully. Added to this, however, there was also a painfully critical attitude making itself within clerical ranks. Several priests still doubted the timeliness and the wisdom of Father Jankola's efforts. At first they merely refused to cooperate, later they voiced objections and even spoke of other plans of their own. In spite of his stoic exterior and his disciplined habits of conduct, Father Jankola~s soul and sensibilities were deeply refined and sensitive. It hurt him inexpressibly to be ranked as a visionary when with all his soul he bent his energies to practical matters and used very realistic means to attain vitally urgent results. He suffered keenly because of all the conflicts brewing in his Hazleton parish and when there seemed to be no other solution, he decided to leave the scene of so much bitterness and open hostility, at least until the storm should spend itself. This parish had grown very dear to him. When its original wooden church burned to the ground in 1905, he worked indefatigably to raise funds for a new structure 186 SLOVAK.IA of natural stone. Within two years he collected twelve thousand dollars, a lordly sum in a day of low wages and small incomes in the midst of a struggling community of miners and common laborers. He had the largeness of vision and the natural capacity to plan a church of unique beauty and to execute his plans in spacious proportions, artistic in design and as inspiring as a prayer. St. Joseph's in Hazleton is a worthy memorial to his priestly service there and to the spirit of Slovak pioneers in the area. TRANSFER TO BRIDGEPORT In the fall of 1907 Father Jankola took a leave of absence from the Scranton diocese and was received with joy by the people of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who were then organizing the parish of SS. Cyril and Methodius. He wrote to Mother Cyril, "I thought I would make a solitary living here, like a hermit, after much trouble, trial and injustice. But my work is not yet done . . . I have to continue to take care of the future religious institution that I have started with God's help and St. Anthony's intercession." He would not be a derelict to duty no matter what it cost him in personal pain. He would stand by his ideals and convictions. Alth0ugh Father Jankola expected eventually to return to Hazleton his missionary zeal so engrossed him in the organization of parishes in the New England region that he finally transferred to the Hartford diocese. Besides his pastoral work in St. Cyril's, he also undertook the spiritual care of Slovaks in Webster, Massachusett s, and made missionary trips to Stamford, Torrington, New Britain and surrounding settlements in Connecticut. He was untiring pastor and missionary in new surroundings again. He kept in touch with Mother Cyril through correspondence. With her he assigned the Sisters to their firs t teaching mission at Sacred Heart parish in Wilkes-Barre while disclosing to her the demands being made on him. "We have only three Slovak Sisters-how can we send them to four parishes?" he wrote her in 1908. Yet in his concern for the cherished project, he maintained an unselfishness that commands administratio n as always leaning toward the common good. When the first Sisters were to be sent on a teaching mission, he made the disinterested recommenda tion to assign them either to Wilkes- SLOVAKIA 187 Barre or to Lansford although he would have been justified in directing them to either of the equally large parishes of his own endeavors-Hazleton or Bridgeport. FIRST AMERICAN-SLOVAK SISTERS In August 1909, Bishop Hoban brought from Rome the Holy See's decree of approval for the new community. On September 1, 1909, the first Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius made public profession of vows and the community emerged as a new family in the Church. Before the close of Mother Cyril's term of office, they were ready to open a motherhouse of their own. For ten years their formation had been under the immediate guidance of Mother Cyril at Mount St. Mary's. At last the tender seed which had been long hidden in the darkness of Father Jankola's secret hopes and prayers, long prepared through seasons of doubt and storm and the intermittent sunshine of hope and promise, often exposed to tears and blessings, now sprang in good soil and, tended with paternal care and maternal understanding, was ready to yield glory to God through a harvest of service among the Slovak people. As some of the Sisters undertook teaching in the parish schools, additional recruits were being prepared as novices and postulants in the novitiate or as students at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Scranton. After twelve years from the time of their entry into Mount St. Mary's the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius became a wholly independent community. This status was attained in 1915 after their first General Chapter elected a Mother General and a Council for internal government. Father Jankola was happy indeed to see the Sisters making progress. He continued to be interested in their welfare but denied himself the satisfaction of overseeing or directing their development. From all sides he was harassed by demands for teachers but once the stability of the Community was established, he allowed it to mature on its own and to learn to shoulder responsibility independently. PASTORSHIP IN BRIDGEPORT In Bridgeport Father Jankola continued his work, which demanded tireless energy, prudent planning and great fortitude. He was equal to the challenge. His parishione11s found him serious and purposeful, dilligent and 188 SLOVAK.IA circumspect, devout and fatherly. With him first things inexorably came first. Religion and spiritual interests held priority over all other considerations but close in second place were patriotism as well as the arts and social graces, and finally a balanced concern for temporalities. Under hls direction the parish was firmly established and within a year it had six active societies as well as an excellent choir, a dramatic club and an evening school for adult education. These evening classes became very popular and profitable. They lasted from eight to ten o'clock and in time they offered mathematics and English taught by Mr. Michael Senko on Monday; Slovak by Father Jankola on Tuesday; community singing by Mr. George Lukac on Thursday, and dramatics by Mr. Joseph Michalek on Sunday. Additional subjects were included later to enable parishioners to prepare for naturalization. For the children there were daily catechetical classes which Father Jankola himself conducted after the pupils were dismissed from public school. Within five years Father Jankola managed to have the parish clear a debt of over sixteen thousand dollars. The church which he then built for seventy thousand dollars is a magnificent cruciform structure of white brick with a seating capacity of one thousand. It was the fifth church which he planned and erected, and with its inspiring splendor it is the crown of his building effort. A severely simple frame rectory was all that he permitted for his own needs. To make provisions for a school he built a plain four-room structure planned to double for a parish hall . It, too, was severely simple and those who loved it did not mind sometimes referring to it as "Noah's Ark." His Sisters came to take charge of this school in 1910 and it must have been with intense yet complex emotion that he at last saw the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius at work teaching in his own school. Within the parish itself Father Jankola fanned a great flame of spiritual activity. The Confraternity of the Holy Rosary was canonically established and it flourished amid these people who exulted, "We have brought Kosice to America," for the rosary was a traditional family devotion among them, awakening for them fond memories of pilgrimages to the beloved Marian shrine in the Slovak city of Kosice. A deeper spirituality was cultivated among those SLOVA.K:IA 189 who joined the Third Order of St. Francis and the Altar Society. A canonically founded Sodality and the Holy Name Society held Christian ideals before the eyes of the young. It is remarkable that Father Jankola invariably attended the meetings of all these societies and each time left some lesson or ponderable thought with the members to inspire or to enlighten them. Through the choir and the dramatic guild he aimed to make art the handmaid of religion. Church music, folk singing, and classic compositions all had their place and were rendered with feeling and skill under the direction of Mr. George Lukac. Father Jankola had recognized musical talent in him when he was yet a schoolboy and sent him to St. Procopius College in Lisle, Illinois, to develop his talent. Then he offered him the position of organist at St. Cyril's. Born of mutual regard, a strong bond of devotion developed between the two. Drama under Father Jankola's guidance included a wide variety of presentations from monologues and skits through interludes and plays to grand productions like " St. Elizabeth," "St. Genevieve," and "Fabiola." Each one was staged before a packed house usually in a spacious hall rented for the occasion and it lent the entire community the aspects of festivity and a parish holiday. For major plays Father Jankola took the trouble to rent costumes and hire a make-up crew from the theatrical centers of New York City, and he saw to it that the staging was a satisfying piece of dramatic art. It is no wonder that his parishioners idolized him. On all occasions he was an inspiration and edification to them. He may have appeared forbiddingly stern and exacting, but they knew that his heart was warm and fatherly. The priest in him was always at their service, hearing confessions every day of the week even on Sundays, answering every call as soon as it came though he was without benefit of an assistant, ready to advise, admonish, comfort, help or serve in whatever the need might be. It was generally recognized and appreciated that he did the work of three priests. Despite all the demands made on him, his parish was in enviable order and he managed a tremendous amount of work for the general public. Scholarly and cultural interests were his hobby. It is interesting that 190 SLOVAKIA shortly before his death he began the study of Hebrew under a private tutor. THE WRITER One stands in admiration of the consuming energy with which he must have worked, for apart from all these accomplishments there is the steady stream of articles, stories, reports and instructions that came from his pen. He was a recognized leader in Slovak national life also, for only six years after coming to this country, he was elected supreme president of the Jednota organization (1900) . (The First Catholic Slovak Union-a benevolent society with nationwide membership.) From 1904 to 1908 he was a member of the Jednota judiciary council. In 1910 he was editor of the "Jednota" weekly as well as of its annual or almanac . In 1908 and again after Furdek's death, he was chosen spiritual director of the Jednota. He likewise promoted the interests of the "Katolicky Sokol," contributed many articles to its news organ and served one term as spiritual director of this athletic and fraternal organization. He warmly endorsed the children's paper "Priatel' Dietok," which was sponsored by the Sokol. He encouraged pastors, parents, and teachers to support it, and highly complimented the pupils of his school when their contributions appeared on its pages. THE LEADER Among the Slovak priests, especially in the eastern part of the country, Father Jankola always enjoyed a degree of prestige. He was generally esteemed their leader. It was he who first banded them together in 1903 for the purpose of discussing common problems like education and the training of future priests and Sisters. It was he who promoted an organization of priests in the eastern states just a year before his death. He was identified with many national drives and movements; he signed the Code of American Slovak Journalists in 1897; he initiated the National Fund (also in 1897) to promote national interests and to sponsor worthy projects. He undertook the founding of a men's Slovak Benedictine priorate and a men's Slovak Franciscan province in the United States. By 1910 he urged that steps be taken to recommend SLOVAKIA 191 the appointment of a Slovak bishop in this country and suggested that Father Furdek be named the candidate since he was "the first, the most learned, the most respected, and the best loved Slovak priest in America." In 1916 he initiated a Peter's Pence drive among the Slovaks in America. These are some of the major achievements he accumulated before death closed the door of life upon him at the age of forty-three. And he aspired to more. He even dared hope to transplant his Sisters to Europe, "First opening a house in Velehrad, Moravia, where St. Methodius is buried," as he visualized his dream. In his greatness of vision he had hoped that they might "be the instrument in God's hand for the conversion of Slav schismatics to Rome, where St. Cyril died." These are some of the hopes of which he once wrote to Mother Cyril. UNTIMELY DEATH But death stilled his ardent hopes and healed his wounds. Added to all the trials borne so courageously there descended upon him yet the cruelty of a most painful hoax. Spent as he was with unstinted labor and exertion, it took the agony of something like this to crush his very last energies. Manfully he tried to bury the hurt but it worked its havoc and undermined his strength. On Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916, he was stricken as he preached at High Mass and he died quietly on May 5, mourned by thousands and appreciated even more in death than he was in life. After the funeral services at the church of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Father Jankola was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut. In connection with their Golden Jubilee observances in 1959, however, the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius arranged to have their founder's remains transferred to Danville where they are interred in the Community cemetery at Villa Sacred Heart. CONCLUSION It has been said with truth that Father Jankola was to the spiritual life what Father Furdek was to the national life of the Slovak people in America. To the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius he is the gardener to whom God entrusted the seed of their congregation, charging him to plant it, to water it with his 192 SLOVAKlA tears and sufferings, to warm it with his undying love. At the moment the seed sprouted and its first promising shoots appeared, at that moment in a Profession Ceremony, he said joyfully and humbly, "You are my joy, you are my crown, you are my glory." BIBLIOGRAPHY Archival materials at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius and in Jankola Library, Danville, Pennsylvania. These include: a) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola b) personal correspondence of and with Father Jankola's sisters, Louisa and Inna c) documents d) several books of rare parish records entrusted to the Sisters Furdek, Stefan, "Z Ameriky." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo. I. Rufomberok, Osvald, 1893. Gregorovic, Sister M. Consuela, SS.C.M., Contributions of Reverend Matthew Jankola to Slovak Catholic Education in the United States. Modification of thesis submitted to the Catho.Jic University of America, 1944. DanviLle, Pennsylvania, Golden Jubilee Publication of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1958-1959. Hrusovsky, Frantisek, Slovenske rehole v Amerike. Cleveland, Slovensky ustav, 1955. Slovenske dejiny. 4th ed. Turciansky Svaty Martin, Matica Slovenska, 1940. Jankola, Matus, "crty z katolickej slovenskej farnosti v Pittston, Pa." Osvald, Fr. Richard, Tovarysstvo, III. Ruzomberok, Osvald , 1900. Jednota (Weekly newspaper) . Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 19011916 passim. Jednota Kalendar. (annual ). Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota. 19001931 passim. Medvecky, Karol A., Cirkevne pomery katolickych Slovakov v niekdajsom Uhorsku, Ruzomberok, Nakl. vlast., 1920. Pauco, Jozef, Matus Jan.kola, knaz a narodovec. Danville, Pennsylvania, Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Slovenska rehol'a Sestier sv. Cyrila a Metoda. Slovensky spolok sv. Anny vo Wyoming V.alley, Pa. 1957. 75 rokov Prvej Katolickej Slovenskej Jednoty. Cleveland, Ohio, I.K.S.J. , 1965. Slovenski priekopnici. Middletown, Pennsylvania, Jednota, 1972. Petra~ek, Mother M. Emerentia, SS.C.M., Brief History of the Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Danville, Pennsylvania , Sisters of SS. Cyril and Methodius, 1959. Scotus Viator (Seton Watson), Racial Problems in Hungary, London , Archibald Constable, 1908. Spolok sv. Vojtecha, Katolicke Slovensko. Trnava, SSV, 1933. Spirko, Jozef, Cirkevne dejiny s osobitnym zretel'om na vyvin cirkevnych dejin Slovenska. 2 vol. Turc. Sv. Martin, Neografia, 1943.  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 Matthew Jankola 1872-1916 Description An account of the resource Sister M. Martina Tybor, SS.C.M. Slovakia, Vol. 22 (No. 45), 1972 pp. 161-192 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tybor, Sister M. Martina, SS.C.M. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 name